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.
If you do not have access, please ping a collaborator (Swordomatic, Alectai, Quest, TehChron, Insane-Not-Crazy, Humbaba, ReaderOfFate, Kaboomatic, no., BungieONI) letting them know what you want and they will update the spreadsheet here. To gain access, you will need a gmail account of some kind. Throwaway emails are fine (I'm using one for the spreadsheet), but to gain access it's as simple as sending me either your email via PM, via DM in Discord, or just in Discord's #spreadsheet-requests channel.
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.
Because there's no way to temporarily inconvenience a vampire quite as fun as trolling him into eye-lasering your image in a mirror, then somehow managing to shove a dozen hand grenades down his pants while he isn't looking and then just booking it.
And so, for the next two weeks, Iskander trained like a madman. He wasn't close enough to the Sixth Heavenstage to reach it in time, so he cut his cultivation time down to a mere six hours per day so that he could put fourteen hours into training. By traveling a dozen miles out from Da Wan to find a secluded enough spot, he had allowed himself to forget about everything except this conflict.
Frankly, Iskander couldn't say precisely why he felt so motivated here. Obviously he didn't want a big scary guy to break his bones, but some minor humiliation at the hands of a Senior wouldn't really scar his reputation too badly. This was a three Heavenstage difference after all; the underdog losing would be the expected outcome. It would be painfully ordinary, just an unpleasant memory that would fade away with time.
But that just didn't feel right. His loss wasn't certain, really. Iskander had been a perfectly average Cultivator, with the exception of his very strange teacher, for fifteen years now. He wanted to break that up and do something special. Perhaps it was just youthful hubris on his part, but Iskander wanted to be extraordinary for just one day.
There was no moment of sudden inspiration that struck the young Legionnaire as he split his time evenly between polishing his sword forms and practicing controlling his new Flying Sword. It was just ordinary, mind-numbing practice, in which he improved by microscopic steps that would show their worth only in aggregate far down the line. The time slipped between his fingers like grains of sand, even as he put everything he could into improving.
Had Alexios ever trained with a weapon in such a whole-hearted fashion? Probably not, right? The guy would have been too busy burying his nose in old alchemical texts and running chemical experiments. But Alexios was a lot older than Iskander. He had actually gone to war, for one. He had almost certainly risked his life in deadly combat far more than Iskander ever had. Formal training versus experience - which would win out?
Normally, fourteen hours of intense physical training a day would be too much for a Qi Condensation Cultivator. They could train like that for a few days at a time, but fourteen consecutive days would simply destroy their muscles and joints. That said, situations in which intensive, continuous training was required were something many Cultivators would encounter down the line, and so medical solutions existed.
Elixirs to energize the body and keep it moving under great fatigue. Pills which helped the muscles and bones heal from the wear and tear of training faster. Special teas which put off the need for sleep for an entire week, before causing the body to crash and sleep for an entire day afterward.
Much of this time was spent gaining proficiency in the Flying Sword, which was easier than he had expected. The whole point of the weapon was that it was very easy to direct the patterns in which it flew, so it was really more about doing so efficiently, not allowing more qi than necessary to drain out and pushing it with just the right amount of force. Channeling simple Sword Art techniques through the blade while it was at range was the truly hard part, and infuriatingly enough, there was no trick to mastering that aspect. He simply had to keep doing it, over and over, until he could do it without thinking and without waste, and while he never reached that point during his self-inflicted crash course, he improved enough to perhaps be called competent.
Twelve of the fourteen days of his training were occupied with six hours of cultivation, fourteen of training and four hours of rest. The other two were twenty-four straight hours of sleep. That meant one hundred and sixty-eight of training. Iskander wasted more of his rest time than he would care to admit trying to figure out how much of his usual training that was worth, before finally Lai Bohai answered it for him: it was equivalent to four weeks, five days, fourteen hours and twenty-four minutes of his ordinary training regimen, which took five hours per day. In other words, he had squeezed in almost three weeks' worth of bonus training; a drop in the bucket, but still a drop that hadn't been there before.
It would have to do.
—-
Da Wan was, like many cities, built near a river. Proximity to the mountains, a river and the plains meant that the residents generally didn't depend on trade for any of their own needs, and thus their imports and exports were based solely around the generation of profit. This particular river, the Lesser Xintiao, was fairly unremarkable, save for the presence of several large bridges which served to allow foot traffic, horses and wagons alike to cross with impunity, what with the city's constant trading.
One bridge in particular, a sturdy, ungraceful thing of stone with tall handrails to prevent pedestrians from falling over, was occupied when Iskander arrived. Alexios waited patiently, dressed in a sleeveless tunic which showed off his muscular arms, with his feet planted firmly and his arms crossed. Iskander, frankly, felt a little bit overdressed by comparison, having come wearing thick, hardy traveling clothes that could almost be considered armor in their own right. On either side, a few people stood, both preparing to watch the duel and making sure no one used this particular bridge for the moment.
Fuck, he really was huge - Iskander didn't remember Alexios being quite this large before, but maybe that had been his own wishful thinking. With each step he took closer to the bridge, his anxiety only seemed to grow, like a heat rising inside him and eating away at his insides. He affixed a neutral look on his face as best he could, but feared he would look like every bit the nervous rookie he was.
"So you came. That's good, you've got courage." Alexios said flatly, quietly assessing his opponent. He looked more put together than he had at the bar, obviously, better-groomed and more aware of his surroundings. Frankly, despite his towering size, he looked more like a philosopher than a killer. Well, he was an alchemist, Iskander supposed.
"Why wouldn't I come? I'll have you know I never go back on my word!" Iskander smirked, squeezing past a pair of coldly glaring Devils - friends of Alexios', he supposed - and stepping onto the stone bridge proper. It was a little bit smaller than he'd hoped, about twenty feet across. Normally that would be fine for fighting on, but against an opponent this size, he'd be taking a risk every time he tried to move around Alexios.
Alexios looked at the determined expression on the face of his smaller, weaker opponent and sighed. "I don't have anything against you, but you undercut the message I was trying to send, so some discipline is needed. I respect you for showing up."
"You think you can just talk to me like I'm your underling, you jerk?" Iskander shot back with a scowl. "We're both Legionnaires! What you should respect me for is preparing for this whole production when money's so tight right now."
The big man's eyebrow lifted at that comment. "Burning the candle at both ends, I take it?"
Iskander smiled proudly, pointing at himself with his thumb. "You bet your ass. I don't have any Cultivator relatives to support me, and I spent most of my savings on all sorts of pills so I could train as long and hard as possible. I'm here to win, even if it leaves me broke."
Alexios winced in pity upon hearing the comment about Iskander's savings, which only irked the swordsman more. "That was a dumb waste of money; you know two weeks isn't enough to catch up to me." He sighed. "Look, no one will look down on you for losing an unbalanced duel like this. Do your best, but once you're too injured to keep going, just yield. I don't want to cripple you or damage your potential."
So Alexios wasn't as committed to the fight as Iskander was - another small advantage in his arsenal. The swordsman was like a parched man out in the deep desert, ready to drink any bit of water he could find, no matter how small. "I don't half-ass things, and I'm getting mad now!" He boasted, drawing the kopis at his waist and holding it blade-out for inspection. "It's blunted for the duel, check it if you want."
When Iskander bought his new sword, which he hadn't yet thought of a name for, he'd asked the smith to spice it up a bit, since he was spending so much money after all. The arrays had been highlighted with gold inlays, a small spike had been added to the pommel, and an amethyst glittered at the bottom of the hilt on either side. Luxuries for a mortal, but compared to the cost of the Flying Sword itself, those little add-ons were a pittance.
Alexios obliged his younger opponent, slowly approaching before gently grasping the blade in his meaty hand. He ran his fingers down it gingerly, then pulled them away for inspection. Two fingers sported tiny gashes in through which blood could be seen, but it did not seep out. "What about the other one?" He asked, pointing to the second sword as Iskander's hip, which he drew in response.
This other kopis was unadorned, mostly simple steel with tiny arrays carved into the blade for reinforcement. His backup weapon, meant either to be used in tandem with his flashier sword or to replace it entirely should it be taken out of commission. Alexios ran his fingers along this blade as well, and only a single drop of blood was drawn. "Mm, even blunted, they sting; good craftsmanship." He muttered as he released the blade.
As much as raw durability varied wildly between Cultivators, it wouldn't do for them to simply swing lethal weapons at once another full-force, and so dueling etiquette generally made allowances for such things. Essentially, the more durable party would assume that whatever weapon the opponent brought to bear would, if not blunted, be lethal enough to kill them. In some cases, such as when a duel involved a party with powerful regenerative abilities, exceptions were agreed upon. In complimenting their craftsmanship, Iskander understood that Alexios was agreeing to concede should a decisive blow be struck.
As much as that brought a small comfort to Iskander, it didn't truly lighten the mood. It was broadly understood that while duels to the death favored Weapon Artists, less-lethal duels of this nature naturally favored Body Artists; Weapon Artists blunted their tools for such contests, whereas Body Artists who fought bare-handed were under no such handicap. Another coin was placed upon the scales, tilting them further in Alexios' favor.
"Alright, it's go time!" Iskander shouted, stomping away until he stood about ten paces from Alexios.
"So stubborn. Fine, let's get it over with." Alexios muttered, cracking his neck. Just as Iskander had, the alchemist also took ten paces, leaving the pair twenty paces apart and equidistant from the center of the bridge.
The amount of time that passed before the pair of them moved again could not have been more than perhaps ten seconds. Even so, those ten seconds of analysis, planning and preparation seemed to stretch out far longer than they really did, time itself slowing down as Iskander took in every little detail he could notice.
It was clear to everyone present who the underdog was. Iskander could only claim victory here through clever tactics, pulling some kind of trick that his stronger opponent could not see coming. Alexios certainly knew this as well, and would try to end the fight quickly via a straightforward clash. Even so, his offensive would not be all out - he would keep an eye on his younger opponent the entire time, searching for any sign of a hidden plan. And so, Iskander was left with only one recourse: think multiple layers deep. Plans within plans, to confound even someone who knew he was scheming.
Alexios wasn't carrying any weapons; it seemed he really did focus his combat training entirely on Body Arts. That made sense, considering combat wasn't his main focus, but it was certainly worrying. Iskander wouldn't be able to rack up much damage here, and so not only was a trick necessary, but it had to be a trick which decisively put an end to things. He had to make Alexios concede with an undeniable checkmate.
How do you overcome someone who's cheating at life? Someone so much better than you that they see the world in a fundamentally different way? That riddle still troubled Iskander, who thought on it often. Granny Ning had said to think about why he cultivated, but he wasn't sure why he did it yet. He wanted to use his strength to bring people joy, but that wasn't a guiding philosophy, just a general direction.
Alexios Nikopolous was not cheating at life; he was older and stronger than Iskander, but he was still pretty ordinary. Clearing this gap was not as daunting, nor as seemingly impossible as the kind of gap Iskander imagined when he thought about his riddle. Still, even if this battle wouldn't solve it, perhaps it would get him one step closer.
The first exchange was short but intense. Iskander slashed at his opponent repeatedly, only to be rebuffed each time by Alexios' huge forearms, his sword bouncing off the giant's flesh with no meaningful damage. In return, each of Alexios' strikes was like a natural disaster, making Iskander's instincts scream of terrible danger with every blow. The first glancing blow he took felt like it nearly dislocated his shoulder, and the direct punch to the liver that followed soon after made him want to vomit.
It was terrifying, but Iskander stuck with it; he needed to go back and forth with this guy for at least a minute to know what he could do. Thus far, only rudimentary reinforcement techniques had been shown; perhaps that was all Alexios had?
Of course not; that would be way too easy. Stopping his assault for a moment to take a deep breath and channel a flood of qi into his leg, Alexios launched a side kick at Iskander, who blocked the blow with his left arm. This turned out to be a bad idea, as a small but powerful detonation went off at the point of impact, blowing Iskander backward and sending shockwaves of pain shooting up his arm.
Iskander dug his feet into the ground, skidding to a halt and crying out in pain. His arm could still move, but something in there was definitely fractured. There was no time to dwell on the pain though, as Alexios was back on Iskander almost immediately, restarting the exchange of blows.
Though not as great as the gap in strength, the difference in speed was also starting to become a clear problem. Against a quicker opponent, especially one who didn't need to bring a weapon to bear to block an attack, launching counterattacks was difficult. Each time one of Alexios' limbs was knocked aside, Iskander would attempt to strike his exposed body, only for a different limb to intercept the blade. Dealing damage with this blunted weapon was hard enough when Axios was unprepared, but when he was prepared for the hit, the blade bounced off, never going deeper than the skin.
Alright, time to try something different then. Dodging a side kick from Alexios, then parrying aside a chop, Iskander drew the sword sheathed at his left hit, retaliating with a lightning-fast reverse hand slash. For the first time in the fight, he raked his qi-coated blade across his opponent's flesh in a clean hit, drawing a deep cut against the man's chest. Alexios stumbled back, slashing with his main hand sword whilst re-sheathing the one in his offhand. Another exchange of blows ensued, but soon the two of them pulled back again.
Iskander couldn't help but grin: he'd landed a clean hit! This fight wasn't unwinnable, far from it. As expected, Alexios was strong and skilled, but his arsenal of high-level techniques wasn't that large. His fear growing weaker, he pressed his opponent, going blow for blow with him. Any strike that landed ran the risk of breaking his bones, but he could not allow himself to fear them if he wanted victory.
Rotating on the ball of his foot, Alexios threw a perfect roundhouse kick. Raising his sword in response, Iskander concentrated his qi into one spot at the moment of impact, then let it burst out. The giant's leg rebounded back, putting him off-balance, and Iskander drew his ornate sword in another reverse grip slash, this one aiming for the belly.
But it wouldn't work this time: Alexios had become wise to that move already. Trapping the offhand blade between his elbow and his knee, the behemoth of a man struck Iskander in the chest with an exploding punch, sending him flying back a dozen feet and crashing onto his back. The ornate sword was wrenched from his grip at the moment of impact, remaining in Alexios' possession.
"With a sword, you can only parry blows that come at an angle." The alchemist mused, rolling his neck and tossing the sword behind him. "A shield can parry stabs, straight punches and other head-on strikes, but a sword can't. That's your style's weakness, right?"
"I'm a little bit offended you figured that out so fast." Iskander chuckled, using his remaining sword to prop himself up and get back to his feet. He coughed painfully; no blood came out, which meant his ribs were just cracked a bit and not outright broken. If he caught another hit in the same spot, it might not stay that way.
Alexios went back on the offensive, assailing Iskander with a rain of blows that he just barely dodged. He gave ground generously, unwilling to match his opponent in such a direct clash, and soon found himself backed up against a railing. Deftly sidestepping around Alexios to avoid a devastating middle punch, he saw a small explosion blast out a chunk of the railing where his chest had just been.
Iskander deflected several more blows, only to be knocked off his feet by a low kick. He backflipped away, but Alexios pursued immediately, smashing a punch into his guard that pushed him to the edge of the bridge. The giant seemed like he would press the attack, only to stop when he saw the fearful expressions of the people right behind Iskander.
Relaxing somewhat, Alexios began to walk backwards, beckoning at Iskander to follow him. "Come on, back to the center." He sighed.
There, now was his chance! Not letting his excitement show on his face, Iskander followed whilst calling out to the fallen weapon behind Alexios with his will. It rose into the air, began to spin, then flew at his opponent, aiming to strike him in the neck. That would do just fine; a clean hit that would have beheaded him if the sword were sharp. Alexios would have no choice but to concede on the spot.
Just before the sword made contact, Alexios' eyes grew wide with surprise as he heard the whirring blade. At the last possible moment, he turned to the side and shielded as much of his body as possible with his arm and his leg, causing the blade to embed itself into the meat of his forearm.
Cursing under his breath, Iskander went on the attack, but Alexios was already retreating, swaying back to avoid the next few slashes as he wrenched the ornate sword out of his arm. He jumped backward, putting further distance between the two as Iskander attempted to wrench the sword from the larger man's grip from a distance.
"I see now; you wanted me to knock your sword away, because it was a Flying Sword, so you used a technique that left you vulnerable." Alexios explained, holding the sword tightly with all of his strength and flexing his wounded arm to assess the damage. "That was pretty good, Junior. But I've been fighting with the Bracers for fifty years; did you really think I hadn't seen Flying Swords in the Great Battlefield? I've had that exact trick pulled on me before." Finished speaking, he flung the sword at Iskander, who dodged it, then guided it back into his offhand.
"Oh, come on man!" Iskander growled in frustration. "I spent every point I had left on that thing. Every last one, and you won't do me the kindness of getting tripped up?" His momentary griping over, he reared back before throwing the sword again, sending it whirling around his opponent while he charged in from the front. "Ah well, let's do this!"
His first series of slashes was contemptuously knocked aside, but it was little more than fodder to distract Alexios to an attack from the rear. The older Legionnaire jumped and rolled to the side to avoid the Flying Sword, which came back around again to hound him right away. As the independent blade went high, Iskander went low, scoring a gash along Alexios' leg and narrowly dodging a retaliatory kick. It went on like this for some time, Iskander's aggression driving back his opponent, who approached the fight patiently and cautiously.
Fighting in tandem with a Flying Sword was not quite as overwhelming as one might think, considering ease of use was one of the things considered when designing them. Even so, it was certainly more mentally taxing than ordinary melee combat. He had to remember where his own whirling sword was at the same time as his own body, make sure not to hit himself or strike his own weapon, and maintain his Sword Art techniques on both weapons at the same time.
But it was working. Alexios caught Iskander's blade between his palms, only for it to erupt in flames and force the goliath to let go. He swung a roundhouse kick at Iskander, but his leg was deflected away, leaving him open to a simultaneous attack from both swords. He stumbled backward, shallowly bleeding from two new gashes across his chest, only for the Flying Sword to pursue him, slicing into his shoulder.
He was doing it; he was winning! He could–
Alexios threw a chunk of stone from the broken handrail at Iskander, who hastily blocked it just in time. That momentary distraction was all that was needed for the alchemist to charge at Iskander. He ducked under the Flying Sword as it tried to cut his neck from behind, powered through Iskander's own awkward strike(taking a glancing hit to the side in the process), and slipped behind him.
Shit, the Flying Sword was useless against anything directly behind him; with his level of training, he was just as likely to hit himself as the target. Iskander tried to turn around, but Alexios was already wrapping his arms around the swordsman's midsection.
With power he couldn't hope to match, Iskander was lifted off his feet and suplexed onto solid stone. For a moment, he thought he was dead, but consciousness returned within one second when his instincts told him something was coming. He threw up a messy block, which partially stopped the impact, but he was still knocked back by Alexios' kick, bouncing several times before he got his hands and feet under him and skidded to a halt.
Fuck, where was his sword? Iskander glanced around as best he could, fighting through the pounding ache in his head to perceive the world around him. There it was, under Alexios' foot, being kicked behind him. Damn, that wasn't ideal.
"What are you standing around for?" Iskander shouted, straightening his back and trying to stop swaying on his feet. Holding out his hand, he summoned the much fancier of his two swords to his hand, a cocky smirk on his face. "You haven't put me away yet!"
Scoffing at the swordsman's false bravado, Alexios cracked his knuckles and approached cautiously. "You're a glutton for punishment, but if you insist, I'll give you some more."
Iskander couldn't hear much over the ringing in his ears, and his vision was swimming as well. Even so, he wasn't out yet. Alexios suddenly accelerated, closing the gap in what seemed like the blink of an eye. Blocking a devastating kick with the flat of his sword, he was blown back several feet by the resulting explosion, rattling his bones but creating some much needed distance. Alexios charged again, but Iskander jumped onto the railing, then leapt over his head, aiming to slash him from above.
Instead, Alexios jumped as well, grabbing ahold of Iskander's ankle and allowing his wrist to be slashed in return. In a real battle, he might have lost his hand, but blunted as it was, Iskander's sword could only bite through the flesh before stopping at the bone. The giant's grip held firm, and he slammed Iskander to the ground, driving the air from his lungs. This time, he did cough up blood.
As he rolled out of the way of the stomp that followed up that attack, Iskander dimly noted that Alexios could have killed him there if he had been crueler. If he'd been slammed onto the railing instead of the flat surface of the bridge, his back would almost certainly have been broken, and then he would have drowned in the river. Maybe the guy wasn't such a monster after all? A question for another time.
"Don't get up." Axios warned, his voice ominous but tinged with a hint of worry. "You've taken all the remaining blows I was gonna give that guy. More actually. We're square now. Concede, and we can both walk away."
"You really don't know me that well, huh?" Iskander chuckled, rising to his feet and spitting out another glob of blood. "Maybe you're done, but I'm not!"
It was about time, right? No, not quite.
Alexios silently sunk into a low, aggressive stance, reminiscent of a tiger about to pounce. "Okay then; I won't deny you your pride. Just remember that you insisted on this."
What followed could not be called tactical or intelligent martial arts. Indeed, the time for such things had passed, as Iskander had been weakened enough that he could now simply be beaten down. Alexios' blows came relentlessly and in many variations; palm strikes, bent-wrist strikes, finger strikes, elbows, knees, kicks with the ball of the foot, the side of the foot, the toes, the heel. Iskander's blade moved with amazing swiftness to weather the storm, probably faster than it had ever moved before, but it wasn't enough.
Elxcios committed to the offense further and further, determined to put an end to the fight before Iskander could pull any shenanigans, - and, perhaps, to incapacitate him before he put his life at further risk.
Was now the right time? No, not now, but almost.
Iskander's guard began to fall apart, each block coming later than the last, until a fist broke through his guard and crashed right into his face. Knowing what came next, Iskander was already rolling with the blow and turning away when the resulting detonation went off, which ablated some of the damage. Even so, he was flung through the air, spinning several times before he managed to get his feet under him.
He staggered back, breath hard and heavy, his offhand reaching out to the railing to prop himself up. Alexios approached implacably, his face fixed into a glare, ready to deal a truly finishing blow that would knock Iskander out for sure.
Now.
Alexios' fist lashed out, tensed in frustration but still expertly placed. Iskander thrust his blade to meet it, and the loud ring of a steel blade against bronze flesh echoed keenly. In that moment, as that sound rang out, several things happened at once.
The point of the blade sunk two inches into Alexios' large palm, splitting his hand partially in half. The blade may have been blunted, but it was not entirely without cutting power, especially with all of Iskander's remaining qi wreathed around it. But that was as far as it went - Iskander was overpowered, and the sword was wrenched from his hand.
Though most of the energy of Alexios' punch had been dissipated in the initial clash, it still had enough momentum to strike Iskander in the solar plexus, doubling him over and cracking the railing behind him. It was then that the pain struck Alexios, and he stopped moving for an instant. But, a fraction of a second later, his other fist was chambered, ready to finish his foe off.
Except, the battle was already over, for at the alchemist's throat was a sword, suspended in midair; it was the unadorned blade that had fallen earlier.
Everyone went silent. Alexios' jaw dropped in shock, causing the blade at his throat to nick him and draw a drop of blood. He blinked over and over, his brain trying to put together what made sense with what was happening right now. "Two… you had two flying swords… but when did you…" For a moment, he seemed angry, then impressed, then simply resigned.
The truth of his gambit seemed to dawn on Alexios' face after a moment of silence. The ostentatious detailing on the first sword, which made the second look more unremarkable by comparison. Iskander's multiple comments about money before the match, to make him look like a cheapskate. Iskander griping during the duel about how much his Flying Sword had cost. All of it, designed to plant the idea in Alexios' head that Iskander had only one Flying Sword, and that the other was ordinary. Finally, that final clash, in which the goal had been to make as loud a noise as possible, so that Alexios wouldn't hear the sword coming.
"I can't believe it; you're actually really smart…" Alexios said in a breathy tone, still reeling in shock. Then, he slowly raised both hands above his head and spoke the words everyone had been expecting to hear from the other guy on this bridge.
"I yield. You win."
What few spectators had bothered to show up cheered enthusiastically, greatly entertained by that sneaky underdog win. Even the ones who had shouted words of encouragement to Alexios before couldn't help but be thrilled. With shaky steps, Iskander limped away, retrieved both of his swords and sheathed them at his left hip before making to leave. Lai Bohai was right, he barely had enough qi to make a Flying Sword worthwhile; if he treated them as casual ranged attacks as he was now, they would kill him.
He made it about ten steps before his legs gave way and he fell, but before he could hit the ground, something arrested his fall. Through the rapidly blurring vision of his swelling eyes, the young Legionnaire saw Alexios at his side, slinging Iskander's arm over his shoulders to help him to his feet. Iskander couldn't process what was going on anymore; whatever burst of hysterical strength had kept him on his feet for that last stretch of the fight was fading, leaving him all too aware of how far he had pushed past his limits. "Alexios? What are you doing? Fight's over." He mumbled.
"Yeah, it's over, so it's time to take you to a doctor." Alexios said, in a tone that would brook no argument. Well, that was fine, Iskander didn't have the energy to argue anyway.
—-
The next… ten minutes? Twenty? However long it was, it was a blur that soon faded from Iskander's memory entirely. By the time things started to make sense again, he was seated on a cot in a small room that smelled faintly of incense, getting some kind of green paste rubbed onto the swollen parts of his face. Which was most of his face.
"We never actually set any terms, did we?" Said Alexios, who was apparently still here, sitting on the other side of the room and looking a lot better than Iskander, the supposed winner. "Guess it was just an exchange of pointers then. I'll pay for your treatment too."
Iskander wasn't sure what to say to that, so he just lay back for a while and let the nurse finish tending to him. Once she departed, he finally spoke up. "Man, why are you so darn sad?" He blurted out.
Alexios looked immensely confused, and frankly Iskander himself felt even more confused than Alexios looked. Why in the world would he say something like that? "Uh, pardon?" the alchemist asked, squinting and crossing his arms.
"The, uh… the way you carry yourself, it's… you weren't beating on that guy that way you beat on somebody when you're mad, you know?" Iskander asked, mentally flailing around trying to connect these sudden thoughts of his in a way that made any sense at all. "And when you fought me today, it was like you were just doing a chore. Were these things you felt like you just had to do or…"
"He called us a 'parade legion'. I was mad, but I wasn't doing it for me."Alexios said abruptly, avoiding eye contact.
"Parade legion? What, you mean the Bracers?" Iskander winced, and not just because all this talking wasn't too good for his broken ribs. "That's a harsh thing to say, no doubt. So it was about your legion's honor?"
"Something like that." Alexios said quietly. "You're still young, you wouldn't get it. You don't know what it's like to serve in a Legion for fifty years, then see it get insulted by somebody who doesn't know anything at all."
"I guess I can see why you wanted to get back at that guy." Iskander sighed. "But… like I said, you don't seem like an angry guy, you just seem sad. And you're not that violent either; you kept worrying about me while we were fighting."
"Honestly, I don't even like violence." Alexios muttered, leaning forward and resting his face on one hand. "You've seen it yourself; I'm strong, but I'm not that great of a fighter. I'd much rather help people with medicine then hurt them with my fists. But I had to; in these circumstances, I won't let anyone insult her, or anything that belongs to her."
"Her?"
Alexios hung his head in despair. "Legate Rina Callista. The Golden King, the Shining Hope. She's dying."
And what did you even say to something like that? "...oh. Um. I don't…"
Suddenly, Alexios stood, heading for the door. "She hasn't told us, but we know. She's distant from almost everyone, so her Legionnaires have learned to tell what she's thinking from the small interactions we get."
"W-wait, wait!" Iskander tried to follow after, but failed miserably, as the pain across his body flared up, making him nearly fall out of the bed. "Where are you going, man?"
"The cheap medicine these Blacksmiths make is no good; they're better with tools than people." The giant muttered, dipping down to get through the doorframe and turning to look back at Iskander one more time. "I'll whip up something better and mail it to you. I'll be in touch."
And just like that, Alexios was gone, and Iskander was alone. It was finally, actually over, sort of. He looked around the room, making sure all of his things were accounted for and sighing in relief when he saw that they were. "What the heck was that all about?" He sighed, laying back and feeling nothing but uncertainty over what to feel.
He looked to his Compression Pouch, where he knew the hilt of the Wailing Conqueror was stored, and smiled. "I know you're asleep right now but I just want you to know: I think I've gotten stronger, Senior. Just a little bit."
—-
And there's the second half of that story. As I stated before, it was supposed to be one chapter before it was split due to me being a lot busier than I had expected to be. I did my best to make them not feel like they started and ended abruptly, but I feel like there is still some of that there.
When deciding what Iskander's first big trick would be, I knew that it needed to be the right kind of trick. I needed one that foreshadows the ways in which he'll grow as a character going forward, as well as one that demonstrates the sort of tactics he uses. Iskander is academically dumb and tactically smart, and the reason his schemes are effective is that he always goes a little bit farther than you think he would. Therefore, I decided on 'he secretly has two Flying Swords'. It's a relatively simple trick, all things considered, but it's delivered in a devious way that makes Iskander look smart, rather than making his opponent look like a dumbass for falling for it.
Alexios started out as a relatively throwaway character, more meant to serve as an obstacle than anything else, but I feel like I ended up fleshing him out somewhat in the end, and I'm considering doing more with him later on. He's an intimidating and intelligent antagonist, but is ultimately bested because Iskander plans multiple layers deep and is willing to go to greater extremes to make his plans pay off than most people would expect. He's also intimately not that bad of a guy, though he's not particularly friendly either. I'll probably do something more with him down the line.
I would say more, but the rest of what I want to say here would spoil future developments that I'm currently setting up. I guess all I'll say is that this story had an important purpose, not in what directly transpires here but in the unintended effects of this duel.
It was a truly massive City, Zeno mused. Some parts of it even resembled the style of the highest tower where the Archegetes resides. Of course, nothing could rival the Obsidian Tower, which should theoretically be there…but the array work does not make sense, since the earth must have shifted so much around the foundation…
Where was he again? Ah, yes that damnable city. So important to his ancestors they left nothing to rust in their rout from the mountains. To see this important part of the Clans citadel would be great for him and his kin if he only ignored one small detail. It was occupied by an outsider; worse, it was occupied by outsiders whose identity is defined by denying the Golden Devil Clan their Capital territory.
Knowing this fact makes gathering intelligence only slightly more difficult than usual. This is a trade city after all and as everyone knows, where there is coin there are wares. And we Devils are certainly willing to pay handsomely. The raised cost of doing wetwork aside there was for lack of a better word evil afoot.
--
Deep in Doorway City small passages have almost comically big doors interspersed to separate the different Districts from each other. Some locals claim the doors were built according to Feng Shui, while others insist, they are simply built naturally along the structures of the surrounding mountains and small rivers feeding Doorway City. At the end of every such discussion all can agree its structure is
"Gooood." A raw-high pitched voice moans into its feeding tube. Its claw-boned master quickly shuts it up by pulling a lever, raising their torso uncomfortably tight and high above their limbs.
"So, another self-righteous asshole is searching for me. Typical." Before a minion can interrupt her important work on another experiment on her table. Stolid Blood Core hands her nearest minion a black tube and gets back to her work inserting another smaller version into the upper torso.
"Uh, What if-" a bony finger appears without a sound before his opened mouth making her point without another word. The minion understands this unspoken signal and hastens out of the renovated sewage pipe, his own trail barely noticeable.
--
With every day spent interrogating people, searching for just one nugget of insight, hidden conspiracies stir. These conspiracies do not appreciate the trouble and react onto these individuals. Most of the time a few threats of reprisal are enough, but this individual proves himself to be stone headed and is therefore hunted down. Naturally, that stone head has friends and before long the spy is being given chase, as bloodpillars rise to hasten their ritual.
Running around rooftops shatters brickwork, kicking up dust and hindering his enemies choice of way. This does give Zeno a small window to try and locate this woman among the mess of refugees. Blood qi generally follows the biggest cluster of people, but the woman herself isn't obvious.
Seeing no better way to hasten his search, Zeno challenges Stolid Core by sending a wave of qi in the general direction of the biggest pile, cracking some small black tubes.
Stolid Cores answer arrives swiftly and without mercy. Her kick is full of anger and hate, ripping the air around Zeno. The intention to incapacitate obvious in the result of Zeno not turning into unidentifiable viscera.
The chase is on, and Stolid Cores rumbling follows him all the while. Clouds of dream qi obscure and divert attention every which way as two missiles crack stones. They destroy carefully hanged washing lines in their hectic sprint through the lower decks, known for housing many a mortal famous wood crafter. Their chase stopped by Stolid Core simply halting at an intersection, looking at the far distance.
Such a commotion does not go unnoticed and before long many a hidden Devil and disciple of Stolid Core join the fray; fighting to reach the two.
---
AN: This is fighting me every word and suddenly getting a new job over new year with way more responsibility than I am used too, means I have barely any energy left at the end of the day. Maybe I'll finish it another time. This is a start at least.
There had been no great philosophical awakening, no intense feeling of sudden understanding, just the breaking down of a barrier that had, for months, felt so agonizingly close to falling. Attaining a new Small Realm was an exhausting ordeal, one that Iskander was not sure he would ever fully get used to. It took hours before he finally felt clean and presentable again, the black gunk of human weakness clinging to him stubbornly even as he scrubbed like a madman.
Some particularly cynical scholars felt that the black impurity that cultivation expelled was the purest form of humanity; the anonymity that bound all people together before they diverged from one another and grew beyond human limits by cultivating. Iskander didn't like to think of it that way; defining people only by their negative qualities really didn't sit right with him. Sometimes goop was just goop.
After that physically taxing experience, he'd taken the rest of the day off, other than cultivating in order to stabilize his cultivation base once more. Iskander figured he owed himself that much; one day to settle into a changed and renewed body. He ate heartily, spent time on leisurely walks, met with friends, and otherwise took it easy, before settling into an indulgent six hour-long sleep.
The next morning, Lai Bohai shouted at him to wake up immediately, surprised that his pupil had already reached the Fourth this month instead of the next. Now that he was in the Fourth, there was no time to waste; the next thing Iskander needed to learn was better internalized before the Fifth Heavenstage, and would take a few years to truly get down.
Apparently, one day was all Iskander was getting.
Next came the hard part: getting someone to rent out their basement for cheap. Or rather, getting someone to rent out their basement for cheap who would tolerate some screaming, and possibly other loud noises. Iskander put out an offer on the Contribution Board, largely expecting to get no buyers whatsoever, given he didn't have that much to pay.
What actually happened was that someone accepted the offer within days, no questions asked; some Decanus about to leave on a years-long mission, for whom this was essentially a trickle of free Contribution Points. Iskander wondered, in the pit of his stomach, if the penny-pinching phase of his life was in fact not a phase, but something he'd have to do for the rest of his days. Perhaps it was only the children of the wealthy who got to be careless before they died.
And so it was that within two weeks of reaching the Fourth Heavenstage, Iskander found himself standing in a home a great deal larger and better-furnished than Clotho's apartment. It was no king's dwelling, to be sure, but it was the sort of place that was more than just somewhere to lie your head down at night. Simple but well-made oak furniture, small sculptures on pedestals and paintings on the walls. A kitchen with a large stone oven, a washroom with an actual bath, a tiny plot of land outside that was probably a modest garden when the house's owner was around. The first word that came to mind was 'cozy'.
"Man, I'd love to have a place like this." Iskander sighed. "A big mansion? That's not really my style; it would drive me crazy. Nah, this is perfect."
"Eh, it's not bad. Could use a pond outside." Lai Bohai replied noncommittally. "You shouldn't lounge around the place; we're only renting the basement."
"We?" Iskander snorted. "It's my money, I did the work to make it."
"Bahahaha, ungrateful child! If it weren't for me you'd still be scrubbing chamber pots in the Second Heavenstage!" Lai Bohai laughed. "Just get down there, it should be all set up now."
Reinforcement arrays were carved into the door leading down into the basement; specifically, ones beyond Iskander's ability to break. That part was important. It creaked slightly as it opened, leading to a staircase down into darkness. Iskander gulped and began shedding his clothes. "Guess this is where we part ways for a bit." He said, breath hitching.
"Indeed it is. You'll be down there for eight hours; any more and you'd risk meridian damage." The ghost's tone, rather uncharacteristically, carried a slightly apologetic note. "Perhaps you'll hold a grudge against me for this, but it wouldn't be any less unpleasant if you'd waited. This is the ideal time."
"I know, gotta get this done before I start opening new meridians, right? You told me." Iskander replied, setting down the Wailing Conqueror along with the last of his clothing. "Gotta make it like, settle into my body and stuff."
Lai Bohai was either not particularly bothered by Iskander's apprehension, or he felt that a clinical tone was the best way to fight against it. Either way, it wasn't comforting. "In layman's terms, yes. Your meridians will already be adapted to the changes before opening. Accomplishing that after they were already open would prove more difficult."
"'Because healing meridians without hurting the person's ability to cultivate is the hardest part of mending an injury.' I said you told me already!" Iskander snapped, scowling.
He immediately felt guilty - why in the world was he taking his fear out on Lai Bohai? The ghost had no power over the physical world whatsoever. If Iskander refused to go along with this part of his lesson plan, he would have no choice but to roll with it. "Ugh, sorry, sorry, that was rude. I just have some jitters, that's all." He said, bowing to the hilt. "I'll just go now."
"Just remember boy, this is the first of the two foundational techniques from which the mighty Green Sage built her career. It takes time to grow, but it's no lightweight gimmick." Lai Bohai explained, voice thick with nostalgia. "Ah, what a woman she was. She'd have liked you. Passing these two arts onto you is one last act of remembrance for me. They'll take you very far."
The young swordsman wasn't sure what to say to that; he hadn't lived long enough to have the sort of 'old friends' that elderly people like Lai Bohai talked about. It was an emotion foreign to him thus far, thick with grief and joy in equal parts. He simply gave the hilt a respectful nod, picked up the bulging sack at his side, and descended the stairs, shutting the door behind him.
The heat hit him more and more the deeper he went. Iskander had already been sweating just standing outside the basement, but with each step it seemed to sink into his skin, as omnipresent as gravity or time. The source of said heat soon came into view: in each of the basement's four corners was a huge steel box filled with smoldering coals, next to which were several large pails of water. Aside from that, anything that had been in the basement before had been removed, leaving it more bare than a prison cell; just an empty hollow space beneath the earth.
Not only was the heat already beginning to eat at his skin, but it was incredibly dry. In moments Iskander felt the moisture being sucked out of his flesh, and he hurriedly grabbed a pail and poured its contents onto the coals. Immediately, a flood of steam emerged, blanketing the air. He repeated the process three more times, once in each corner, and soon enough he couldn't see more than a foot from his face.
This was a sort of therapy, he was given to understand. A modern alternative to the bathhouse for those who didn't wish to actually submerge themselves, called a sauna. Of course, normally the temperature was around a hundred degrees or less, not two-hundred fifty. Rather than therapeutic, the heat ate at Iskander's skin, scalding his body all over. He soon doubled over, crying out in pain as the outer layers of his skin began to boil away.
It was, by any definition, torture; designed to be painful but not do intense damage. Moreover, it was a constantly source of low-level damage, which was the perfect way to practice what he was learning. Forcing his lungs to enter a steady cycling rhythm, Iskander turned his qi into restorative energy, spreading it throughout his whole body. The pain abated a little bit, just enough to think straight, as his skin began mending itself as it was destroyed.
The Blood-Root Restoration could be mistaken for a dime-a-dozen Wood-aspected healing technique. Overflowing life, stimulating the cells and forcing them to repair damage to the body. Such a shallow observation failed to grasp the technique's sophistication, the way it could be applied to any area, big or small, and had no upper limit on how potent the healing could become.
Yes, it could heal anything, though the more complex the system the more qi it took, and speeding it up only multiplied the cost further. A jack of all trades healing art which avoided the pitfalls of specialized ones, but in turn lacked the efficiency that came with specialization. If he could get a handle on this, he wouldn't need any other healing technique, as this one would always be useful.
Time passed, its length impossible to determine in that foggy hellscape. Iskander yelled and groaned again and again, pounding at the floor and crawling about aimlessly. His qi drained out, growing thinner and thinner until it began to gutter. Reaching into the sack at the center of the basement, he pulled out a few spirit stones and began drawing upon the energy within.
Cycling qi inward and outward at the same time was a tricky thing. Several times, the Blood-Root Restoration stopped working, reducing the Aspirant to an agonized frenzy as he tried to get it working again. By the time Iskander's reserves were filled up again, his fingertips were bloody from clawing at the stone beneath him. He watched in morbid curiosity as his fingernails reformed into their proper shape and the skin gradually sealed back up.
The steam was getting thin, and Iskander was rapidly dying up again. That meant some time had to have passed, right? He stumbled, zombie-like, over to the nearest pail of water and dumped it on the coals, feeling refreshed immediately as the steam grew thicker. Walking back to the center of the room, Iskander slipped on the lines of blood he'd clawed into the ground, sending his weary body crashing down painfully.
"Lai Bohai, you nasty old fart! A curse on you, a thousand curses! How could you do this to me!?" He screamed in the approximate direction of the stairs, his throat already hoarse and only aching more with each word. "I don't care! I don't care about the Green Sage, or the Blood-Root Whatever! This is awful!"
Iskander did not beg to be let out; Lai Bohai couldn't do that if he wanted to, no one could hear his voice, and he himself already knew that even at full strength, he could not break down that door. Thus, it would be pointless to beg. Instead, he flung insults until he couldn't bear the pain of shouting any longer.
The point of this training wasn't merely to learn how to use the Blood-Root Restoration. Such intense torment wouldn't be necessary for that, he would merely have had to go about his life and use it whenever he was injured, and that would be training enough. The point of using it constantly, with such immediate and painful consequences if he could not, was to imprint it into his own subconscious mind; to turn its use from a conscious action to an automatic response. When the technique was mastered to that extent, a Cultivator with a strong enough Wood affinity could internalize the technique into their very body, creating the Deep Root Constitution. Like a tree whose roots were buried deep beneath the earth, they could survive and recover from even the harshest of storms, gaining accelerated healing even in their sleep.
True regeneration was a prize many Cultivators sought, and one that most gave up on. Massive, risky and expensive modifications to the body were the most common way to achieve such results, and usually had downsides. Certain powerful bloodlines or unique mutations could grant a form of self-healing - the legendary expert Wei Feng was perhaps the most extreme known example. But for the common man, blessed with neither the riches to modify himself or the extreme fortune to stumble upon a great blessing, the only remaining option was sheer determination.
More agony than most people could stomach. A sound enough mind to take all that pain and remain sane. A solid enough technique to form the base. All of these things were necessary, as was a great deal of time. In the desert, where elemental affinities skewed toward Fire and Earth and away from Water and Wood, it was even less commonly undertaken.
But Iskander had a strong Wood affinity. He had a teacher who could pass down a first-class technique. He was stubborn, and he kept his promises. When it came to developing a regenerative technique the hard way, he was in a very good spot .And still, it was hell. The idea of burning like this, over and over, until he got so used to being hurt that making himself while became an immutable part of his body? That was unthinkable now.
Feebly, Iskander reached out, his fingertips brushing against the bag. After several attempts he got it to tip over, spilling its contents toward him. He grasped a few spirit stones in his hand and began to cycle inward once more. Why was he even doing this?
Really, why? He could just say no. Why did he have to be so stubborn? What was it that made him so bullheaded, when he had no real dreams of his own? His lofty ambitions were solely for the sake of another, a quid pro quo where he and his teacher both stood to benefit. Did he even have a reason of his own to become a Nascent Soul?
He dropped the Restoration again, and moaned weakly as the pain doubled in intensity, curling up on himself and trying to start it up again. Nascent Soul cultivation was horrible, according to Lai Bohai; much more painful than a physical discomfort like this. Why bother at all if this was what it meant to move forward like that?
"Why? What is my reason?" He muttered, turning over onto his other side as the technique once more took hold. "Come on Iskander. You've got a brain, use it. What's the reason? What's the reason? What's the reason?"
—-
Seven hours had passed, which meant the boy was nearly done. The array on the door would wear off on its own when enough time had passed, so Lai Bohai didn't really need to keep track, but honestly he could not help it. This sort of training was something terrible to inflict on one so young, who had not yet grown accustomed to the torment of high-level cultivation.
The ancient ghost cut off that line of thought, or at least tried to; there was no room for sentimentality here. A Nascent Soul wasn't made out of half-assed training, but by those who were willing to go farther than anyone else. With no wealthy benefactors to fall back on and no institutional support beyond the basics, he needed to stack the deck as much in Iskander's favor as possible.
Constitutions were easier to integrate into a Qi Condensation body than any other, and the earlier the better. He'd have been boiling that kid in the First Heavenstage, if not for the fact that his body wouldn't have been able to handle the cost of using the Blood-Root Restoratiion. The Fourth, which had far deeper reserves than the stages before it, was the absolute lowest stage at which integrating a technique like this into one's body became feasible in the slightest. Even the Green Sage, who used this very same technique, had not mastered it at such a low realm.
The sooner the integration, the more effective it would be; the boy had to be perfect. There was no time left, not more chances. If Iskander couldn't improve Lai Bohai's situation, it would be the end of him, and while he hadn't been overly frightened of death as a man, the idea of fading away into nothingness like this disgusted him. No, Lai Bohai would not die, not before he had seen his home again.
"I can't make you stay, kid. You can walk out of my training at any time and leave me to rot." He mused bitterly. "Perhaps this was a step too far, and will make you give up. If it does, then I'll have done you a mercy. If this suffering is too much for you, then the big leagues will break you, and you're better off living a simple life. You're the sort who'd be happy that way anyway."
He doubted Iskander could hear him. The kid hadn't moved much in the last couple of hours, the need to conserve energy having finally overcome his emotional response to pain. That was a good sign - losing the feeling of pain left one vulnerable, because they risked not noticing their own injuries. Being able to process pain without distress or irrational thought was the ideal.
And look at him, celebrating a youngster for slowly getting better at withstanding torture - torture which Lai Bohai himself had subjected him to. It would have been better if a piece of work like him had died completely and a true visionary like the Green Sage had remained. She had been the heart and soul of his revolution, turning it from the raw anger of the put-upon into a cause worth dying and killing for. He was nothing more than a guilty dog licking the wounds his own claws had inflicted.
"My friend, what would you say if you saw me now, so old and feeble. What little koan would you recite for me?" He asked, trying to picture the face beneath that mask as he had so many times before. Each time, it was a little different - A round face, or a narrow one? Full lips or thin lips? What about the eyebrows - were they bushy, thin, round, slanted? What color and shape were her eyes? He'd never once asked her about any of that; the idea of doing so felt strangely taboo.
Pathetic. He really was pathetic. Thick-headed Lai Bohai, who couldn't talk to people and spoke through his sword instead. It was only fitting, then, that in his current state he could do nothing but talk. Perhaps it was some kind of divine penance for the life he had lived.
The array inscribed on the door to the basement stopped glowing, and a keening sound started to blare in and out, signaling to the prisoner that he could now leave. There was a sound of scrabbling, followed by frantic footsteps as Iskander forced himself up the stairs before flinging the door open.
He looked terrible, obviously. His skin was various shades of red and pink, his body was letting off a great deal of steam, and he clutched the half-emptied stack of spirit stones in the sort of death grip that came from sheer hysterical strength. He barely made it six steps out the door before he collapsed, crying out as the exposed flesh of his knees touched the floor.
"Regenerators are crazy, they're all cracked in the head. Heard that once." He mumbled, voice hoarse and scratchy. The pain still wasn't over yet, and so he maintained the Blood-Root Restoration, shivering as his skin fixed itself yet again, one layer at a time insulating the raw red flesh beneath. "I know why now, I guess. That's so awful…"
Lai Bohai elected not to pester Iskander, but instead to leave him be and observe his expression. The young Devil's eyes were unfocused, but not blank in the way a truly broken man's were. His expression was one of vivid and intense discomfort, rather than catatonic apathy. Yes, very good, he hadn't lost his sanity at all!
Once the worst of the damage was fading away - much of Iskander was still dark pink, but there was no more red - he decided that the pain had probably receded enough to hear him. "Congratulations: the first session is over!" He announced, half-sarcastically. "I did warn you that this training would be more harsh than usual. From all of that shouting, I take it you weren't as prepared as you thought you were?"
Iskander gulped nervously, before struggling to his feet and bowing deeply to the Wailing Conqueror. "I'm sorry! I really am sorry! I didn't mean what I was saying when I was down there, it just hurt so much, and it made me mad and…" He rambled on, shifting his weight from one leg to the next. "Please let me continue this training. I've come this far, so let me complete it!"
"Frankly, I thought you'd say worse." Lai Bohai remarked nonchalantly. "You speak informally to everyone, but you've got such a clean mouth…"
"So uh… tomorrow we just do the same thing again? We keep doing it every day until my body heals on its own?" Iskander asked, rubbing the back of his head. "That really stinks, but I think I'll survive."
"The first and second sessions are the most traumatic and difficult to get through. The first because you're unprepared for the pain, and the second because you understand the pain, but haven't yet adapted. After that, each successive day will be a little bit easier, so if your resolve holds strong tomorrow as well, you should be in the clear. At the end of it, you'll develop the Deep Root Constitution; your body will automatically deploy a weaker version of the technique whenever and wherever you've got any damage. Far more practical than the actively-maintained version." The ghost explained. "You must have found quite a well of strength to endure the pain so well; did you have any revelations or insights?"
"Nah." Iskander shrugged. "Tried as hard as I could to figure out why I was going through with this, but I just didn't have the words. I guess what kept me going was wanting to know my reason."
"Wanting to know your reason…" Lai Bohai repeated quietly, marveling at the sheer simplicity of the notion. "Well, if it works then it works. I'm glad to see you've banished your fear."
"What? No, I'm really scared, I'm shaking in my boots here." Iskander laughed, holding up his hand and watching as his skin continued to return to its normal hue. "But you said I could do it, right? If I couldn't do it, it'd be one thing to run away, but if I can actually do it, then giving up would be a waste."
The answer was so simple that Lai Bohai couldn't help but let harsh barks of laughter slip free. "That's good, that's damn good! That's the spirit, Iskander!"
"I'm gonna keep my word. Let's do this tomorrow, and the day after, and however many days it takes!" Iskander smacked his fist into his palm, only to wince and spasm as he tore open his still-healing skin, deflating his boasting immediately.
Lai Bohai didn't like so-called prodigies. Those who took to some aspect of life too well inevitably developed a warped perspective on life, and that warped perspective created weaknesses. In his mind, the good kind of student was one with enough capability to comprehend every aspect of their master's teachings while maintaining a clear and accurate view of the world. Iskander was not without flaws, but he fit that mold perfectly, which gave Lai Bohai the slight hope that this wasn't entirely for naught.
But perhaps he'd sold the boy short by thinking of him as more than just 'good'. His tenacity, his creative streak, his mental flexibility… There was true potential here. The kid was like a piece of complex machinery: it would be easy to misalign a part and make him fall off the path, but if everything came together just right, something miraculous might occur.
"Yes, let's. I was almost considering going easy on you, but that moment of weakness has passed!" Lai Bohai laughed, excited in a way he could rarely muster in himself these days. "You keep your promises, so let's seal the deal: promise me you'll do this training every day until the next time I wake up. We'll knock the whole process out in one month!"
"W-wait, a whole month?" Iskander stammered, counting on his fingers as a helpless expression came over his face. "But that's like, uh… all? Like, all of my savings, probably!"
"Gotta spend points to make points. You get stronger, you'll make more points down the line. Get used to it."
"Aaah, you mean old goat!"
"What was that about not meaning your insults?"
"This time I do mean it! You're a jerk!"
"And don't you fucking forget it!"
Yes, this boy would do just fine. After such a long time, Lai Bohai's luck really had turned.
—-
After coming to the conclusion that Fire and Wood are the elements that Iskander's personality embodies best, I found myself wondering what sorts of techniques to give him within those elements. Hardly any good seeds use Wood techniques as far as I'm aware, so I've long since headcanonned that elemental affinities can be affected by your surroundings, and so Wood and Water affinities are rarer in the desert.
Wood is often seen as just being a plant manipulation thing, but in a lot of ways, it's about living things in general. It's a restorative element, so I imagine that most healing techniques involve Wood to some degree. And so I decided that I'd give Iskander a healing factor, since that ties in with the feeling of scrappiness that pervades his way of doing things. That said, this early on the Deep Root Constitution(which is less powerful than Blood-Root Restoration as a downside of always being on) is less 'combat-relevant regeneration' and more 'heals about twice as fast as a normal Golden Devil, who themselves already heal faster than baseline humans'.
But that lead me to another thought: how do you train a regeneration technique? It must be difficult, since otherwise everyone would want one. And so I decided that in this setting, true regeneration(as in, healing that works on its own without you needing to focus on it) is a very difficult thing to attain, usually being inborn rather than learned. And since it's easier to make drastic changes to yourself early on in your cultivation path than later on, internalizing a technique enough to make it into a constitution would best be done very young.
And so, I concluded, this is why regeneration is rare: it really, really fucking sucks to learn. Internalizing even a relatively weak healing technique is a hellish process requiring you to be tortured, ideally at a time in which you're young and inexperienced, and is even more difficult to do if you don't have a strong Wood Affinity. Iskander basically had the stars align here, but it's still incredibly awful.
Something I've been trying to do with Iskander, though I'm not sure if I've managed to be totally consistent about it, is that he never swears. He speaks informally, even to his superiors, and yet his language is squeaky-clean, which is an interesting dichotomy that reflects his carefree nature.
He's also, despite not having a strong central motivation or Dao yet, surprisingly willing to go all-out on things he finds compelling. As shown with this training and with the duel against Axios, when Iskander is personally invested in something, he's ready and willing to go all-in. After all, his two best elements are Fire and Wood; he'll happily burn himself if you give him a reason.
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Constantine Nikeodemos & Gaius Antonius - A Hell of Your Own Making
Constantine Nikeodemos & Gaius Antonius - A Hell of Your Own Making
It is widely agreed across a number of cultures scattered throughout the Nine Turtles - and undoubtedly far beyond - that the moment a boy truly became a man was when he moved out from under his father's roof and raised a home of his own.
The occasion was one of celebration, and why wouldn't it have been? It had been a time of plenty for the House as well as the Clan. The Nikeodemos had long made their name as rulers of mortals as well as warriors of the legion, and the recent vast acquisitions of territory saw them able to secure new holdings of their own as the Basileus distributed the bounty down through the Clan's nobility. With the entire desert secured, and rumors that a restoration of their rightful territory in the Mountains was in the cards, House Nikeodemos had reason to be merry.
To those who knew him well, it wouldn't be a terrible surprise that Constantine Nikeodemos wasn't feeling the mood. Fortunately for him, there wasn't anybody who could say to do so, something that might well have saddened someone a little more self-aware than the scion. It was funny, too - he'd longed for the day he could move away from his family's manor almost since he could want anything at all. And yet, standing in a home of his own, the 'accomplishment' could taste like only ash on his tongue.
Living on his own, leaving everything he had ever known behind, being the man of the house, it was all supposed to make him free. Release Constantine of his perfidious obligations that had defined his existence from the moment he was conceived, to most likely the moment he'd be laid back into the earth with all the rest of his relatives who'd spent their lives doing the exact same thing.
In retrospect, it was pure foolishness, the naivete of a longing child who thought of his prison in terms of a building and people. Now with the mere wisdom of decades under his belt, Constantine had come to realize that the chains that tied him to the Clan and its fruitless, suicidal march against the Heavens themselves to overturn the order of the stars were so much deeper than anything he could possibly free himself of. The Trials were coming, and like many other young cultivators of his generation, Constantine was forced to confront that his very blood marked him for death by Hunters no distance he could travel would escape.
There were certain advantages to owning your own domicile, Constantine would admit, as he restlessly paced the halls of his newly raised manor. It wasn't nearly as glorious as the ancient domicile of his kin, as even now nothing the Clan could construct matched even the rudimentary efforts of their ancestors, but there was a certain comfort one could draw in owning something, of knowing that the servants would answer to you and none other and that your room would not be barged in upon by curious parents. It may not have met his own childish expectations, but as he settled into his new circumstances, the scion found himself able to 'loosen his necktie,' given certain circumstances.
Still, precautions had to be taken. Constantine made sure to double-check that the hallway was empty before unlatching the thoroughly locked entrance to his study, then sealed the door behind him with equal studiousness.
Inside stood revealed a place that the scion absolutely refused to allow any others. The room was marked with newspapers and reports, both those released to the public and ones that he'd been able to abuse his official position as Aide to the 99th Legion to acquire. The tremendous power of delegation and the Ninth Prince's lack of interest had made it an occupation with many perks and few downsides, at least when he wasn't being dragged into a war. It had been the work of some time and would quite likely get Constantine into quite some trouble if he were discovered, but his long effort had borne fruit: spread across his study was enough accumulated information on the Clan's movement that it allowed him a glimpse into its overall strategy. And what he saw concerned the scion greatly.
There were certain patterns one could see if they bothered to observe historical records on how the Clan handled the Trials (or more accurately, endured). Strategies they'd embark upon to preserve this or that, or new, ever more desperate schemes attempting to foil the relentless pursuit of their tormenters. Sometimes they'd cluster around hard targets, others they'd spread out. But always - always - they prepared somehow, braced themselves for the storm.
So the movement of the legions' didn't make sense. They were concentrating in areas far from population centers, close to the Mountain borders, and not even defensively! The logistical buildup - it was the kind meant for deployment beyond the Clan's borders, the one place where the legions would be completely unable to contribute to the Trials whatsoever.
It hadn't taken Constantine long to put the pieces together, and the conclusion was a rush of ice poured down his spine: Old Gold was planning to sacrifice another generation of cultivators for one of his inscrutable aims, just like the kind which had seen his own House brought to its knees not even two hundred years ago. Perhaps the Clan considered its foreign policy entanglements too important to let slip, considering how much progress they'd made as of late and how obvious a weakness the Trials left to be exploited. Or mayhaps the Basileus was simply intending to try and catch their opponents off guard by deviating from the clockwork pattern they otherwise obeyed. It'd be a brilliant move, if it didn't involve leaving them utterly at the nonexistent mercies of those Fifth Sea scumfucks!
Whatever the reason, the blunt truth of the matter was that Constantine didn't give a rat's ass. The important thing was that it wasn't the first time such a gambit had been attempted, and the end result was always a horrifying death toll, almost always most strongly felt amongst the most vulnerable - that is, the Qi-Condensors, and especially the most promising ones that the Hunters enjoyed targeting.
For those slow in the audience, that meant Constantine was facing the very real possibility of his imminent demise. It wasn't something he was taking gracefully.
"Fuck!" He suddenly shouted, and abruptly flipped his desk, scattering months of accumulated work to the floor in a clatter, and for a long moment there were only the harsh rasps of his ragged breathing as the papers fluttered down. "... Fuck." He repeated in a softer, defeated tone, running a hand down his face as he slumped back into his chair. "Those … those wretched bastards!" Constantine swore, pounding a fist against his chair's arm, but the strike was without strength, the fierce anger having guttered out of him as quickly as it came. He almost wanted to rage and scream in the privacy of this long-dreamed-of abode, but the cold discipline of self-control reasserted itself with the iron force of habit. He'd never had the privilege of temper tantrums as a child, and now the release of a petulant rage was locked from him.
"That damn psycho …" Constantine bit out, before forcing out a sigh and sitting up straight. "Ancestors, grant me the strength to accept what I cannot change, the courage to change what I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." He murmured, taking a moment to dip his head before the scion forced himself out of the chair. Out of all the prayers to Those That Came Before Constantine had been taught, there was only one he'd ever taken to heart, and its bitter credo provided him the same calming guidance it always had.
So. He had been marked as a sacrifice. There was nothing he could do the change that, such was the grim arithmetic of rule, and the Baisilius was not a man known for second-guessing himself when it came to harsh costs. If he had decreed there was to be a slaughter, there would be a slaughter - the only thing Constantine could do about it was attempt to ensure that when it came time to sort the expendable from the indispensable, he would find himself in the lucky, treasured few of the latter group.
There was only one way to guarantee that he could imagine. It seemed Constantine had run out of time to stall at last - he would either perish to his tribulation, or die at the hands of the Clan's relentless foes from across the sea, and he wasn't willing to call it quits just quite yet.
With new purpose to his stride, the Nikeodemos scion turned to leave his study, his mind awhirl with options and plans to defy his seemingly ordained fate. Just as left the room, however, he found himself halted by something that'd completely departed his mind given the circumstances.
"Daddy, I drawed some'tin for you." Constantine's infant daughter said, shyly holding a piece of paper to her chest. Caecilia was a rosy-cheeked, healthy toddler, who even at her young age already bore a bronze flush to her distinctly Nikeodemian features, and insofar as Constantine could tell, was the most saccharinely sweet creature to have ever walked the surface of the desert.
"That's great, honey." He automatically replied while taking a moment to ruffle her hair, his brow furrowed with thought. "I'll look at it later. Have you seen your mother?" Caecillia pouted at his rough, distracted headpat, but her expression dulled as she registered what her father was saying.
"Mama's in the kit'chen." She dutifully replied, looking down sadly and kicking her foot.
"That's a good girl," Constantine said with a brisk smile as he walked away, a plan coming together in his head.
As part and parcel of receiving his own fief, Constantine was obligated to take a wife and raise children together, a duty which he'd engaged in with no real enthusiasm. In truth, however, it hadn't been as much of a burden as he feared. Fabia had a pleasing body and didn't bother him overly, while they'd born several children who'd all come in healthy and showed promising signs of talent for cultivation. Sure, sometimes they all wanted his time and attention for some reason, but all things considered, the scion considered it one of the less difficult responsibilities he'd had to uphold, and now that his line had an heir as well as a spare, the hard part was taken care of.
On the subject of families, however, it seemed Constantine wasn't quite as free of his as he'd assumed. If he was going to break through the tribulation in time for the trials and make it to Foundation Establishment, he had to get access to somebody who knew what they were doing, and that meant asking Sertorius for a favor. It was something he was normally loath to do, but the House had already invested a considerable amount of effort into his cultivation, and he reasoned that although finding a tutor for something like this wouldn't be cheap, they'd be willing to ensure he wouldn't perish in an ill-thought early attempt to ascend, as many other promising impatient cultivators of the Clan had.
***
As a rule, Constantine Nikeodemos wasn't an individual especially inclined towards self-reflection. He had a very sure understanding of himself and how the world worked, as well as the role he ought to play and the various injustices he was forced to endure given all that was wrong within it. For all that being said, when he'd learned whom the House had chosen to serve as a guide for breaking through his tribulation, the scion was suddenly forced to consider the very real costs he bore in order to keep his true nature disguised from the world.
He'd just needed to break forward into Foundation Establishment, with that done Constantine's odds of surviving the Centennial Trials noticeably spiked, and more importantly, the amount he could actually do commensurately increased, instead of being largely hapless to the whims of fate as someone confined to Qi-Condescion remained. Yet he could hardly admit this to the House, and so they had searched for a tutor under the long-standing impression he intended to be a Single Piller King, and as it turned out, had not spared a single dime in the process.
He hadn't thought they'd actually find one of those maniacs to instruct him on the process!
The weights of expectation and pressure were hardly unfamiliar to Constantine, yet as he watched the man in question approach the Manor, whereupon he and his Grandfather awaited, there remained a pit in the scion's stomach he could not swallow.
"Oh, I'm so proud of you!" Fabia trilled, holding onto his arm. Her face was alight with enthusiasm as she watched the Gaius Antonius approach. Constantine wasn't really big on the 'cultivation scene' and didn't pay much attention to whatever celebrities were in vogue at the moment, but his wife was positively obsessed with all that nonsense. She could recite all the famous figures from memory and give a shocking amount of trivia about them, and seemed to treat getting to meet Constantine's tutor with the same excitement she held towards his own cultivation. "Taught by the Stargazer himself - this is so exciting!"
If the scion were so inclined to speculate on his wife's motivations he might suspect it had something to do with her own stunted talent despite coming from a major dynasty of the Clan herself, but Fabia's peculiarities were something Constantine remained perfectly happy to leave unexplored. Normally he was either vaguely flattered or irritated by her enthusiasm depending on the circumstances, but at the moment, Constantine found his patience thin on the ground.
"It's … certainly quite the opportunity." He managed to put it, mindful of his grandfather's steely eyes and crossed arms. Constantine was certain that Sertorius didn't know the full extent of his hesitation, but the old man had little patience for his proclivities and undoubtedly suspected that his position as Aide to the Ninth Prince was less strenuous than the man had intended, which meant he had to be careful to avoid any slipups.
Thankfully, the pair was all the audience Constantine had to deal with at the moment. Gaius had apparently expressed little desire to make a ceremony out of the affair, and Constantine's kids were currently being led around the Manor by his grandmother, as eager as ever to teach the youthful about their House's history. Something within him shifted uneasily when he imagined it happening, but the scion did not overly dwell upon it - this was how children were raised.
… at the very least, he'd avoided having them brought up in a creche.
Any further opportunity for second-guessing came to an end as the Legate arrived, and Constantine stiffened his spine with practiced ease. It was showtime, and the stakes were higher than ever.
***
"You know, I recall saying, more than once mind you, that I'm no teacher."
Leaning back as much as the carriage's seat would allow, Gaius puffed on his cigar and turned to the side, watching the scenery go by idly. Things were looking a good deal less desolate than usual - shrub grass poked out all over the place instead of here and there, and even ferns and small trees could be seen from time to time. A sign that they were getting closer to the life-sustaining arrays of a noble house.
The attendant sitting across from the King did not respond, knowing from the tone of his voice that Gaius was talking to himself. "Yeah, ain't a teacher. And yet, kids keep falling into my lap every passing decade. Is that what I'm known as now; the most approachable King?" He laughed quietly, then turned to the attendant. "Constantine; that's the kid's name, right? Promising young King in the making and all that?"
"Yes, my lord." The attendant, a small elderly man with beady eyes, replied curtly. "Constantine Nikeodemos. One-hundred twelve years of age, Twelfth Heavenstage. Records show he has high qi receptiveness and no major deviations or weaknesses. Good affinity with all elements but especially with Water."
Gaius raised his eyebrows at that and nodded appreciatively. "A natural Water specialist, out here on this burnin' anvil of a desert? I guess he is a little special."
Truth be told, Gaius wasn't feeling at his most charitable right now. He was busier than he'd ever been, juggling a life with so many plans and moving parts at once that he could hardly keep track of it all. And now, at the last minute, Georgos had come along and informed him about a big, lucrative offer to tutor another great house's rising star, and told him in no uncertain terms that he would accept.
Well, at least he wasn't being asked to pass down any of his signature techniques, all of which were difficult to teach. No, he was to assist the Young Master in the development of his Dao. And was not, under any circumstances, to risk breaking his mind. What a hassle - didn't these old farts know that bigger risks give bigger payouts?
The moment of arrival did not feel sudden, as if it had snuck up on Gaius. It simply arrived after an uncomfortable and awkward waiting period. As the carriage's wheels came to a stop along a well-maintained stone brick road, Gaius eased open the door and leapt out, only a little bit more forcefully and dramatically than necessary.
Adjusting his hat and drawing himself up into a confident stride, Gaius approached the gathering of people there. Constantine was easy enough to pick out, nervous as the man was. The others, seemingly his family members, seemed agreeable enough. Seeing the starstruck look on one particular woman's face, Gaius snapped his fingers, and in a flash of light, conjured a gold bangle engraved with his autograph and tossed it to her.
"Alright Junior, are you ready to go?" He asked, finally speaking as he tipped his hat to the scion in question. "Because I am."
***
Gaius Antonius was a striking figure, certainly, but the overly causal tone and swaggering confidence fit neatly into Constantine's internal picture of "mighty cultivator." Someone with such confidence and power that they felt no need to march by any tune but their own or obey any etiquette they found unneeded. It was certainly a striking first impression.
"Greetings." Sertorius curtly said while Fabia squealed over her autograph. Constantine himself, the 'junior' in question, was rather more taken aback. Should he be stoic? Attempt to ingratiate himself? The Legate didn't seem in the mood for frivolity, perhaps the best way not to irritate him would simply be getting down to business as quickly as possible. But what impression would that give Grandfather, would he catch on his grandson was eager to get away from him? He had to play things carefully.
"I'm as prepared as anyone can be." Constantine ended up settling upon, giving a practiced but not overenthusiastic grin. Ready to rumble, but not in a rush - that was the right balance.
"That's good to hear. I like people who take initiative." Gaius replied, before quickly turning to Grandfather. "The attendant in the carriage will do all the paperwork stuff. The wagons'll be here to pick up the payment soon too. You need anything else, or should we get started?"
"You'll find the house is as good as its word." Sertorius solemnly pledged, nodding toward an attendant of his own. In the background, hundreds of mortals worked to handle the logistics of the unusual payment - at this level, cultivator houses rarely exchanged anything so plebian as coin. "If you're rearing at the bit, Legate, I see no reason to hold you back." He continues, giving Gaius an evaluating stare. Sertorius Nikeodemos was a man with an enormously imposing presence, and although Constantine had seen him speak with peers before, he was still somewhat discomfited by both the lack of deference shown to him, and the way the Core Elder seeks no address for it.
"That's good." The King replied curtly. "I'm sorry, this ain't exactly the usual er, production that diplomacy like this would entail. But I'm… very, very busy lately."
In that moment, something appeared to be shared between the pair that was for them only. Sertorius' face softened for a moment, some sort of ambiguous tenderness swimming below the surface. Gaius, in turn, seemed to ground himself in that moment, becoming more stern and worldly. Before any more could be gleaned, that instant of non-verbal communication passed.
Clearing his throat, Gaius continued speaking. "If it's not any trouble, do you have someplace… sacred, we could work in? Doesn't gotta have high ambient qi or anything, but sentimental value is important."
Constantine's brow furrowed as he tried to think of a place that he 'sentimentally valued.' It was a surprisingly difficult decision - there wasn't really a good example he could think of. His … reading nook? Would that work? It didn't really fit the definition of sacred, though-
"The Mausoleum." Sertorius gruffly suggested, causing his grandson and granddaughter-in-law to perform a double-take at him. The Crypt? It … certainly fit the definition, but to let someone not even tangentially related into it was nearly sacrilegious more than anything! "Do you have a better idea?" He said with a raised eyebrow when noticing the shocked reactions of his relatives.
Constantine grappled with the concept for a moment before reluctantly shaking his head. In retrospect, he groused, he shouldn't have been surprised - grandfather was the man who ordered the graves defiled in order to arm his descendants in the first place, and the scion bore the arms, armor, and amulets of said decision into battle. Compared to that, what was letting someone as honored and trusted as a Legate into the Mausoleum for a short while?
In truth, his instinctive objection to the idea wasn't so much one of horror at the transgression, but that he found the concept of wandering into that den of horrors with a Single Pillar King one of the least enticing prospects he'd ever considered. Still, lacking an alternative …
"I suppose that would work," Constantine admitted, halting his uneasy shuffle with the skill of long practice. "If you believe it necessary, grandfather." He couldn't help but add.
***
"Now, I'm sure you're wondering why we're headed down here." The King explained, brushing a stray lock of hair out of his face. Faced with the musty, hot air of the Mausoleum, he had removed his hat. Now, every time Gaius turned his head, Constantine struggled to not stare at the eye in the middle of his forehead, forming a perfectly symmetrical triangle with his other eyes. "Well, it's to get you in the right kind of mindset. Making miracles is tricky work."
More than the low lighting or gloomy atmosphere, it was the silence of this ancient place that was the most unnerving, making each word said by either man feel all the more impactful. Each of them carried a torch, which served to make the descent the slightest bit more comfortable, even as the fire-light seemed to be swallowed after no more than ten feet. "You can talk too ya know. I'm here to help you, so we oughta get to know each other a little better in the meantime, right?"
"Your candor is appreciated," Constantine humbly replied, dividing his gaze between trying to avoid slipping on a stone smoothed by untold amounts of fellow travelers making the pilgrimage down the Mausoleum, and not letting the Legate out of the corner of his sight. "If you're looking for a room to set the atmosphere, then there's not many better than the Crypt of House Nikeodemos." There; that would suffice to test the waters, seeing how Gaius responded to a tad of levity. Was he someone who spoke easily while expecting reverence in return? Or was he trying to draw out Constantine's own nature at the same time he attempted to get a read on the man himself? He didn't seem to be taking this too seriously, but appearances could be deceiving. Constantine would know.
"It's not as impressive as the one we've sealed back in the Mountains, but over the years it's grown its own majesty." Constantine continued, taking a moment to duck under a low arch. They were circling down one of the central passages that allowed a grand view of the true scope of the tomb, and despite his own fraught emotions regarding the place, even he could admit the sight of the lines and lines of coffins entombed into the smooth stone walls of the Crypt spiraling down as far as the eyes could reach was… impactful.
"Majesty… you're not wrong." Gaius said, leaning over the staircase and looking down into the abyss it spiraled around. "Not many houses manage their own dead privately anymore. Thought they'd point us to a tranquil pond or the site of an old battle or something." He chuckled at that, though it sounded quite hollow.
Indeed, down here, the King's previously unflappable confidence had been… well, flapped. He seemed a bit deflated; disquieted, even, even as he tried to keep things light.
"No need to go all the way down; I don't wanna climb all those stairs." Gaius remarked, suddenly turning around to face Constantine directly. "Yeah, this spot's just fine. Needed the right ambiance, is all. A King ain't just a different sorta Cultivator, they're a new kind of impossible being. Each one is as different from all the others as they are from a normal Cultivator."
Now, explaining the nature of his path, Gaius Antonius seemed more serious than he had been at any point up until now. There was a conviction and humility behind his words that Constantine hadn't been sure Gaius had the capacity for. "Life is pain. It's struggle. That's how it's all built, ain't it?" Gaius went on, gesturing vaguely with his torch at the gloomy scene all around them. "The Thirteenth Heavenstage. The Single Pillar tribulation. It's painful - mentally, spiritually. You undo yourself, become a different person on the other end than you were goin' in. If it didn't hurt so much, it wouldn't be so worth doing."
He smiled now. Not an easygoing, carefree smile, but an enraptured grin. "It's the maximization of the way all people live. We break away at the shell of our old selves over and over. We chase our desires over and over. Always wanting more. Always Seeking more. We all rebirth ourselves - even miss Shining Hope, who thinks she's the exception." His eyes, already an oddly bright shade of blue, seemed to grow even more vibrant as he prosthelytized. "What sort of thing are you prepared to become, Young Master?"
Gaius had picked his stop seemingly at random, but thankfully there happened to be a little alcove for Constantine to tuck against, insulating him from the bone-chilling drafts of cool air that would occasionally drift up from the depths of the Crypt. At the Twelfth Heavenstage, Constantine's own flesh had warped into something altogether resistant to the travails of mortal men, but the cold of the Mortuary was not the ken of chills mere temperature. The Legate shared his audience of one with a deceased fellow by the name of "Caelus Blandius Lutherius," who had the unusual pleasure of a marble bust being added to his own tomb. Time had stripped the color from the once colorful, lifelike stature, and worn down its features into something that made the dead man's expression difficult to parse. He seemed … angry? Disappointed? It was best not to spend too much time wondering - if you stared long enough into the faded depictions of ancestors long dead, one could imagine their features warping into anything.
Compared to the ancient legionnaires' disgruntled features, Constantine was the picture of equanimity, nodding along to the Legate's speech with thoughtful attention. Beneath the surface, however, he was beginning to seriously wonder how far he'd get in a dead sprint before Gaius struck him down. Would he at least make it a full stride? Or would the man just obliterate him with an errant thought? When it became clear that he was expected to speak, he picked his words with the same ease one would tip-toeing through a minefield.
"I would like to … become … more? Then I am?" Constantine eventually ventured, a trickle of sweat running down his scalp. That's what all these people wanted, right? They hated who they were and would do anything to become something else, something 'greater.'
"It's a fine answer, if you mean it." Gaius replied with a shrug, letting some of the previous fervor fall away from his face. "What I intend here is to get you thinking. You don't gotta be at the destination now, so long as you know where you're headed and how to get there. And to do that…"
In the palm of his hand, Gaius formed an image out of golden light, then made it move, playing out his words as he spoke. "A puzzle. Let's say you're a mortal man. You can't control your qi and you never will. A noble lady comes to you and gives you a task."
The three inch tall woman in Gaius' palm opened up a door, showing what seemed like a sea of flowers. "This particular lady is the owner of the largest and most beautiful flower garden in the world. From the center, it stretches out ten miles in every direction. But soon, it'll all be ruined, because a hurricane is coming."
Suddenly, Gaius blew into his palm, scattering the tiny flowers everywhere, where they dissolved into motes of light. "In three days, the garden will be destroyed. 'You must help me.' Says the noble lady. 'You must preserve the beauty of this garden.' How do ya do it?"
With his problem posed, the Three-Eyed King immediately stopped speaking, taking several more steps down the stairs and then sitting down, facing away from Constantine. "Take your time."
The Nikeodemos scion remained very still for a few moments longer before it became clear Gaius was finished, before his shoulders slightly dipped as he allowed himself to unfreeze, if just a little. He didn't allow himself long to breath, however - the Legate's puzzle swiftly enraptured his mind, and Constantine swiftly began examining it from every angle for traps with the practice of a long-standing paranoiac.
The temptation to blurt out an answer momentarily grasps him and he barely chokes back something about finding enough seeds so that the garden can be replanted. There was no way the answer could be that simple, this was clearly some kind of lesson about power, or mortality, or even something more esoteric like beauty itself.
Constantine grasped back towards every interaction he'd had with Gaius, replaying each event and analyzing it for clues. What was this man? What did he value? For the first time ever, the scion cursed himself for tuning out Fabia whenever she started speaking - she'd be able to recite each and every occasion a Single Pillar King farted! Curse his hubris for not anticipating the need to prepare properly!
Soon, multiple beads of sweat joined the first as Constantine fervently thought, completely silent, his pose utterly unmoving. Only the faint twitching of his fingers revealed the frantic reasoning occurring behind the curtains - otherwise, he seemed as still as the statue of his long-dead ancestor.
Beauty! Beauty! That had to be it, that was the key word! Or - wait, could it be a red herring? Something to trip up those who spent too much time evaluating the individual meaning of words instead of the puzzle itself? It specifically mentioned that 'you' were a perfectly normal mortal, the answer had to involve that to at least some degree. Mortality, immortality, beauty - how did they all correlate? Where was the key!?!
The dead silence stretched on for a minute, then two, then several more, and yet Constantine neither spoke nor moved. Finally, the scion sat up, coming to a conclusion at last. With set features, he turned towards the sitting Gaius and prepared to give his answer.
"You got it figured out? That's good." Gaius said, standing up and taking a moment to crack his back. It popped a somewhat worrying number of times as he bent and twisted this way and that. "Guess they didn't build this place to be comfy. So, what've ya got for me?"
"I …" Constantine carefully enunciated, taking one last moment to scan the Legate's expression before committing. "... would grab as many of the seeds of the plants as possible, so the garden could be replanted after the hurricane departed." A line of sweat ran down his forehead, but the scion didn't dare react, intently focusing on Gaius's expression for any hint of what he might've gotten right or wrong.
Gaius thought on that for a moment, bringing his hand up to his chin and cupping it thoughtfully. It was a surprisingly erudite gesture, almost like a person admiring an abstract work of art. "Hmm, interesting. Practical. Workmanlike. Nothing wrong with that."
Suddenly, before he could process the movement, Gaius' finger was a few inches from Constantine's face, pointing right at his nose. "There's no perfect answer, but I want you to think about the one you came to and why. For reference, my answer was to paint a mural of the garden, to preserve the view." Just as fast, the hand in his face was now on his shoulder. "Have I got you thinkin' in the right rhythm yet?"
"I believe so, yes." Constantine unabashedly lied, schooling his accumulated willpower to avoid flinching away from the seemingly instantaneous movements with an extremely unmanly yelp. Beauty. That is the key. The scion's mind latched on to immediately, racing as he updated his read on the Legate. He's a man of the abstract, doesn't care for the details.
"Alright, good!" Gaius smiled; not exactly warmly, more like the way one might smile for a young child to reward good behavior. "Then let's get moving. This here tomb is actually perfect for the next exercise."
Continuing the descent and motioning for Constantine to follow, the King began looking around in earnest, checking for… something. There was a wistful air to the way his gaze brushed over each statue and coffin, but walking behind the man as he was, it was harder to make out much more.
As a few more minutes passed, Gaius tried to break the eerie silence a bit. "Now, if I'm taking you out of the zone you can stop me, but I've been wondering; what's your specialty? Heard you had a high Water affinity; that's rare around here. I'm no good with Water techniques myself."
"Mm?" Constantine started, having also fallen into a somber, distracted silence. "Oh, a specialty. I … suppose I focus on defensive measures." He eventually decided to share - it was hardly like he'd benefit from keeping anything a secret regarding techniques. "At the end of the day, wars are just a matter of who loses less at the end of the day, so I do my best to minimize the blood spilt on my part." The Nikeodemos scion explained as they passed a flat junction that still had some flicking candles lit at the foot of a tomb. Somebody had recently paid their respects to a departed family member, it seemed, or possibly gave obeisance to an ancestor longer departed.
It was a pithy little quote Constantine had picked up after some time to explain his battle habits, such as they were. A mean masking of his rank cowardice with the pretension of philosophy, but Gaius seemed like he might be the kind of character to bite.
"Huh, you've got talent and you're smart." Gaius remarked, actually looking genuinely impressed with Constantine for the first time. "I'm sure you've heard this one before: 'They say it takes a hundred years to master this strike, so I'll get to work on it right away! Once I've achieved it, I'll be supreme!' I know I have." He chuckled, stopping for a moment to open the door to a particular tomb, this one belonging to a trio of brothers who had famously held some siege or another.
"The rookies who said things like that, that's where they are now." Gaius smirked, pointing at one of the coffins. "Cuz' they thought they could win a war with a glass sword. I didn't learn any 'ultimate sure-kill finishing move' in my youth; I also focused on defense. Wanted to live a long life, ya see. I guess we have that in common."
Constantine kept his silence at first, hiding an uneasy twinge behind his practiced facade. Had he revealed too much with that statement? Or was the Legate merely making commentary? The idea that the man might've seen something of himself in the scion was … deeply unsettling, but it made a certain twisted sense. 'Beware old men in a profession where most die young,' went the saying, and for cultivators it was true many times over. Constantine had to watch his words, lest he give the Three-Eyed King any other insights into his actual character.
"I'm flattered, sir." He eventually replied, neutrally. "You can't do the Clan any good down here." He said with a practiced chuckle, waving vaguely at their gloomy surroundings.
"That one should do." Gaius muttered, suddenly striding into the tomb itself and walking up to the coffin on the left, which was empty. Presumably the body had been made use of recently, but who knew what 'recently' could mean, in the lifespan of such an ancient family? "C'mere, stand right here; we're doing another exercise." Gaius called out, beckoning Constantine over. His eyes, vivid as they were, did not literally glow in the dark, but from how they reflected the torchlight amongst those black shadows, you might think otherwise.
The Twelth Heavenstage initiate dutifully stepped forward. He had a few ideas about what kind of 'exercises' might involve standing before an empty coffin, but if Constantine started speculating on what exactly the Legate planned he'd be driven into a gibbering terror and flee down the winding, endless halls of this godsforsaken temple to death itself, so he declined to exercise that particular feat of creativity.
"In that coffin…" Gaius began, leaning over and looking inside as if something were there. "Is you - you died this morning, out of nowhere. Poison, maybe? I dunno. Sudden, shocking, tragic, call it what ya want, but you're dead. You're here to give your own eulogy."
Gaius sighed, shrugging his shoulders high as he walked around to the side of the coffin, leaving Constantine standing alone at the front. "Gloomy, right? I didn't come up with this one, but I reckon it'd provoke just about anyone's thoughts. So!" He clapped, as if to emphasize the assignment. Dead man, lookin' back on your life - how's that make you feel? What are you proud of? Ashamed of? What would you do different if you could? Let it all out."
The 'Young Master' stared at Gaius incredulously for several moments before it gradually occurred to him that the man was completely serious. Suppressing a resigned sigh, he turned to face the open casket, either awaiting an occupant or having been vacated of its intended one.
"Well." He began, taking a moment to seriously consider the question. "Here lies Constantine Nikeodemos, fourth child of Varus Nikeodemos, second son of Sertorius Nikedoemos. He reached the 12th Heavenstage of Qi Condensation before joining the ancestors beneath the soil, an unusual feat." The scion paused for a moment as he considered what else to add. What else would people care about?
Constantine had attended funerals before, and although he was not fond of digging up painful memories, with some reluctance he recalled the one he remembered best - that of his cousin, Sextus.
"He fought in campaigns for the glory of the Imperial Optomoi beyond the Mountains, protecting the innocent behind his shield, and slaying many barbarians during the Posion Crushing Shield." He obligingly recited the wars he had fought in and the 'deeds' he had accomplished, recalling the latter example with a short shudder. If Constantine ever had a choice in the matter, he'd sooner amputate his own legs and live in penury as a cripple than spend another moment with the Ninth Prince in the field, no matter how easy it was to embezzle money from him.
"Constantine's line is carried on by …" He took a moment to furrow his brow, trying to remember his children's names. "Cinnicatus, Sulla, Marius, Caecillia, and Camilla Nikeodemos." He manages to recite after a moment's concentration. "Born by his wife Fabia Serantapechos Nikeodemos." After another moment of making sure he hadn't forgotten anything, the scion nods in satisfaction and turns back up to face the Legate, satisfied he'd covered everything of importance.
Gaius drew his face up into an expression resembling a prolonged wince. "That's nice, I guess, but… you know…" he drummed his fingers on the lid of the coffin, leaning over it and closing his eyes.
"Is it really you that you're talking about, Constantine? It doesn't sound like you, it sounds like someone you read a book about." He looked up, glaring into the younger man's eyes. "Who am I really talking to?"
The scion in question frowns politely, even as his mind scrambles to figure out where he'd misstepped.
"What else do people care for after they're laid into the earth?" Constantine cooly answered with a slightly raised eyebrow, even as sweat beaded on his neck. "From whom you came from," he counted off his fingers, "what you accomplished, and who you left behind." It's that simple, isn't it? "Those are the things that matter." The foremost scion of House Nikeodemos reservedly insisted, folding his fists behind him in a parade-present stance (to disguise their trembling).
Gaius tilted his head, looking Constantine up and down with considerably more attention than he'd paid him up until now. "Okay. You're a difficult one, for sure." Without another word, he brushed past Constantine, bumping into him on his way out of the tomb, and walked out onto the outer edge of the staircase.
Gaius looked down, ignoring Constantine even as his junior followed him out. The tips of his boots outright tangled over the edge, and as he peered down into the pit, his long blonde locks dangled over the abyss like broken chains. "You know, I don't need to take the stairs. I've been takin' em for your benefit." He declared with a hint of veiled hostility. "That's the difference between you and me, Constantine, you need to walk. That's fine, though; most people's feet don't leave the ground - unless they're swimmin', I s'pose."
In the bleak silence that followed, Constantine couldn't be sure how much time passed; hopefully just a few seconds. In the worst-case scenario, perhaps he had stood there quietly for an entire minute. He tried to find the words to salvage this, only for the King to finally continue. "If you're okay with being a man who walks, go upstairs and live your life. If you actually wanna talk with me, go down."
With that, Gaius hopped off the edge with all the gravitas of a man bending down to pick up a coin. He left his torch behind, and by the time Constantine peered his head over the edge to follow the King's movement, he had already vanished into the black pit.
"... shit." The scion said as he realized where his 'tutor' would be landing.
***
Everyone wanted to be a King these days, as if it was some fad or fashion trend. Usually they gave up between the Tenth and Eleventh Heavenstages if they didn't have money, or at the Eleventh Heavenstage if they did. The truly wealthy or ambitious settled for the Twelfth Heavenstage and didn't set one foot toward the Thirteenth after seeing all they'd done to reach as far as they had gotten.
So why was this kid shooting past that, if he hardly knew what he was doing? He would just lose his mind, and cost the Clan a valuable resource along the way. If Gaius had his way, he would just sit Constantine down and pour his Dao Emanations into the Junior's brain so he could look around in there directly, but again, he'd been told that under no circumstances was he to risk breaking his mind.
Seeing the bottom of this awful crypt approaching, Gaius summoned a golden disk beneath his feet. It slowed down as it went, then came to a stop right at the bottom. Hopping off into the darkness, Gaius conjured a bright light on the end of his finger to bring his surroundings into focus.
The Seeker found himself taken aback when he realized that there was even more to this place. That underground column that dug into the earth like some inverted spire was not the full extent of the crypt, but led down to a separate installation entirely, which spread out around him in every direction.
They were houses, in a way; small buildings, connected to each other by some unfathomable design. It probably made sense on the blueprint, though it certainly didn't down here. Human skulls were shoved haphazardly into the brickwork with no real pattern, simply so that they could be put somewhere. Some gleamed more brightly than others, but most had at least a hint of the pseudo-metallic quality that marked them as belonging to Golden Devils.
Gaius walked carefully, reverently, his previous sense of detachment all but forgotten in this foul place, and looked inside one of the buildings. It was, strangely, almost like a barracks, in the sense that each wall had several alcoves stacked atop one another, many of which housed whole or partial skeletons. These, then, would be bodies of some importance, worth giving a bit more space. The King soon turned away from that room, however, thanks to the dark will that seemed to inhabit it.
Nothing in this place was malevolent or destructive. It was the opposite, really. The crumbling stone and marble, the iron rusted into red dust, it all felt strangely inviting. The seductive power of the Thanatos Urge grew tenfold in this place, so abominably quiet, begging the visitor to lie down with the other sleepers forever.
Gaius turned down a corridor, shining his light into it and half-expecting to see some monster, only to see an endless stretch of doors on either side as it went on forever. He didn't dare venture out of sight of the central column, but he got the idea - for all the dead up there, orders of magnitude more were down here. The clan was once far more numerous than they were today, both because they had claim to much of the mountains and because the greater density of the qi meant more mortals could cultivate. Had the Nikeodemos once cared for others' dead too? Or had they been far more prolific in the distant past? The qi down here was more stagnant than any Gaius had felt before; the dregs of a past so far back, it was hard to comprehend the span of time. Perhaps it really was just one family's dead; all the dead that remained from the Nikeodemos' entire history on this planet.
A million? More? Gaius had no desire to count them. This was a genuine city of corpses.
"How do you live with all of this under your house?" Gaius muttered, returning to the base of the stairs to sit cross-legged. He would wait a few hours; if Constantine didn't arrive within that time, he would leave. He'd have to return the payment to the Nikeodemos family for failing to do his job here, but he'd bug Georgos' into giving him some pittance for going out of his way when he already had more things to do than there was time to do them.
***
Constantine could be heard long before he could be seen, his footsteps clacking on the carved stairwell echoing down the underground passage, with the typical soothing rhythm of the human pace distorted by distance and the clammy atmosphere, although it was still a welcome distraction from the otherwise suffocating silence of the Catacombs.
After a while, the faintest flicker of torchlight could be glimpsed at the height of the vertical passage, and over the next half an hour, it slowly grew as the scion made steady progress downwards. It had likely been some time since the walls of the Catacombs were graced by mundane light - there were no faded incense candles, mussed dust, or any otherwise traces of humanity to be found in its twisting, claustrophobic tunnels. It seemed the members of House Nikeodemos preferred to leave their most ancient ancestors undisturbed, whether out of their esoteric spiritual beliefs, or the simple fact that it was a great deal of time and effort to visit a place so daunting to the soul. As opposed to the awful clarity of Gaius's own light, Constantine's flickering torch felt perfectly at home in the haunting corridors of the Catacombs, its amber radiance casting long shadows, and in the hollow sockets of the numberless skulls that maintained an eternal vigil over their disturbed resting place, one could find themselves lost forever in this… ineffable realm of the dead.
"Hell of a place, isn't it?" Constantine finally spoke, his expression unreadable. As opposed to the highly-strung politeness that he'd borne since laying sight on the Legate, the location seemed to have brought out a calmer, more resigned mantle for the man that rested strangely upon his handsome features.
"You can say that again." Gaius remarked, getting up and planting his hands on his hips as he looked Constantine up and down. "I'd reckon the Elders don't really grasp what you've got down here. If someone were to crack this place open… well, let's hope it never comes to that."
"You would be surprised." The scion cryptically remarked, taking a moment to examine the surroundings as if to reassure himself that naught had been disturbed. "The dead do not lie easily, down here. It is good that you did not wander." The Catacombs certainly mark a striking difference from the almost obsessively preserved upper levels of the Crypt, where the care that went into preserving the fallen was clearly visible even thousands of years after anyone who'd known them was gone. Here, the numberless dead lay exposed in crude tombs, or simply have had their bones scattered in this vast underground necropolis, likely all that the desperate efforts that House Nikeodemos mustered during the exodus to the Desert could manage.
Gaius took a moment to brush stray locks of hair out of his face, swiftly oozing back into the mold of 'inscrutable wise man' before he spoke any further. "You came down here, which must mean you've got at least a little bit of nerve in you. So, how about we start over?" Pointing at a patch of relatively clean-looking floor, the King wordlessly commanded Constantine to sit.
The scion silently declined the invitation, regarding the Legate mercurially. "I'm afraid I'll have to make an apology, sir." He said, a bitter twist to his lips. "For wasting your time. Grandfather's not the type to demand refunds, you can tell him whatever you like."
Gaius narrowed his eyes in confusion. Between this hidden horror and the shift in Constantine's demeanor, it was clear that however much of this whole production had been planned out it was now wildly derailed. "Has the air down here sapped your nerve, or were you never takin' this seriously to begin with?" He asked, cautiously probing his junior.
After letting the question hang unanswered for a moment, Gaius conceded, seeming to shrug off Constantine's defiance. The King walked a short distance to the nearest of those small tombs, leaning on the doorway and gazing pensively at the skeletons. "I guess you don't wanna lie in front of these guys. But in that case, why come down at all?"
Constantine gritted his teeth as it became clear the Legate wasn't going anywhere. It had been a long day, and he had frankly hoped never to have to see this place ever again - one visit to the Catacombs was quite enough for any man to have his fill, especially as a child.
"Then allow me to explain myself." Constantine said curtly, a lifetime's worth of frustration finding an outlet at long last. He brushed past Gaius brusquely, the careful deference he'd shown at every moment thus far collapsing into something more rude and true.
There was a simple coffin laid in the center of a cramped room, and as the scion methodically lit the candles awkwardly arrayed at shoulder height, it revealed the fate of what must have been the Cultivator's retinue, their bones haphazardly scattered through various notches in the wall, or having simply collapsed to the floor. Constantine paid them no heed, even when a careless step resulted in a sickening crunch. He leant over the coffin itself to observe the plaque inscribed on it, but even the seemingly eternal construction of Cultivators could not withstand the march of time forever - parts of the script were sadly illegible, and the language itself not of the Turtle Sea.
"Would ya mind reading that for me?" Gaius asked, looking at the plaque quizzically - Constantine noted that this was the first time he'd heard the slightest bit of humility in the man's voice. "Never learned the old tongue. Axia, the missus, she keeps tellin' me I oughta, but I haven't gotten 'round to it."
"You're not missing out on much," Constantine mutters, blowing a film of dust off the plaque. "What use is a dead language?" The question was rhetorical, but revealing nonetheless.
"My father took me down here, once, when I was a growing boy." The scion said, standing on the opposite side of the coffin as Gaius and speaking over it. "I was having trouble with my studies, see, and he believed that a glimpse into the Clan's past would properly motivate me. So we walked all the way down the Mausoleum until we finally arrived here - the Catacombs, where we'd laid to rest the dead that could be evacuated from our lost home in the Mountains, alongside all those that had died bringing them to safety." The last line was delivered with a chuckle, as if Constantine had just delivered a humorous one-liner.
"'Here,' he said. 'Lie your ancestors, boy! The honored dead of time immemorial, forced to be stacked up like cordwood!'" The scion raised his hands in the air as he narrated his father's deep, booming voice. "The injustice, you see, was supposed to enrage me." He explained, dropping his hands back to his sides. "I was mostly just cold and scared, so my father decided I needed a little more encouragement, and tucked me into a little tomb just like this one. So I could see our grand legacy for myself."
He leans over the coffin once more and translates the inscription. "Here lies Varus Faustus Nikeodemos, firstborn son of Tullus Quincius Nikeodemos, seventh son of Preator Markus Egnatius Nikeodemos. He reached the First Severing level of Spirit-Severing cultivation before giving his life in service to the Legion, a modest but respectable accomplishment." Abruptly, Constantine seized the edge of the coffin, and with a huff of exertion, slid it to the side, revealing its interred occupant.
An unadorned skeleton looked back, whatever vestments it'd been buried with having long since rotted away. It was almost impossible to believe that the bones looking no different than the ones scattered on the floor had once been a cultivator of greater strength than a Nascent Soul, but if one concentrated on its long-since guttered out Qi, they could feer flickers of the ancient power that Varus must once have commanded.
Gaius leaned over the coffin, providing more light with which to view the occupant. The bones, as far as one could tell, held only faint traces of the Bronze. "I didn't even know the Bronze could degrade with time. How old is this guy?" he muttered, reflexively bringing one hand to his mouth. "Is this why I'm here, then? Because all these old bones are making you shoot for the moon?"
The King backed up a few steps, taking all of this in and marveling at the sheer scope of it all. "Mm, this kind of pressure, I can see how a gifted child would throw his life away. It's nothin' but a curse, and you…"
He turned to look into Constantine's eyes again. Immediately, the scion felt the queer sensation of an invading force pressing up against the edges of his consciousness. It wasn't a physical sensation exactly, more like the mind itself curling up reflexively, as it might against the sight of a grisly wound. "You're in hell. You never left this place, even though the stairs are right there."
"At the very beginning of this little endeavor of ours, you asked me what I wanted to 'become.' What I was getting out of all of this." Constantine continued, pulling himself up straight. "I responded, as I've before, that I wanted to become 'more than I was.' And like every time before, it was a flagrant lie." He suddenly snorted. "You don't become 'more' of yourself by cultivating. You become less." Constantine declared with a sharp gesture of his arm. "Every day you sacrifice something of yourself, and the further you go, the more you have to flay." He fell silent and glared at the Legate, his face twisting into a sneering scowl - the first honest expression Constantine had ever given a superior in decades.
"You think I want to reach the Thirteenth Heavenstage?" He suddenly demands, his voice rising and a maniac passion lighting his formerly carefully dull eyes. "You think I wanted to reach the Twelfth? Or the First?"
"I think you want lots of things, but I think you also hate fear, and loss, and pain." Gaius interjected. "And I also think you're going to die if you don't wise up and be honest."
"We all fucking die, Legate!" Constantine shouted, flinging his arms into the air. "Some of us just delay it longer than others." He turned back to face the corpse that had such an impact upon him as a child. "This man, right here, has reached such grand heights the two of us can hardly even imagine, let alone understand, and it was considered a modest effort! Behold, the efficacy of his efforts!" The Catacombs did not echo the scion's words as the upper passages might've. Rather, their clustered tunnels swallowed the sound, leaving naught but aching silence behind.
"... This is where we all end up." Constantine bitterly concludes. "No matter how far or grand you reach, if you're lucky you'll get a nice tomb beneath the cold earth. More likely, your bones will be swallowed by these hateful sands we've made our homely exile in, or carved up by those seeking to follow your example and stave off their own demise." His passions tamed, the scion looked to the side in indifference.
"Why even bother? The only thing that fucking matters, Legate, is what you do while breath stirs in your chest and blood flows through your veins. And ever since birth, that has been written out for me." Constantine said, raising a hand in the air. His healthy bronze tone could be clearly glimpsed even in the low light of the flickering candles, the pride and joy of House Nikeodemos - the strength of their 'Blessing' of Bronze.
Gaius' expression grew strange in that moment - first sad, then proud, then a grin of near-feral glee that split his face in half like a wound from an axe. "That's it. That's the way to do it. I can feel it…"
Gaius was in front of him, then he wasn't. A large hand rested on the top of Constantine's head with the fingers splayed out. A quiet, ecstatic voice spoke in his ear, almost whispering. "In this moment, you've done decades of work; I can see it clearly. The fact that you can't proves you're not cut out to be a King. But that's fine."
Constantine whirled around instinctively, stumbling back a few steps, and Gaius let him. He was manic, eyes unfocused, and yet Constantine couldn't help but note that his manner of speech had become more theatrical, his dialect less crude. "I couldn't agree more, Constantine Nikeodemos; all that matters is this moment, this flash of time in which we're alive. You have to grab onto life. Tear at it in big fistfuls and shove it into your mouth until you burst! That's how real men live!"
Gaius' voice grew louder until he was almost screaming, clenched hands reaching into the air as if to pull down the sky - and then just as fast, he began to calm down. "If you can't be honest and live for your desires, you'll never get out of hell! Settle for the Twelfth Heavenstage and focus; you'll be ready sooner than you think."
Constantine initially stares at Gaius in shock, but the longer the man spoke, another emotion rose to take its place.
Rage.
"You … you wretch. Is that what you think you're doing? LIVING!?!" Constantine screamed, his face now burning an unmistakable red. "You have the temerity to claim I'm living in some - some self-inflicted Hell!" He spat, glaring at the Legate in genuine fury. "Look at yourself!" He exclaims, balling his trembling fists - this time with fury instead of terror. "You've flayed your very soul in some delusional search for perfection - each and every one of you! Can you even recognize your appearance in a mirror, or have you murdered whatever remained of 'Gaius' a hundred times over by now! You think I should settle for something lesser?!?"
"At least I can see this farce for what it is." He drawled, crossing his arms. "We're all stuck between Scylla and Charybdis! Forced to embrace this madness and burn our own selves on the altar of power, of cultivation, lest we all find ourselves under the boots of the sadistic maniacs who will! How could you describe this existence other than some kind of Hell?" Constantine defiantly declared, the words coming out of him with the stinging satisfaction of ripping off a bandage that'd overstayed its welcome. "If I'd any choice in the matter I'd have walked off to start a villa and live for once in my life, but no! We're marked for death, each and every one of us! Doomed to this eternal, pointless war against the Heavens themselves, from which there can be no succor or desertion." The scion swore, leaning a hand against the coffin as his enraged passion began to gutter out in place of a more familiar embittered apathy.
Rather than put off by that tirade, the King seemed overjoyed, enraptured that Constantine was finally speaking his mind. "That's it, don't stop thinking about it! There's no such thing as bad progress when contemplating one's inner nature." Gaius said, nodding encouragingly. "The Great Dao envelops everything; even anger at the state of the world is recuperated back into the whole. You're right; I've been reborn a hundred times, and I'll be reborn a million times more before my time is up. You've been reborn today as well, and your tribulation will be another rebirth."
Finally walking out of the tomb and making for the stairs, Gaius turned back to look upon the macabre sight of that hidden necropolis one more time. He spoke with assurance and confidence born from centuries of willing devotion to his Dao. "Tell your family whatever you need to tell them; stick with them or don't, strive for a peaceful life or don't; either way, you oughta live more authentically. If you can't tell the truth to them, then tell it to yourself every day so you don't forget. Don't be a King; ya can't do it, almost no one can." Gaius seemed to shift once more before Constantine's eyes, his posture relaxing and the inflection of his voice once more returning to the easygoing candor with which he'd expressed himself before. "Now; you comin', or do you wanna enjoy this ambiance a little more?"
The scion regarded Gaius with resigned frustration, before shaking his head. He paused, taking a moment to slide the coffin closed one more, before stepping out to join the Legate next to the staircase. It was a poor habit to leave open graves behind you, especially in a place where the veil of mortality was as horribly thin as the Catacombs.
"I believe this has gone on for long enough, yes." Constantine curtly replied, recomposing himself with remarkable skill. He stopped, examining the Legate with something other than caution and muted judgment for the first since they'd met. "... I'll take your advice regarding my House into account." He said somewhat stiffly, uncertain as to what grounds he stood on with the man anymore.
***
The return trip was uneventful, and the King seemed entirely unbothered by the way he'd been mouthed off to earlier. If anything, there was more warmth to his casual small talk on the way up than there had been on the way down. Upon returning to the Nikeodemos estate proper, the two were greeted by relatives who looked a good deal more nervous than they had a few hours ago, but Gaius assured them that no problems had occurred.
When asked what exactly had transpired, the two of them gave vague but positive answers which soon quieted the questions, and Gaius made clear that, in the short term, he had already done all he could. Constantine, he said, had broken through his mental blocks in short order, and was much closer to being ready for his tribulation. All off that was true, technically or otherwise, but he pointedly left out anything that might cause a confrontation on the spot.
None of that sort of diplomacy was out of the ordinary to Constantine - it was all polite and businesslike, even if the business being done was a bit odd. The strange part was when a young girl, no older than six, tore down the hall and jumped into the King's arms with quite an impressive vertical leap for her age. "Papa, I was scared!" she said, pinching Gaius' cheeks as if disciplining him. "The other kids said there's ghosts under the house, why'd you have to go down there?"
"They were fibbin', Aletheia." The King gently cooed, kissing the little girl on the top of her head and gently setting her down. "There were no ghosts; at least, I didn't see any. We were totally fine, right, Constantine?" He turned to look at the scion and his daughter did the same, and Constantine found that, to his dismay, Aletheia had the same sort of 'you're a frog on a table and I'm studying your insides' stare that her father did.
"It was as smooth as butter." He said with a charming smile. "Not a single ghost in sight." Certainly speaking, the scion has emerged from the depths acting no differently than when he had descended.
Gaius patted Aletheia on the head and smiled gently. "Exactly. Now, go get in the carriage, we're leaving soon." As the girl scampered off, he turned back to Constantine, sighing fondly. "Sorry 'bout that, the little mouse must've hitched a ride on one of the carts after I took off. Kids, eh?" He explained, capping it off with a shrug. It was quite a sight to see - a Single Pillar King being so sweet toward a child.
"You know…" Gaius continued before Constantine could add anything edgewise. He furrowed his brows in contemplation, and Constantine found himself wondering what devilish ideas his mad brain was cooking up. "Why don't you fellas let Aletheia come over from time to time? Our estates ain't too far apart, and the girl's gotta get out more. Doesn't that sound wonderful?"
"That would … be acceptable." The scion replied, taken somewhat aback. It felt like a very incongruous suggestion for the unstable Legate to make - he hadn't taken the man for someone capable of playing the game of dynastic politics. Asking for such a thing in addition to the payment already rendered was perhaps a little unseemly, yet if Antonius desired to draw closer to House Nikeodemos, far be it from him to stand in the way. "I'm sure my own children will be glad." He added as an afterthought, given that Gaius seemed to enjoy a personalist atmosphere. Constantine hadn't actually checked on them to see if they'd enjoyed spending time with the Legate's daughter, but they were raised well and would do their duty regardless.
Nothing much of consequence happened after that; Gaius simply went on his way, content with the work he had done. As the farewells came to an end and his carriage vanished into the distance, shrinking down to a dot before the red glow of the setting sun, Constantine waited several minutes after it had left eyesight before finally letting his shoulders slump in exhaustion.
"Sweet Mercy, he's even crazier than the Ninth Prince." The scion muttered, running a hand through his hair. After a moment to collect himself, Constantine pasted a fresh smile on his face before returning to the Nikeodemos estate. If taking on the Thirteenth Heavenstage drove you that batshit he'd sooner entrust himself to the nonexistent graces of their 5th Sea tormentors than 'being reborn,' so it seemed his next task would be having a difficult conversation with his grandfather. His family would just have to cope with not raising a Single Pillar King somehow - it was past time Constantine put his foot down.
"So, how did it go?" Fabia asked, having been dutifully watching the children while her husband spoke with the Legate. Judging by her warm smile and the autograph still held close to her chest, his spouse had gotten more out of the event than Constantine had. Pausing, he weighed for a moment how to encapsulate his thoughts on the matter.
"Impressive fellow, clearly very intelligent, gave me some excellent advice." He succinctly summarized with a deliberate nod, every bit the Imperial patrician in training, before concluding with a deeply uncharacteristic display of frank honesty. "With any luck, I will never have to speak with him again."
***
no.: And that's that for that collab. I mentioned to @Tautological_Templar that if he could write another seven thousand words, he'd be able to ascend at the end of turn 16 without getting another tribulation treasure, and that if he wanted, we could try and just bang out a 14k word collab. Since the practical purpose of the collab was to get the character ready for a tribulation, we thought it would be funny if that was what was happening in the story itself. We didn't quite get to 14k in the ended, but as it stands now, he's just gotta write another thousand words or so on his own after this and he'll be good to go.
Gaius and Constantine ended up bouncing off each other in intriguing ways. In a sense, they actually do have similar personalities and beliefs, but they take those beliefs in opposite directions from one another. Expanding on the lore of the Nikeodemos family mausoleum, and the secret necropolis dungeon thingy underneath the mausoleum that the Elders don't know about, was also really fun to do.
Templar: It was a pleasure to get back into writing for Good Seed, and I'm pleased we were able to revisit a particularly inspired setpiece for our pair of misanthropes to declare their respective interpretations of Epicurian philosophy.
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Constantine Nikeodemos & Gaius Antonius - A Hell of Your Own Making(Collab Link)
Even now, the blood rain continues to scar the land.
It has only been scarce years since it fell and since great change has rocked the land. Three Nascent Souls, Grand Elders who could slaughter nations on their evening stroll, had fallen to the path of temptation and slaughter, and they were hardly the only ones. The Ma Clan had fallen, returning to its former Ma Empire self, and the Maze grew perilously. The Sorrowful Blacksmiths and the Yuan Clan were each rocked by rebellion, the second of the Blacksmiths' Nascent Souls falling fully to corruption and consumption. What should have been the inevitable victory of those aligned to Heaven continued to be such, but now the road there was paved with immeasurably more bloodshed, bloodhunger, and bloodlust.
But such calamitous events are too grand for simple men, whose lives will be little affected. They will continue to live each day as it comes, fearing slaughter at the hands of those more powerful than them, and nothing will change but the likelihood of their demise. In this regard, the static nature of existence is almost a comfort. Their lives have not changed much, despite how much has changed.
The same was true for many Cultivators, who by their nature are taller poppies than the rest amongst their field, and are so more susceptible to the winds of destiny. And the man named Jingshen Bei Wulong considered himself as one amongst these many Cultivators, a fact that would have galled him decades ago and stung even as few as ten years ago, but now was almost a form of comfort.
The world was cruel, and it revelled in that cruelty under the guise of many names like 'Justice' and 'Heavenly Will', but it was also too vast to really concern him, most of the time. The fall of the Jingshen Clan and their exile from the Desert and past the Mountains would be the sort of defining memory that would change its survivors forever, but he was not a child of the Core Clan. He was Jingshen Bei, the most martial of those Spirit Stone Clans, and he was never going to stand at the forefront of the Jingshen Clan either way. A fourth son, a whoreson, talent meant nothing in a Clan ruled by bloodlines.
So in that regard, having the freedom to rule his destiny and the protection of ineffectual obscurity was a rare fortuitous occasion, worth celebrating. Which he did little of, for it is frivolous, but which his family often did.
Yes, indeed, the surviving Jingshen Bei of his family had celebrated indeed only a few years ago, when he had returned from the Yuan Contest alongside his nephew, Tai Lung. Tai Lung had proven himself worthy of Heaven's attention and been recognised as one of the Favoured, a true prodigy who had risen to the Eleventh Heavenstage in only a handful of years. They had celebrated Tai Lung's grand achievements and hailed him as the one who would return them to glory and wealth, and Tai Lung had revelled in the accolades he was showered in. And Wulong had given him many accolades as well, for the young man had deserved it. His nephew truly was a genius, all but unmatched in the history of the Clan. Indeed, he had finally met someone who surpassed him as an Archer and who would surely reach the Twelfth in a matter of years, at most a decade.
But yet, Wulong could not forget how unsettled he had felt as he saw Tai Lung feasting on the still-beating heart of a Spirit Beast atop a mountain peak. He could not unhear the zeal that now permeated each of Tai Lung's words, the unshakable faith in Heaven and its righteousness, regardless of how it would impact those around him. Consequences, Wulong had feared, were now beneath Tai Lung. As long as he stood in Heaven's favour, he would suffer none of them.
And he was probably right.
Still, though, that unsettlement had given Wulong much to consider, much to consult his own beliefs. He ruminated deeply upon his own path, and reached the capstone that he had spent his entire life up to that point pondering. Indeed, he reached new insight only a few years ago, when he went to the base of Turtlebone Mountain and faced Heaven's rite.
He had succeeded. The lightning had fallen and it threatened to sear his flesh from his bones, but he had succeeded. Tribulation was difficult, but that challenge had tempered him and given him power to match and grow his insight. Now, in his dantian, a single Pillar of [Resolution] thrummed, and he knew this was the path he would continue to walk, as he did so before.
In the end, it was not the intent that mattered, but the results. And those results had consequences, even if it was all to easy to ignore them, right until that was no longer possible.
That had triggered a second round of celebration, frivolous as it was, for now the Jingshen Bei had to their name a Cultivator in Foundation Establishment again. It was but a step, and they had still fallen far from their former heights. They as a Clan would not truly be considered even partially renewed until a Core Elder stood at their head. But it was a step in the right direction, and there was every confidence that Wulong would be the first to enter Core Formation of their new generation.
Even if there were those who still spoke disdainfully of the fourth whoreson behind his back.
It was a transient concern, though. Not worth bothering over. In the end, it was the results that mattered, and Wulong had been delivering results. This gave him great latitude just as the wealth of the Spirit Mine did, and with Tai Lung around he could now safely entrust the Jingshen Bei's future to him and continue on his own journey.
And the next leg of this journey would be towards the lands of the Divine Tunists, recently inducted into the Blood Defiance Pact by the hearty appeals of six Nascent Souls. While some would complain about such uncouth diplomacy, others - like him - were more than happy to take advantage of this consolidation. It meant that travel was relatively eased, for one. And it let him more easily pursue leads that he had allow to run cold for the sake of his family, decades before.
And it was a crucial lead, for it concerned the origins of the Hourglass Quiver.
A most curious Treasure, it measured time for Wulong, allowing him to loosen arrows from the Clear Compass Bow as he liked, without having to carefully measure time as was necessary. With it, where it previously took extensive preparation to unleash a hundred arrows at once, now it was almost trivial. A crutch, some would even say, though Wulong would instead call it a footstool; after all, it allowed him to rise all the higher, instead of simply allowing others to match him without investing the same amount of effort.
But the origins of the Hourglass Quiver were little known, and Wulong sorely wanted to know how it functioned. The mechanisms of both the Quiver and the Bow were unknown to him, which vexed him greatly. Wulong took great pride in his ability to craft new arrows from the materials around him, giving him a grand variety of payloads with which to hunt his prey, but arrows were only half of the arsenal of the Archer. The Bow was equally important, and the Quiver that carried those arrows could not be neglected either. If he could not understand the Bow or the Quiver, he could improve upon neither, and his mastery of bowshot and arrow flight would forever be hamstrung.
The crafters of the Clear Compass Bow are known to him, and this knowledge was all the more frustrating for it. No less than Jingshen Bei himself made the Clear Compass Bow, and shamefully the knowledge behind its construction have been lost forever, even before they were ousted from the desert. If Wulong wanted to understand it, he would have to do so on his own, slowly, painfully, and expensively.
The Hourglass Quiver, however, was less enigmatic. Its original creators are long dead, of course, but it was rumoured to have been created by Elders of the Divine Tunists, who had been commissioned by a later grandson of Jingshen Bei to further enhance the Clear Compass Bow. Most intriguingly, as part of creating the Hourglass Quiver, the Clear Compass Bow was studied by those Elders as well. If Wulong could find even some of those notes on its creation, he would be able to understand the nature of the Hourglass Quiver and the Clear Compass Bow both.
At the very least, he could learn something about the Quiver he wore around his waist.
Such it was, this pressing need, that Wulong found himself travelling alone to the Verdant South, into the lands of the Divine Tunist Sect.
And draw the eye of one who would have ruled lands not far north of him, were it not for the Maze. One who, so driven by envy, would surrender himself to consumption. To transformation. To power, crimson red.
It would redefine one of their lives. Not Jingshen Bei Wulong.
----
At first, nothing. Wulong walked, hearing naught but the chirping trees and smelling nothing but droppings and other natural scents. It was a normal forest trail, like any other. There was no apparent threat to his self.
Then, he spun about, drawing the Clear Compass Bow out from around his body so quickly it seemed to leap into his hands, and let loose an arrow in a certain peculiar direction. The arrow detonated not two arms lengths from him, disappearing in a blinding flash.
Not once did his hand paw at the Hourglass Quiver, nor did his fingers pull at the bowstring. If he had truly moved, it was with speed beyond speed, in excess of what a mere Foundation Expert should be capable of.
When the light died seconds later, Wulong was gone. Vanished amongst the woods.
----
And the one who watched from afar, the one who hefted an ironwood bow as tall as his seven-foot self with a bowstring like a noose, who had long arms and a broad chest that each bulged with muscle and large grey eyes as depthless as cloudy stormclouds, blinked them as he briefly wondered how and what had just happened.
His surprise was brief, and he lurched to reposition himself on instinct. Half a breath later, three arrows, each tipped with a gruesome toxin that came from the gullet of a local tree frog, tore through where his body should have been.
The Hunter, once heir to the Thousand Arrows and Flowers Sect and now seen as a monster for the 'crime' of seeking the power that was his birthright, who indulged in the power of Blood and Consumption, allowed himself to grin as he prepared to take his next shot.
This prey of his was not like most. This prey of his was an Archer. A very, very good Archer.
Finally, a challenge.
This would be a most suitable Hunt.
----
It was a slight thing. Unexpected, but not unanticipated. Wulong had known that the borders of the Divine Tunists had been experiencing raids and banditry by Blood Path rebels, looking to score any kind of Qi and Treasure now that they would never be able to follow the Righteous Path ever again. Too cowardly to take their own lives, they would now predate upon all the rest.
But getting shot at by arrows is a new one. And these arrows were certainly new. They consumed blood, transmitting it to some unknown point. At least, that's what Wulong suspected. He had only seen the arrow, not taken it for a more detailed inspection. It was long, more like a short spear than an arrow, so it had to have been fired from a truly monstrous bow. And its head was a corkscrew, designed to drill into and bite deeply into flesh, rock, soil or stone. He would not dare touch it, nor return to that forest trail and risk exposing himself. But it only made too much sense.
A follow up shot would confirm his suspicions. If he could get that one, now that he were in more concealed cover, it may be worth a more destructive discovery. If he could determine the blood's transmission vector, it would be another way to triangulate the shooter's - no, the Hunter's position.
He could already guess at the broad strokes. The angle of the arrow's fall implied he was far away. Unreasonably far away. Fifty li? Eighty li? A hundred? All stood in the realm of possibility. There was certainly something inhuman about such range. It would not be possible without a truly monstrous bow, or a truly powerful treasure.
Wulong's hand was clenched around the Clear Compass Bow. He ran a finger along it, feeling every groove as he stood perched upon a tree branch. He had fired a return shot as quickly he could, at each of the potential positions he guessed at. There was a Viridescent Arrow Frog on this tree, and he had coated three arrowheads with its entrails. Its poison could kill a man's heart in three hours and melted their bodies in three hours. Not the most potent poison, but if he had hit, his opponent would be flagging. He would be returning fire haphazardly.
The return fire he received was perfectly precise and perfectly aimed, despite being all but blind fired. Wulong dodged it, but realised the Hunter he faced was able to triangulate rough positional data through guesswork as well, just like him. Feeling the destination with sheer experience, being able to shoot without sight and range without accuracy.
What a frightfully skilled Hunter. Wulong had long guessed he would meet someone else capable of this. He never thought he would find someone capable of it below Core Formation.
Then, there was the slightest rustle in the leaves. It was almost the wind, but not quite. Too small, too localised. Wulong slipped off the tree branch and into gravity's embrace, and as he fell he looked up, bow held up but no arrow nocked.
A massive swallow the size of a house cat dived through the canopy, a massive shortspear gouged through its back. It was yet another of those arrows, but instead of drinking the blood of the beast, it drove it with commands instead. Wulong could even smell the Blood Qi curdling within it, growing wilder and angrier.
He shot it as he fell, an instantaneous arrow fired with his mind, not with a bowstring. The Hourglass Quiver hummed and unleashed one of his stockpiled arsenal. It struck the swallow and the thing died in a bloody sphere, detonating like a bomb.
Wulong kicked off the trunk of the tree and quickly repositioned onto another tree. He caught its branch and swung himself upwards as silently as he could, landing near the canopy. Another arrow soon struck where his hand had caught the tree branch, and the entire branch and all its leaves fell. What frightful accuracy. He had correctly guessed where he would move after the sound struck the tree.
But he was not the only one. Wulong raised the Clear Compass Bow and unleashed a dozen arrows, all sent towards the Hunter's position with different vectors. Dodging was eminently possible, Wulong knew that, but there was only one direction to evade into. When he did, Wulong drew the thirteenth arrow and let it loose there.
One cannot manoeuvre in mid air. Not in Foundation Establishment. And if Wulong were fighting a Core right now, he would already be dead.
But the Hunter survived it without a scratch. Wulong could only guess how, though it may have been done with a shield, or a massive weapon. It swept around, throwing up leaves, and knocked back all the arrows. The thirteenth arrow was not knocked aside. It simply did not connect. He had shot it with the expectation that it would land a hit, and yet it had not. The Hunter had seen through his scheme and countered it wonderfully.
It was certainly impressive. But still, Wulong felt vexed. This would delay his journey further.
----
This battle would continue, hour in and hour out, day in and day out. They would continually test at each other's abilities, exchanging blows one arrow at a time. Some would be in the form of rain, though Wulong loathed wasting his quiver's reserves this way. Others would be in the form of possessed spirit beasts, which the Hunter manipulated expertly. They came for him, one after another. Snakes, wolves, boars, elk, they all were sent at him. Spirit Beasts that were not so easy to put down. And if Wulong did not put them down, their eyes could track him, and the Hunter could shoot him.
He had to husband his spiritual payloads to dispatch those threats, which left him mundane arrows to exchange with the Hunter. Only tipped with Spirit Steel and shafted with Spirit Wood, nothing particularly impressive, Wulong knew that the only way he could possibly deal with the Hunter was a shot through the head, or the heart. And for that, he needed perfectly unerring accuracy.
The Hunter was certainly a capable marksman, and certainly canny as well. They were capable of all kinds of miraculous shots, the kinds that matched or, he daresay, exceeded the ones that won Wulong praise at the Fearless Line by Elder Leafsplitter of the Broken Arrow Bandits. This enemy could even be said to surpass him in all ways, not merely in marksmanship. And yet, he insisted on doing so at range, the only arena that Wulong could keep up with him. Someone in Foundation Establishment, had they closed the distance, would likely be able to lay low the One-Pillar Wulong, who was still new to the Great Realm.
But there was something missing in those arrow shots. Wulong could praise the acts, but he could not praise the one who performed them. Even looking past their nature as a Blood Path monster - for a normal bandit would not skewer animals and use them as suicide bombers if they could simply consume their beast cores instead - there was something empty about the way they shot their arrows. It was an ineffable lack which Wulong could not yet explain, lacking the right insight to do so. But it meant that Wulong could not accept them as an archer.
They continued their duel amidst the trees for three days, punching gouges and scars into the forests around them. Were one to inspect the aftermath, they would see two separate clearings in the forest and almost no disruption between them. They would assume that the damage to these two parts was unrelated, for they would be separated by almost a hundred li. But such was the nature of the duel between the Hunter and the Young Silver Archer.
----
But on the third day, Wulong discovered a curious insight. No, rather, he understood what the ineffable lack was.
He discovered that the Hunter was trying to escape.
His arrows were becoming more flippant. Suicide vehicles were becoming more common. By the end of the second day they had been so sloppily made that Wulong could now salvage them for reagents and components for his own craftable payloads, whereas before they would have detonated with nothing left over but poison and death. His shots were still unerringly accurate when he made them, but the Hunter was no longer trying to ensnare him in a trap of arrow shots. He was simply trying to pin him down with enslaved animals, before drinking deep with those sipon-arrows.
By now Wulong had confirmed the nature of those arrows, and he had also confirmed that reading them to devise their origin point was foolhardy. It was one of the first things the Hunter had done, and besides, those arrows were crafted from untoward materials he would prefer not to touch. But the arrows the Hunter did shoot were not the fearsome things he had faced before.
The Hunter was trying to cut his losses and escape, now that this duel was no longer profitable for him.
On some level, Wulong understood. He himself was running low on Qi and had to dip into his Spirit Stone supplies. Even for his archery, which was startlingly Qi efficient, and even bearing a body with Purified Qi, Wulong was running himself ragged. But that the Hunter did this betrayed something that Wulong seized upon without abandon.
For the Hunter, he realised, did not care. They had no passion. He simply wanted the spoils and did not care how he got them. Archery was a means to an end, not the sublimation of his desires.
And when it was no longer profitable, he would dip and flee.
It was very coldly efficient. It was certainly the right decision from a resources point of view. But it would also be the Hunter's failing.
Wulong read the Hunter's intent, carefully exchanging his own stock of arrows with the Hunter's last few. He followed them, until the Hunter decided to turn and flee. Then, Wulong fired a special arrow, not with the Hourglass Quiver but with his own hand.
One of the spirit beasts that the Hunter had set upon him was a curious breed of monkey. It had rubbery skin and stretchy flesh, and it bounced about without abandon, conserving momentum almost perfectly. It was almost impossible to kill, for it did not experience blunt force trauma, only sharp arrows. And even then, it was difficult to hit.
When he did, though, the monkey was not disposed of properly. Wulong had been able to salvage enough material for one shot. Sloppy, even though the only surviving thing had been a single patch of skin. Wulong had not been able to recover even a hair or feather from the earlier suicide vehicles, after all.
With this arrow, Wulong fired, and the arrow flew forth deep into the forest. It ricocheted off the trees and branches, across the forest. And it continued to pick up speed, for each bounce meant it only went faster. Faster and faster, it sailed through the forest, until it reached the Hunter's vicinity.
Once again, the Hunter swung it and struck the arrow in mid-flight. The bouncing properties of the arrow was confined only to its head, not to its body, for there was not enough material to coat the rest. It snapped in mid-flight and fell to pieces, no longer able to fly.
In that moment, Wulong set loose a second arrow. A normal arrow, headed with Spirit Steel and shafted with Spirit Wood. It set sail, arching through the canopy and then down once again.
This time, there was no mistake. The bouncing arrow was not meant to kill. It was meant to track. The moment the Hunter shattered the arrow, Wulong had acquired the information he needed.
And now, his calculations were correct.
The arrow, which was the same as any of the other hundreds of arrows he had shot, punched straight into the Hunter's body from the back. It dug deeply, through a lung and twisting inside his chest. The Hunter gasped and gurgled before they fell forward as their heart was destroyed.
The Hunter lost, because he did not care enough to see things through. And Wulong won, because he cared too much to leave things be.
That was what it meant to be human.
Wulong waited for several seconds before he felt more than heard a wet thump in the distance, likely a corpse hitting the ground. Then, he turned to leave and return to his journey to the Divine Tunist Sect. He did not bother checking the Hunter's body, for he knew his aim was true, and he was a hundred li away regardless. Even if the Blood Path was able to regenerate their heart, there was no one else around, and they would be starving. Without Blood Qi, they would quickly expire.
It wasn't worth the further distraction and time.
----
Victory had been given to Wulong. Defeat had been imposed upon him.
Gasping, grunting on the ground, the Hunter snarled as he tried to hold his blood within him. His primary heart had been destroyed by that final shot, but he had two more, still pumping blood throughout his body. More importantly, however, he was running out of Qi, and there was no one else around for a long distance.
He had planned on eating before, but his intended meal shot him through the fucking heart!
Despite the pain, despite the senselessness of it, he struck again and again at the tree whose base he fell against. The Hunter punched clean through it in three blows, arm sticking right through its trunk. When he withdrew his arm, it was covered in splinters, yet none of it drew blood. His skin was too tough to be affected by something so trivial.
He seethed, but soon the moment passed. The Hunter collected his arrows and his massive bow and instead continued on his way. If he acquired some more Blood Qi within the next day, he would survive. After that, he could go about regenerating his heart and continuing to chase further power.
This was only a setback. Not an end to his journey. It was certainly an obstacle to overcome, and he would overcome it like any other. Calmly, he would deal with this in a reasoned and even-handed manner. Like a calm and reasonable person.
And as for the one who shot him…
Zou Fa, last surviving son of the Grand Elder of the Thousand Arrows and Flowers Sect, sneered.
The one who shot him would forever rue this day. For he had signed his own death warrant for a most painful death.
Deep down, Zou Fa knew this fact more keenly than he knew anything, besides perhaps how to shoot a bow. Standing upon the edge of a rocky cliff, he looked down upon the deep green canopy, the lush vegetation supporting a robust ecosystem of animals. It was truly beautiful.
For the first five years of his life, he was a prince, the heir to the Thousand Arrows and Flowers Sect. But soon enough it was taken by the Noble Knowledge Sect, its leaders killed and its land colonized. The influence of the Poison Maze could be seen even all the way out here. Stray vines poked through the soil here and there, wrapping around entire trees and gradually overtaking the land. This spot, the outer edge of the Poison Maze, marked the border between the Noble Knowledge Sect and the Divine Tunist Sect.
Zou Fa grit his teeth resentfully - all of this should have been his. The child of a Nascent Soul and an Elder was a true miracle, and his talent was proportionate with that miracle. He'd have reached the pinnacle of the Sect with ease! He sighed, running a hand through his hair and looking off into the distance. There was no point getting mad right now, not when he needed his aim to be true.
After all, dinner was on the way. Twelve miles from where he stood, a group of five Divine Tunists were walking near the woods, dressed in flamboyant clothing and chatting amongst one another carelessly. Though Zou Fa was unable to gauge their cultivation levels from this distance, he highly doubted any of them were Elders - an Elder wouldn't approach the Poison Maze so thoughtlessly, even from this far away.
All that mattered was getting the worship and prestige he deserved. To do that, he needed to cultivate fast. The fastest way to cultivate was through the Blood Path, and in an age of war like this one, Zou Fa had a constant stream of peer Cultivators marching right into his mouth. It was the biggest no-brainer in all of human history.
Drawing the huge bow from his back, Zou Fa calculated his many potential firing paths. Fucking idiots, travelling this close to the border - what did they think was going to happen? He was already getting excited to put these people down, and so he took another deep breath, calming himself to keep his aim true. Nothing wrong with having fun, but it was irresponsible to have too much fun before things were settled.
The weapon was obscene in appearance, the sort of thing an engineer might think up as a thought experiment, but not actually craft. A thick, heavy bow of ironwood, a little over seven feet in length, with a string five times thicker than normal. Zou Fa had become a terrifyingly strong close-range combatant simply as a consequence of the Body Arts needed to string and shoot this monster. On one end, it tapered into a spike, used to embed the bow into whatever surface he was standing on and better anchor it for more accurate shots. Its name was Great Divider.
It was said that, millenia ago, the first Grand Elder of the Thousand Arrows and Flowers Sect had used this bow to rend a great fissure in the earth, marking the borders between her territory and that of the Noble Knowledge Sect. She vowed, then, that the Poison Maze would never cross that line. It had, inevitably, and then it had been burned back, and then it had crossed it again, and then been burned back again. Nevertheless, while that distant ancestor had hung up the Great Divider in favor of a more elegant and even more powerful treasure, the bow that had passed into Zou Fa's hands was still a weapon of mass destruction in its own right.
Zou Fa's calloused, deformed fingers, which looked more like a raptor's talons than something that belonged on a human, nocked an arrow and pulled the string back. A normal man wouldn't have the range of motion to pull it all the way back even if he had the strength, but the prince's body was custom-built. He was seven feet tall, with long arms and a very broad back, giving him a truly exceptional wingspan. A buddy of his had once said he had the proportions of a monkey; he'd killed him for the remark.
Next, he took a very deep breath, and focused his aim, hands remaining utterly, perfectly steady. Rather than one normal heart, Zou Fa had three smaller hearts, equidistant from one another - one on each side of his chest and another just below the solar plexus. Unlike many of his other traits, he wasn't born with this one; it was the result of a surgery, stabilized through Body Arts. His hearts beat in a staggered rhythm, ensuring that he had no pulse that would throw off his aim.
The arrow was perfectly made - he had been the one to make it, after all. Not out of anything fancy, obviously; just low-level Foundation Building materials, the type any respectable expert could buy in bulk whenever they wanted. It was all he needed for trash like this. His eyes; large, expressive and gray, focused even harder, visualizing the path of his shot. Not yet.
Not yet.
Not yet.
Now.
Zou Fa means 'to issue forth'. In other words, 'to shoot'. The arrow, five and a half feet of spirit-steel and ironwood weighing exactly one pound, punched through the head of one Cultivator, then the heart of the man in front of her, then the belly of the man in front of both of them. The other two turned, shocked by the sudden carnage, and Zou Fa turned his bow.
The second shot was a little bit sloppier than the first, because the Great Divider was cumbersome to turn and because he only had a fraction of a second to aim this time. Rather than spear through a particular vital organ, his next arrow simply blew through one side of the target's chest and out the other, destroying the spine and both lungs.
The last remaining target had begun to process the situation, understanding now that he was in danger. Any longer, and the man might do something unpredictable. Aiming for the head would be too unreliable now, so Zou Fa shot lower. He'd meant to hit the belly, but the target moved just enough that he hit the hip instead, smashing his pelvis in half and impaling him to the ground on the shaft of his arrow. With the last survivor pinned down, Zou Fa's fourth and final shot was easier. He hit the heart head-on.
Immediately, the prince felt a trickle of energy appearing inside of his body, a sign that his arrows were working. Blood Path Cultivators didn't often specialize in long range combat, as that made feeding difficult. The solution? Soak his arrowheads in his own blood until they turned permanently red, then inscribe them with an array linking them to his own body. Anyone impaled by his arrow had their blood immediately drained out and teleported into Zou Fa's body. Not a perfect solution by any means, as most of the time his shots went straight through an enemy instead of sticking in. Still, he figured anyone who made a particularly valuable meal would be tough enough that that wouldn't happen.
Still, a good hunter was never wasteful - it was time to collect the spoils.
—-
When he got to the site of his work, Zou Fa couldn't help but give a big smile. Look at these weaklings, snuffed out like candle flames, helpless to defend themselves while he was totally safe. That was the best part of archery - blowing people away from a position of absolute superiority. It wasn't that he was afraid to fight up close, it was just that domination was so much more fun than a fair contest.
Brandishing the ruby-encrusted gold band on his third finger, Zou Fa summoned forth an arrow with which to drain his victims - not quite as efficient as eating their entire bodies, but a lot faster. This was Divine Tunist territory after all, so it wasn't safe to stay for long. He stopped for a moment after summoning the arrow, running his thumb along the smooth gold surface of his ring. This Storage Ring, made from part of the Aperture of an enemy Nascent his mother had killed long ago, had enough capacity to store a hundred thousand arrows if he wished. It, along with the Great Divider and a few mundane items, comprised the few things left to him by his mother.
All of her other weapons and protective charms had been inherited by the surviving Elders who went on to form the Broken Arrow Bandits, or plundered by the Noble Knowledge Sect. One day, after he established his own nation, Zou Fa would crush those mercenaries who dared to call themselves the carriers of her legacy. He would bring them under his heel and take back each and every one of the belongings that should have been his own inheritance.
The prince was pulled out of his reverie by a groaning nearby. Turning, he beheld the third of the Cultivators he shot, the one who'd been hit in the belly from behind. He stubbornly clung to life, even as blood and viscera pooled out from the large, gaping exit hole. His legs hung limply in contrast to the small movements of his upper body, spine severed entirely by the same arrow. The Tunist gasped and twitched, the pain and blood loss rendering him little more than a fish pulled onto land.
"You're kinda tough." Zou Fa chuckled, stabbing the arrow into one of his victims. Immediately, he felt another trickle of energy pulse through his system, and directed it into a cycling rhythm. It was said that a genius of cultivation could cultivate without meditating and waste only half of the energy. Zou Fa, however, was more than a paltry genius; he had gotten so good at eating on the fly that he only wasted 30%.
"Who… are you…" The man got out, before his body was wracked with a fit of deep, hacking coughs. "How could an Expert… shoot so far?"
"Is that what you should be worrying about, with wounds like that?" Zou Fa smirked. Ripping his arrow out of the now dried-out corpse, he flicked his wrist and embedded it into the body of another Tunist. Damn, this was a pretty good haul; he was pretty sure all of them had at least three Pillars, some as many as five. It made him all the more unimpressed with how easily they had died.
The survivor continued rambling, eyes unfocused and growing glassy. "The whistling of those arrows… so beautifully mad. Please… tell me your name…"
The prince sighed, carefully looking around for potential observers as he continued to cycle. He was about halfway through this bitch, and had two more to go after her. It probably wouldn't be too risky to stick around that long. Twelve miles from the border was a distance he could cross in a few minutes if need be; even faster if he used a propulsive technique.
The dying man turned to Zou Fa with a crazed look, seeming to regain a small amount of vitality out of sheer desperation. "Please… I have to know who… created such a gorgeously dreadful sound…"
"I wasn't trying to make it sound like anything, whatever it is you heard was a coincidence." Zou Fa scoffed. "But fine, if it'll shut you up: my name is Zou Fa, prince of the Thousand Arrows and Flowers Sect."
The mention of his Sect's fallen neighbor, as well as his killer's identity, shocked the Tunist to his core. "But why would… the prince of the Sect… fall to the Blood Path that destroyed it? Do you not… want revenge?" He asked plaintively.
Zou Fa sneered in disgust. "You moron, what good would revenge do me? What matters is that it should have been mine and now it's not. This is the best way to get it back; simple as." Plucking the arrow out of his now used-up victim, he kneeled down beside the dying man. "And I'm sick of your questions."
With that, he shoved his hand into the Tunist's wound, embedding the arrow in his guts and prompting a pained scream. As the man's life rapidly faded away, he looked into Zou Fa's face with equal parts fondness and horror. "Your eyes… a portrait of Hell. You really are… a true demon…" He wheezed, before finally expiring.
"So dramatic. I can't stand artsy types." The prince chuckled, enjoying some peace and quiet as he let the Tunists' stolen qi enrich his body. Going on a nice long walk to cool his head had been a good idea after all, but after this he would need to head back to the frontlines. Didn't matter where; any Demonic general who could afford to pay Zou Fa would salivate at the chance to have a mercenary of his caliber on their side.
—-
When the prince returned to his usual haunt, a small little lair he had built for himself in a cave, he found it quite brazenly occupied. He cursed, drew forth his bow and nocked an arrow. With a mental command, several small flying swords also emerged from his Storage Ring, taking up a defensive formation around him.
"I don't know how you found my house, but you picked the wrong place to squat!" He shouted at the four figures inside the cave. There was no fire lit, nor any light of any kind; in fact, it was nighttime. Still, The ambient starlight was plenty for Zou Fa to make out the shapes of the four cloaked invaders. Or… five? Was that one sitting on another's shoulders? No, he corrected himself as they stood up from where they were sitting - that one was just very large.
"Hands up everybody, we don't want any trouble, now do we?" One of them said to the others in a smooth, even tone. He did indeed put up his hands, as did the other three, which only served to make Zou Fa confused, not relaxed.
The figure approached, and Zou Fa pulled back his bowstring in response. "That's quite far enough, thanks!" He called out, assessing the situation. The intruders were about five hundred feet away. At that distance, the number of shots he could get off before they reached him would depend quite a bit on the speed at which they could run. A list of several techniques that might be relevant to the situation ran through his mind as his flying swords turned in place to point at that man in particular.
The man did indeed stop moving, planting his feet and affixing what he must have thought was a charming grin on his face. "Come on now buddy, this was my only choice! You're a hard man to find; you live alone in the woods, for crying out loud!"
Zou Fa narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "I don't live here, this is just where I'm resting my head at the moment. People don't come to me, I come to them."
"Ooh, I like that! we got a real boogieman here!" The man laughed and pushed some hair behind his head.
"No moving!" Zou Fa yelled, and the man immediately complied. Was this a distraction, taking his attention away from the other three while they prepared something? No, probably not; they weren't moving at all, and he was glancing at them in strict two second intervals. "Is this a business thing? You looking to hire me? This is a really stupid way to do it, but lucky for you I'm in a good mood."
"I'm not hiring you, but it is business." The stranger replied, posture and voice growing a bit more serious. "You're damn strong, that much is known. You could be a threat to yours truly, if you got the drop on me."
Zou Fa couldn't help but let out a little bit of killing intent in response to such a boast, which only made the cloaked man grin in excitement. Zou Far grinned back, pulling his arrow back another half-inch. "So you're saying you're stronger than me in a head to head fight? I'd like to see you back that up." He said playfully.
The other man whistled, scandalized at the prince's forwardness. "That could be interesting, but I'm afraid for my companions. They couldn't keep up with either of us. Wouldn't be any fun if I was distracted babysitting them, would it?"
"Oh, I think it would be plenty of fun." Zou Fa purred, relaxing his summoning two more Flying Swords. He then added a third and fourth finger to his bowstring, levitating two more arrows into place in order to nock them without relaxing the string for a moment. "If I launched all of this at them right now, I wonder how many you could save."
The stranger's gaze grew sharp and icy at Zou Fa's words, finally fed up with the games. "How about instead of some entertainment, I give you more strength? Wouldn't that be more interesting than threatening me?"
Well, this was certainly a man who knew what Zou Fa liked. He weighed his options carefully, considering everything he knew about the situation and trying to ignore the knowing look the stranger gave him. "What kind of strength are we talking about here, how would you give it to me, and what would you be getting out of it?"
Who wanted him dead? Loved ones of people he'd killed, he supposed? What important people had he taken out? Some powerful Experts, certainly. He had assisted in the killed of a couple of Elders, though he did not strike the killing blow either time. Political leaders, perhaps? Did an enemy of the Thousand Arrows and Flowers Sect want its ruler's bloodline extinguished?
But why would an assassin attempt a ruse like this? Because of his sharp senses? Because a direct attack was totally infeasible? In that case, if his death was desired so much, could not a single Elder be spared? Damn it all, there were too many possibilities, too many ways this could go wrong!
"I see the gears are turnin' in that noggin of yours. That's good, I'd be disappointed if you were just dumb muscle, but it seems you're sharp too." The stranger nodded approvingly, slowly lowering his hands again. Zou Fa pulled the string tighter, and the stranger raised them once more. "Damn, okay, I'll be frank with you. Have you heard the rumors of the Wise Man traveling through the Blood Path nations, looking for a vessel? Well, that's me."
"That's awfully convenient, too convenient." Zou Fa shot back with a glare. "Elaborate."
"I need a few folks to cause trouble. Only a few special cases can have this gift; otherwise it'd be pandemonium." The stranger explained with gusto. For a moment, his long hair seemed to come alive like a nest of serpents, but that must have been a trick of the darkness.
Zou Fa would roll his eyes if he was confident the other man would even see it. "That's it? You want to make me more powerful so that I can… 'cause trouble'?" He asked incredulously.
"Precisely. All you gotta do to make me happy is use this gift to kill Righteous Cultivators." In the face of this stranger - this Wise Man, supposedly - the world's logic seemed to give way. It felt as if the stars themselves were growing colder and dimmer, casting him in deeper shadows. "Follow your desires with all your heart, and I'll be getting what I want out of it. Desire is a sacred thing."
Desires… desires… that was all it was really about, right? Yes, he really was a Wise Man, to understand such truths so deeply. Everyone just wanted to do whatever made them happy. Even so-called altruists only helped others because doing so satisfied them, something Zou Fa couldn't comprehend in the slightest.
"What makes you happy?"
Before Zou Fa sat a magnificent ivory throne surrounded by tree roots and flower petals. It was massive and imposing, fit for the mightiest of kings. A formless, blinding light glowed behind the throne, casting a deep, black shadow which fell upon him. Even as the darkness threatened to swallow the prince up, he never once lost sight of that throne.
"I said, what makes you happy?"
Dominating other people, proving his own strength by comparison. Killing them, eating them, as means of furthering that domination. Winning their temporary loyalty, as another. Peaceful solitude, away from the words and emotions of others, who he had never been able to understand. No doubt, fear, or love to cloud his ever-rational judgment. Archery, which combined both of those things; killing from such a distance that it was as if he commanded the world itself to destroy his enemies, and it obeyed.
"You fear and mistrust others because they possess emotions you lack, and yet you wish to have power over them. Is that not a contradiction?"
What was so contradictory about it? Human company was an unfortunate side effect of gaining and using power, nothing more. Power let him partake in whatever frivolous interests he had this year. Having power allowed him to know that he was great, that his birth was special. Even ruling subjects would be nice, so long as they only praised their king from a distance. The tiger commands fear and awe from all living things, but it still hunts alone.
"Why are you doing this?"
Why? What a pointless question. It was all he could do; ever since Zou Fa was born his hunger for power was insatiable. The Great Dao called out to him, begging him to master it as soon as possible.
"But that's not really it, is it? That's just your justification."
It was what he told people when they asked what motivated him. It was true, in a way, but he would be doing this even if it weren't for that. Wind didn't need a reason to blow. Rain didn't need a reason to fall. This was simply who and what Zou Fa was.
"You lack hesitation. You truly know yourself, then?"
There wasn't really that much to know. Cultivation came easy to Zou Fa not just because of his talent, but because he had no internal conflict. He would take whatever he wanted, and if he wasn't strong enough to take what he wanted, he would get stronger. Everyone was like that, they just lied to themselves, making themselves believe life was more complicated, and those lies made them weak.
"Then there is nothing more to say."
That vision dissolved, leaving Zou Fa and the Wise Man standing a mere few feet away from one another. Normally he would instinctively lash out, but that hypnotic gaze stopped his movement before it could begin. Three eyes, a bright blue the color of ice, eyes that no doubt saw things as clearly as his own.
"You know what, I guess you win. I ain't got nothing I could do or say that would scare you at all." the Wise Man chuckled, reaching up and grasping Zou Fa's head with both hands.
For all that he had been wary before, the prince felt strangely calm now. He wasn't sure what had just happened, but it clearly showed that he was never in control. Yes, he would either die here, or he would live and grow stronger, the same as every other day of his life. "Not scared of much; never saw the point in feeling fear, so I decided to stop when I was little." Zou Fa said calmly, which only seemed to make the Wise Man even more excited.
Maybe that artsy-fartsy cutsleeve from before had a point. Those eyes were profoundly beautiful.
THE FIRST GIFT
耗
IS PASSED ON
The Wise Man let go of Zou Fa, who toppled backward and landed unceremoniously on his rear, paralyzed. Soon enough, the shock wore off, and a surge of unfamiliar sensation took its place. There was a gigantic amount of energy bubbling up endlessly within him like magma from the earth. There was a powerful urge to destroy and conquer all around him(so business as usual, then).
But most of all was the longing. The immediate, instinctual understanding that he was a fundamentally incomplete being. That in growing greater, he had come to understand how much greater he could be. And that, no matter how much he chased after the missing piece he needed, he could never grasp it.
"How dare you… how dare you only give me half!?" Zou Fa gritted his teeth until his thought they might shatter. His eyes grew bloodshot and his three hearts beat so fast he thought all the blood might burst out of his body. "Who do you think I am!? How dare you fill me with so much pain!?"
Tears streamed down his face of their own accord. He'd lost limbs before, he'd been splashed with acid, he'd even been captured and tortured in the past, and every time he had endured the pain. It was just his body telling him about damage, right? Getting hung up on it was idiotic. And yet, this profound incompleteness shocked him in a way no physical sensation ever had.
"There it is! There's the desperation I was looking for!" The Wise Man shouted joyfully. Let that feeling push you higher and higher!"
In the next breath, Zou Fa fired half a dozen arrows, which the Wise Man narrowly dodged, shouting in surprise. He sent all six flying swords forth in a simultaneous, undodgeable attack, which were blocked by shields of golden light, then infused his next arrow with an explosive technique. The resulting blast obscured his vision for an instant, and he immediately leapt to get above the dust and survey the area.
The Wise Man was flung away, his robe burnt in places but the man himself seemingly unharmed, laughing all the way. "If you conquer the whole damn region, I'll give you the other half!" He declared, landing gracefully by the cave's entrance.
"Don't you fuck with me!" Zou Fa roared, taking his next action before he even began to fall. He snap-fired nine arrows three at a time, each with the power to blow most experts to pieces. The energy in his body was surging in a way he had never felt before, telling him to destroy and conquer everything around him. Truly, he had been so feeble up until this moment - how had he even been able to breathe or walk before, let alone fight?
The first cluster of arrows exploded into shrapnel, which the Wise Man deflected away with dozens of tiny, perfectly positioned shields, whilst forming a larger one around himself and his companions at the same time. The second folly deployed a soul-eating cursed mist, which enveloped the bubble. The third volley carried no special effect; it was simply accelerated to the greatest possible velocity he could manage. A rushed tactic, but an effective one given what he had and what he knew. Make the Wise Man throw up his defenses, then surround him with danger in every direction, then break those defenses. Whether or not he dodged the final strike, he would fall victim to the mist.
The last three arrows struck with such force they shook the ground, immediately collapsing the cave and sending fissures through the earth all around. And yet, Zou Fa could tell in an instant that his foe was unharmed - he'd have sensed a spiritual disruption if the curse took hold. "You think you can just walk away!?" He shouted, landing on a tree branch. He darted from one to the next, desperately searching for any sign of the suddenly vanished Wise Man.
No, the prince realized for a moment, he wouldn't be visible. The Wise Man's qi signature was far below him, deep beneath the earth, and was rocketing away at an incredible speed. Perhaps Zou Fa could pursue, blow apart the ground to try and force him out… no, he couldn't. The Wise Man was going deeper and deeper, nearly a thousand feet below the surface now. He couldn't unearth that much soil and rock, at least not without seriously straining himself, and he would have to do it over and over again if he wished to make chase.
"...mm, not worth it." Zou Fa shrugged, returning his items to his Storage Ring. This, he felt, was one of his greatest strengths compared to other people: he knew when to let things go. He was not so wrapped up in petty attachments, and could always choose the practical option.
Over the next few hours, the Prince of the Thousand Arrows and Flowers Sect dug up as much of his belongings as he could find under the rubble, shoved them into a pack, shoved that pack into his Storage Ring, and set off toward the Fearless Line. Zou Fa's newfound strength would be his undoing if he did not gain a handle on it. First, he would test his limits by annihilating lesser battlefields, and then he would rebuild his fighting style to better utilize it. Then, it would be time to hunt bigger game.
—-
And there's the second of the two people Gaius uplifted before the end of Turn 15. While Jinhai is a short-term distraction, a soon-to-be new Nascent Soul to put a little extra weight on the Demonic side of the scale, Zou Fa is more of a long term factor. He'll take longer to cook, but he'll eventually become a major thorn in the Righteous Alliance's side if he survives long enough.
Fun fact, Zou Fa already existed, sort of; he was a pivotal character in a story arc that got cut short. I decided to corrupt him so that I could make use of him as a vessel for the Might of The Conqueror. I ended up more or less completely changing his characterization though. In sharp contrast to Bataar and Jinhai, who are both tragic figures who were ruined and corrupted by Gaius' manipulations, Zou Fa is entirely lacking in any sympathy. He's rotten to the core, and characters like that can be really, really fun to write, so I enjoyed playing around with him.
It's a running thing that Gaius gives the vessels the thing they already have, rather than the thing they're lacking. This is part of his gambit to ensure that none of them get too strong, but it also helps feed into the idea that by giving them something, he's only making them more incomplete.
As you can see, Zou Fa is also a very unreliable narrator. Like most sociopaths, his inability to empathize with others means he cannot accurately compare himself to them and see what he lacks in comparison. Therefore, he is extremely arrogant, despite being someone who prides himself on rationality. He has brief fits of megalomania, which he quickly suppresses, then gaslights himself into believing never happened at all.
Gabriel Pompeius 8: A Cool Head Each Day Keeps the Building Fight Away
Gabriel Pompeius 8: A Cool Head Each Day Keeps the Building Fight Away Golden Devils Technique Palace, Year 296
The Beast Core cultivators were said to be many things. They were predominant in the Hard Shell Mountains, along with. Some described them as primal, taking something of the savagery of their quarry on some level. Others held them to be wiser in some ineffable way, attuned to the nature of earth, where Spirit Qi cultivators drew on the breath of Heaven. But what was unquestionable, was that they regularly hunted and killed Spirit Beasts. A patently obvious observation, but it mattered because that sort of lifestyle, even as a secondary support method, simply did not appeal to Gabriel.
So out of Cerina's recommendations, that left Spirit Qi cultivation arts. Which in truth, felt more symbolically appropriate to him, and symbols did matter to Omens, what he suspected was his faint but burgeoning Dao. There was just one little bump on the road ahead. There were just so many of them. For something in theory so simple as taking in and respiring the qi around yourself. It astounded the mind.
Right now, in front of Gabriel's little reading alcove in a corner of the Technique Palace, sat: Spiritual Breath Arts Listed by Creator Organization, Spiritual Breath Arts for High Intensity Environments, Spiritual Breath Arts for Low Intensity Environments, Spiritual Breath Arts Listed by Harmonic Rhythm, Spiritual Breath Arts Listed by Meridian Excortiation, and last, but not least Spiritual Breath Arts Listed by Intra-Meridian Varicyclation.
He could guess that the second and third categories referred to the relative availability of Spirit Qi in a given locale, but what in the name of the Earl of Bronze were the other terms? Well, there was one source to ask.
"Palace, what is harmonic rhythm?"
A chime as the Palace answered.
Query Unclear. Error.
Gabriel sighed and clarified. "The term 'harmonic rhythm', used in, for example Spiritual Breath Arts Listed by Harmonic Rhythm."
Searching. Please wait.
Gabriel exhaled and prepared himself to wait–
Error. Term not found.
Gabriel stared at a point on the blank wall about a foot above the plane of his desk. "It's on the scroll right here. How do you not recognize it, Palace?"
Query Unclear. Error.
Gabriel closed his eyes and reminded himself of dignity and comportment, to not utter a stream of profanities. Just move onto the more outlandish terms and hope he was luckier.
Meridian excortiation was not, in fact, luckier. Gabriel readied himself for a third, and final failure when…
Term found.
Gabriel straightened up, features relaxing in relief. Oh, thank the Sephirot.
Intra-Meridian Varicylation is the process of Error by which Error and the Error is measured by a rate of Error. This was determined by Elder Demosthenes in his famous Error.
Did you appreciate the lesson Junior Brother? Was it enlightening on the nature of Error?
Gabriel refused to dignify the spirit with a response.
At this point, it was probably safe to extrapolate these involved some kind of heavenly law or element of nature that had come down from the Sea-Conquering Army and lost with the likes of the Spirit-Severing elders of the Optimatoi. Which meant they would be of zero assistance to Gabriel in figuring things out. It was early still, in the slot he'd paid for, but he also planned on getting combat techniques to diversify his arsenal.
Gabriel decided to mentally step back and re-review. Since there were many cultivation methods, what were his specific needs? By virtue of his legion, Gabriel had, and would continue to spend a good deal of time in the Green Scale Plains. But his search could take him anywhere, potentially. So an environmentally specialized art was right out. That allowed him to remove two sets from consideration, which was a good start.
***
But from there, things got trickier. Some time later, Gabriel slumped back, frustrated and mentally tired. There just wasn't enough distinguishing information to make a meaningful difference in deciding. Not after reading one, two, five, seven, nine… Ten? Gabriel stopped suddenly as recollection and inspiration struck. Ten was the repeating number in his visions, tied to the Sephirot somehow. It was worth a try, at least.
He skimmed the many lists, looking for any arts that had 'ten' in their name. As it turned out, just one, with the name Ten-Channel Distillation Art. According to a quick skim, a full practitioner would be able to breath ten times in one second, maximizing the quality of qi intake and empowering themselves both physically and spiritually. Or was it splitting the qi and air through ten chambers in your lungs? The language was florid and confusing, except where it promised this was the key to making the users 'the finest warriors in humanity's army,' whatever that meant.
The Palace spirit was more cooperative this time, expanding his room to a size more appropriate for meditation at his request. Gabriel took a seat on the floor, cross-legged, and began to follow the listed introductory practices and mental mantras.
Breathe in, breathe out, in, in. Eyes closed. Repeat the mantras. Breathe in, breathe out.
The power of Heaven and Earth are embedded in ten parts. Separate and refine. Ten arrows fall down from the sky, shafts glinting as they strike home–
Gabriel started, eyes snapping open in a choked gasp. Because first, the ten arrows weren't part of the mantras at all. No, they were an image which had popped into his head out of nowhere, unbidden. Second, he felt all too well as if he had been skewered hard, ten piercing pains biting into his forehead, heart, throat, lungs, stomach, arms, and legs.
Was this what it felt like, to inhale the nearly-empty qi of the Organ Meat Desert? Or an omen warning that he was on the wrong track? No, the omens never manifested through physical sensations like this. The pain itself was likely part of the effort, like exerting a muscle for the first time. Cultivating with a spirit stone was strenuous enough after all, so there was no valid excuse for shying away on that account alone.
There had been a reference to meridian excortiation in the scripture, so for all he knew this was what it was. Gabriel got back up and collected the other books, jade slips, and scrolls for return. It needed to be done, and while he did so, he could contemplate the next step – actually figuring out what kind of techniques he wanted.
***
It was not an easy question to answer. To devise a means to not merely be a passive recipient receiving visions and omens as they arrived – but as he'd suggested to Cerina, actively obtaining them – was a priority, but Gabriel suspected the answers there wouldn't lie within the Technique Palace. He'd spent the remainder of his leave after the meeting with her on an investigation of the Colossus Pass, and the Whirlwind Tree itself, to no avail.
He'd reasoned that it meant the next major step was outside the Organ Meat Desert and Optimatoi control. And even if it were otherwise, Gabriel didn't think it would apply to combat. Perhaps at the level of a Core Formation Elder, or the mighty Nascent Souls like the Archgetes, but those were just fantasies for the moment.
For all that he had fallen into the habit of working simply on Body Cultivation – and Gabriel admitted to himself – likely to continue developing it, when facing it squarely he couldn't and wouldn't rely just on that. Nor, just because he wielded his trusty gladius, did Gabriel feel it appropriate to dedicate himself to Sword Cultivation.
Elemental techniques? All Gabriel could simply say was that they didn't feel right. His fingers tapped the desk he sat at. Perhaps he was going about this the wrong way. Instead of considering types, perhaps what he needed to think about was roles and purposes.
If he wished to maintain his sword and unarmed combat skills as his primary means of attack and defense – without specializing in them… then he needed techniques that would impair or debilitate foes, both to neutralize the advantages of a superior fighter, and to counter any exotic tricks of their own.
Relief flooded him, and Gabriel rose again to winnow out the chaff.
***
Once again, the room had expanded, this time to the full practice scale.
Gabriel gestured, drew through his qi, and a burst of sound and light flashed into existence, then out of it. The Reliable Firecracker Technique, which could blind and deafen his adversaries.
He shifted his stance, and pointed a finger. The pulse of the Banshee's Screech Technique was more subtle and subdued, but it resonated into the target's inner ear, disorienting them and breaking their balance.
Finally, another practiced shift, and Gabriel summoned the quasi-formation of the Legionnaire's Ward Technique. In this case, purely for repetition's sake, for it worked for the sole purpose of disrupting the techniques of others, and nothing was here for it to guard against.
He nodded, satisfied now. He would have to hone his usage in sparring against his fellow legionnaires, but the hard decisions were all finished. Gabriel Pompeius believed himself ready for the trials ahead. And the Trials with a majuscule too, infamous as they were.
Would he die? There always was a fair chance, even if the last one had been particularly successful in reducing losses. But Gabriel comforted himself by thinking he could give a good account of himself in that case.
For all that he followed a quest bizarre to many, he had his pride. AN: I thought my last one was going to be the end until the turn was updated, but hey, I wanted to flesh out his repertoire.
Manuel remembered the plan, and so Heraclius remembered it as well.
A simple reconfiguring of a Heavenly mechanism, one of the small counteragent traps the Will of Heaven had set in his path to prevent his final victory. A benign Fifth Sea native thrown between seas, a useful traitor who could be disposed of once his role was complete. A few children following an unorthodox path, presumably through cracks in the order of the world itself that he had wrought so many years ago.
In simpler worlds, the Trials sent to the Clan had been reconfigured by the Ninth Prince, and many of the Sea-Conquering Army sought to use the opportunity to preserve the bulk of their forces. Why, it was just like-
Heraclius froze, memories slipping away from him. The loss was monumental already, and mounting with every further moment. A Nascent mind could not contain the entirety of who he had been, and he had purged entire eons of time from his knowledge selectively, compressing perfect memories of the Beastwar billions of years long into single pieces of summarising text no longer than a few thousand books, and even that had proven insufficient.
He could not cast away the Nascent's memories for some peculiar reason, and so with every passing moment he was less Heraclius and more Manuel, though the Nascent had risen from a trillionth of his self to perhaps a billionth. Still nothing, but the pace of loss accelerated. If he could not find a way to ascend further... well, he would die again, and all that he was would be lost. The invasion would falter and fail, and he would die.
A fury rose in him then, a fury against the creatures, the humans that had betrayed their own kind, fighting for the Turtle Emperor and the myriad other beasts in the universe. Perhaps unknowingly, but since when had ignorance been a defence against guilt? No, they should have obediently lowered their heads the first time, and at least no more human beings would've been created to sate the maw of a beast.
No, wearing the body of a Nascent Soul could last another decades, perhaps two at best. That was if he didn't fight, didn't act, didn't think. Five or ten more years was a more realistic estimate. There were not the resources to travel anywhere, and so the Trials remained his best plan.
The bells tolled again. It had been... seven now.
Odd.
He was under the impression it was one tolling of the bell for every Great Realm.
Unless it could somehow detect his former cultivation...
He grimaced.
This would not be easy.
Space warped, and Heraclius found himself somewhere new. He could see it, with his experience. An ordinary Nascent would not have been able to, lacking the senses, but even the sense-blind could infer useful facts from what they could observe. Small wavering of light rays in peculiar ways, information simply ceasing to come from a faraway point when he sent out his own scattered beams of light. Difficult to generate through Dao, but the point of Qi is that it could do anything.
The space seemed infinite, but was sharply limited a few thousand li in each direction.
Two men appeared moments later. Manuel's heart leapt into his mouth, but Heraclius merely smiled.
Bhrigu Randhawa had simply been there to see his grandson off. A good enough plan, and the tournament had led them to have many great champions, even those bearing the Heavenly Star that his grandson did as well. Powerful young people, some threats, and some not - but ultimately all from lineages too great to simply kill.
There would be no room for what the savages called a Spirit Severing cultivator within the false space the Iron Pillar would generate, no way for the traditional Karma Guardians to stand over their descendants and ensure their most promising were not snuffed out by those a realm above them.
Yet somehow, he had been brought here. Summoned across space and across Seas, brought in front of what appeared to his senses a mere Nascent Soul cultivator. A gnat. But why...?
No, this was unusual enough. The cultivator far in front of them was old, wrinkled. A sign of weakness in any realm beyond the greatest, that of Spirit Severing. If you were not powerful enough to ascend and thus began aging as you approached the lifespan limit, you were doubtless talentless. An old man with bronze skin, green patina across most of the surface. A mustache and beard sat on his face, with two piercing blue eyes looking out.
Bhrigu spoke.
"Grandson, behind me."
Young Bhrigu sneered.
"Grandfather, this is the one who defied me last time. He's nothing before me. Let me-"
Bhrigu spoke more sharply.
"Behind me."
The old man was smiling. Old Bhrigu was well-known for seeing into the hearts of men. One might have said it was his Dao, to Understand. To unravel the secrets of the world and to put them to use. And yet with every passing moment, there was no fear in the other man's heart. Merely a sense of satisfaction, of long-laid schemes coming to fruition. What they were he couldn't tell, and yet they worried him.
He spoke.
"May I know who you are, stranger?"
The man's smile didn't falter.
"Does a dog of the Turtle Emperor speak so insolently to his betters? Kowtow as your kind are wont to do and perhaps I'll grant you a swift death for what you have wrought on my soldiers."
Old Bhrigu's heart pounded. Contempt, and a rising desire to kill. A certain knowledge that he could kill. No, even the most deluded Nascent Soul wouldn't believe that. Not against a Spirit Severing cultivator. It was senseless, and so he spoke again.
"Stranger, I know not of the Turtle Emperor you speak of. Could this be a mistake?
The man floated in midair still, smile spreading only the slightest amount.
"You don't even know who you serve, and you think yourself worthy of bandying words with me? You are tools of a creature you cannot comprehend, and tools that have used themselves most shamefully. You thought yourself well-fed and blameless when you slaughtered those Manuel cared for, those descended from my comrades."
He grunted.
"Now, I think it's past time I exacted a pound of flesh. I'll require a few of your living Seas to properly raise myself back up, after all. We may as well begin with the Fifth."
All this time, Young Bhrigu had been moving backwards, fleeing into a corner of the space, moving nowhere as the space folded in on itself, but ever-moving and ever-dodging nonetheless.
Old Bhrigu struck. Spirit Severing versus a Nascent Soul, the calculus was easy. A blade of fire, but infused with enough Qi that it would simply erase a Nascent from existence. Enough to truly harm a Spirit Severing of equal power, it was no small expenditure for him. White-hot fire in a blade nearly a hundred li long, moving at speed that far exceeded the perception of even the most talented Nascent.
The man looked at the fire descending on him, and the smile became a smirk.
He reached out a hand, and it winked out.
"I wouldn't even call this passable. Incompetent, more like."
He chuckled.
"This brings back memories. When I was a Qi Condensation cultivator, I entered the Tournament of the Tourmarches. The expectation for anyone seeking the Imperator's resources was being able to strike down and kill Foundation Establishment cultivators. For the more talented, for those who might merit the personal attention of one of the Imperator's personal servants? Killing Core Formation was an absolute necessity. Across a few trillion people you might only find ten or twenty such in a generation, you know."
Old Bhrigu brought out a net, every cord sharpened to near-invisibility. He wrapped it around the man from far away, bringing it in so it would slice him into a thousand pieces. The net broke, shattered at a few points and the man stepped through it.
This was impossible! The Body-Slicing Net could've caught him, let alone a Nascent.
The man spoke again.
"This isn't fair, admittedly. The real problem with the varied Great Realms is that someone sufficiently talented can strike between them, excepting the two Impassable Realms. You see, a Qi Condensation, Foundation Building, and Core Formation cultivator all share the same commonality. They rely on their Qi to take action, and their body primarily as the agent of that Qi. The next trio of Great Realms is similar - the truth of Nascent Soul is that it makes soul attacks that much more difficult to work against them, and so Nascent Soul can in theory fight Spirit Severing. A talented enough Nascent can even kill Law Creation - I killed one myself before the Imperator deigned to put me in his eyes. He named me the most talented cultivator of his world in nearly two million years, though repeating that is merely boasting."
Old Bhrigu thought frantically, throwing out storms of ice and wind, designed to tear at the soul and body alike. The man raised a hand, and a flimsy construct of Qi arose - pure Qi, not even designed to counter his, and the storm ceased to exist.
He looked in terror at the Nascent before him.
"Who.. who are you?"
"You'll know soon enough. In any case, the problem that you have is simple. The walls between Realms are impassable at certain points. Law Creation and Heaven Construction, for one. Why? The answer is simple. Comprehension. If you comprehend all physical and spiritual Laws, all things that make the world the way it is, you can build a Heaven. Now, you can't fit that knowledge into a Nascent head, but you can fit a good approximation of it. You don't really understand what you're doing, how it truly works, and how to unravel it. A Heaven Construction cultivator can do what you do with one-billionth the Qi, and so I can kill you fairly simply with a hundredth."
Old Bhrigu reached inside himself, feeling for the token that sat in his aperture.
Heraclius smiled, and the old man's face warped for a moment, becoming more handsome, and the smile became far crueler before somehow settling into the face of the old man once more.
He hooked a hand, and Bhrigu simply stopped. He couldn't move, paralyzed.
"The thing about the worlds of Beasts, you have to understand, is that none of you get reincarnated, not unless you're desperately needed. No, you get consumed. That means that the world itself needs some way to yank your soul out from the natural cycle of incarnation, where a soul seeks a newborn body before the body generates one. Instead, the world has to malform you as you're born, putting little weaknesses in your soul that can be used against you so the dead don't escape and rise up."
The hand clenched, and Bhrigu's vision went white.
"With enough experience, anyone can do the same. It's like catching a cat by the scruff of the neck. You only need to be strong enough to grasp it for a moment and the animal goes limp, waiting for the knife."
He slashed the hand downwards, and Bhrigu felt his soul scream as one-half of himself ceased to be.
Heraclius smiled. The plan had gone perfectly. Remaining in the body of the Nascent Soul had been implausible at best, but by entering the Trials he had hoped to find his way into the Fifth Sea, a living Sea with enough Qi and resources. Ideally he would've stolen the body of the Fifth Sea Nascent, but this was even better! A Spirit Severing body, with no soul to resist him. A perfect container for the Will he now realised that he was. He had died, after all, and there was no reincarnation here.
He felt the massive weight of memory and mind in the Nascent body ease as he used Qi to pour it into the Spirit Severing body, little adjustments of Qi at the right points dissecting thoughts and mind, preventing the body from understanding what was happening. Being constrained by physical laws meant you were almost entirely vulnerable, and ripe for an enterprising Will such as himself to possess.
Memory after memory poured out of Manuel, accumulated eons of knowledge leaving him, searing Bhrigu's mind with their raw power. The brain thrummed and squirmed under the weight, memory after memory tidily organised into neurons fortified a thousand times over with Qi, blanking out Bhrigu's old memory, replacing them with the Heraclius-to-be.
It took some time - nearly an hour - but the child was hiding at the edge of the space, there was no need to act quickly. He suspected killing the weaker cultivator might have thrown him out of the peculiar space, given it had yielded a Spirit Severing cultivator to face him. No doubt there were no greater cultivators to oppose him, for all the chimes sounded seven times.
No, leave Manuel to face the other Nascent. Sensible, the old man was a survivor.
He looked up from his new eyes, his new body. Brown-skinned and younger, not that Heraclius particularly cared. No doubt the other man was rearing to go.
Manuel drooled, eyes rolled back in his head.
Ah.
Yes, the process of transferring his memories was not a gentle thing. He reached out with a hand, and cradled his former head for a moment, streams of Qi healing and reinvigorating the brain and body both.
"Wh-what?"
"Listen carefully, Manuel Konstantinos. I am the lingering Will of Heraclius. The one who you saw twice in the past. I have taken the body of this Fifth Sea cultivator and intend to travel to the Fifth Sea so that I might survive. I will be in contact in the next century. Do what you can to persevere in the meantime. You are untalented and incompetent, but you have done the most with the little talent and less mind you possess. Well done. I will recommend to the Imperator that you are brought eternally into the cycle of reincarnation."
There. That should explain everything. The man wouldn't remember the fight, but he could infer the rest fairly easily.
He reached into the immortal aperture of the former Old Bhrigu for the token, and shattered it, stepping out into the unprotected world of the Fifth Sea. The old man's memories had yielded up a single cultivator willing to challenge the loathsome world he lived in... taking a disciple would occupy him well while he recuperated. What was the boy's name again? Kalki?
Listen carefully, Manuel Konstantinos. I am the lingering Will of Heraclius. The one who you saw twice in the past. I have taken the body of this Fifth Sea cultivator and intend to travel to the Fifth Sea so that I might survive. I will be in contact in the next century. Do what you can to persevere in the meantime. You are untalented and incompetent, but you have done the most with the little talent and less mind you possess. Well done. I will recommend to the Imperator that you are brought eternally into the cycle of reincarnation."
I feel that the 5th Sea is suddenly going to experience some karmic justice for the way they farmed the Sea Conquering Army for experience so many times.
A benign Fifth Sea native thrown between seas, a useful traitor who could be disposed of once his role was complete. A few children following an unorthodox path, presumably through cracks in the order of the world itself that he had wrought so many years ago.
A fury rose in him then, a fury against the creatures, the humans that had betrayed their own kind, fighting for the Turtle Emperor and the myriad other beasts in the universe. Perhaps unknowingly, but since when had ignorance been a defence against guilt? No, they should have obediently lowered their heads the first time, and at least no more human beings would've been created to sate the maw of a beast.
If you had somehow been under the impression that their goal of "Stopping the Souls of the Turtle populations being eaten" meant the Sea Conquering Army were good people, let these quotes assure you that no, they weren't.
Hoooo shit, Heraclius is scary as fuck to witness.
And, uh, probably a hundred times scarier to face, too. Also, woof, viewing the Ninth Prince as just a useful traitor to dispose of eventually in the end. That's... something, alright. Manuel probably isn't going to be very happy with that thought once he examines that. Maybe Heraclius can be convinced otherwise, maybe not. "Could" isn't the same as "would". But on the other hand, that fact that he views him as just a useful traitor is... yeah, scary. Heraclius really focuses a lot on The Cause(TM). The Sea-Conquering Army and the Imperator's, and Autokrator's, cause and people. Not on the natives of the Beast-worlds. Who are either innocent and unknowing and just living their lives, or are collaborators with the Beasts in his eyes. Or innocent and unknowing and being fed to the Beasts because there is no reincarnation on Beast worlds.
... Although actually, s'weird. He views Kalki as a prospective possible student though, so. And Kalki himself is also a Fifth Sea Native too. Like the Ninth Prince. Hrm. So... And they're both rebelling against the Fifth Sea. So, who knows what might come of the whole Kalki and Ninth Prince business, as far as Heraclius is concerned. Maybe he'll change his mind or ease the fuck up a bit. Or maybe not. Maybe Kalki too is just a pawn to him. Or... Well, we'll see.
... Hmm.
Anyway.
I wonder... do you think this might have been why old Sage Bhrigu went and said: "When you have the chance and opportunity, please spare my descendant"?
Just in case Manuel winds up beating Young Bhrigu and having the chance to finish him off; but this way, Sage Bhrigu has a chance to stay Manuel's hand, and thus save a Star-bearing Bhrigu descendant who might be able to face off against Heraclius later on?
i.e. If Manuel spares Young Bhrigu, then Young Bhrigu might jump up to Spirit Severing and go punch Heraclius's face in while Heraclius is in the Living Sea.
((Now, obviously, this was probably an unforeseen and maybe even unforeseeable future. It's not like Sage Bhrigu knew this might happen. He probably just wanted to say or do something, anything, to forestall future SCA remnant type Cultivators, so.))
But if Manuel kills Young Bhrigu, then nobody will be around to stop Heraclius. For that matter, it's possible that nobody would even realize or know that Old Bhrigu was taken over to begin with. ((Well, maybe the Heavens might know? If they were watching what just happened, or watching through Young Bhrigu via the Star. Uncertain. Or, there might be other automatic defenses or systems in place too.))
Actually that brings to mind something; if Young Bhrigu witnessed all this, then, he'd be aware that Old Bhrigu got bodyjacked. Which means that we might need to flex our memory-erasing Dao-muscles and try to wipe that from his mind, if we can't manage to kill him.
Though then again, Heraclius is right there and in Old Bhrigu's body, so... and he knows that Young Bhrigu might break his Token to get away from Manuel, so... Yeah. Might be able to stop Young Bhrigu. Or not, if he has to run away from the 5th Sea cultivators.
"As thanks for hosting my Will for a little while, I'll see to it that you get immortality. Congrats, kid."
As that's one potential way to interpret "Well done. I will recommend to the Imperator that you are brought eternally into the cycle of reincarnation." Granting of immortality or longevity.
Also, interesting that facing and defeating somebody 2 Realms higher than you is the, well, mark of supreme greatness.
Because, well, we saw something like that in the first Trial, didn't we? "Qi Condensation challenging Core Formation? He chuckled, glad for a moment he had prevented the Ninth Prince from dying. If this was the quality of junior they were outputting now, he'd fight a hundred Nascent Souls to keep them alive."
Actually that brings to mind something; if Young Bhrigu witnessed all this, then, he'd be aware that Old Bhrigu got bodyjacked. Which means that we might need to flex our memory-erasing Dao-muscles and try to wipe that from his mind, if we can't manage to kill him.
Though then again, Heraclius is right there and in Old Bhrigu's body, so... and he knows that Young Bhrigu might break his Token to get away from Manuel, so... Yeah. Might be able to stop Young Bhrigu. Or not, if he has to run away from the 5th Sea cultivators.
Something to remember is that if old bhirgu is dead then young bhirgu is probably going be in for a very bad time soon enough.
We saw that with the ninth prince family , when there is weakness shown the other groups wont hesitate to jump on it and young bhirgu without his grandpa protection is just a treasure pinata for the rest of the clans to hunt down.
We know that the Single Pillar exists because of the Soup Chef. But Heraclius here thinks that it's because of something he might have done.
Do you guys think Heraclius is wrong, and thus this is a sign that the Lingering Will has some kind of blindspot to the Soup Chef? And if so, do you think the blindspot is related to the whole "reading about a laughing voice in the Shadow Boon update" thing we speculated on?
Or, do you think that this statement doesn't necessarily show Heraclius being ignorant of the Soup Chef; rather, that's just him eliding over mentioning the Soup Chef. And also, it could very well be the case that Heraclius is right; that what happened was made possible because of the giant TFR vs TFR fight way back when.
I mean technically, we know that he is right in a sense; IIRC what the Soup Chef did was only possible to do because this zone had a dead Life-step TFR lying around. It wasn't just slaying the Turtle Child that was key. It was also having a Heaven that was running on a Lingering Will rather than an active Heaven. (The Heavens of the baby Turtles aren't fully at the level of a TFR I think. It's been said that, theoretically, you could have kids that are born into the TFR stage... it's just usually nobody bothers doing that. Presumably, Beasts do that -- and the cost of doing that is that... ... you have newborns with the power of TFR. And you have to raise them for billions of years. Also also, maybe it's only really viable for Beasts; because they follow the Laws of the Heavens, which means that only Beasts really could do the "born at a given Great Realm and not automatically fuck up as soon as the baby throws a temper tantrum" thing. For a human, the equivalent would probably be to be born with a Dao comprehension level of a Dao Lord or something, somehow.)
He could not cast away the Nascent's memories for some peculiar reason, and so with every passing moment he was less Heraclius and more Manuel, though the Nascent had risen from a trillionth of his self to perhaps a billionth.
Alternatively... that "for some peculiar reason". Was that due to edits or harm done to the Heaven's Shadow, by some interloper?
Or was that due to Manuel holding on to his memories via his Dao and/or his soul?
Or was that due to Heraclius not yet realizing "Oh... I'm dead. And there's no Reincarnation on a Beast World, which means... I'm a Lingering Will." yet, which he realizes -- "Ideally he would've stolen the body of the Fifth Sea Nascent, but this was even better! A Spirit Severing body, with no soul to resist him. A perfect container for the Will he now realised that he was. He had died, after all, and there was no reincarnation here." -- a bit later? And thus he can't delete those memories because it's not a good idea for a Lingering Will to try to do that.
Or was it due to the fact that it's Manuel that is considered the Administrator or Thread, rather than Heraclius? And thus, the Lingering Will can't delete Manuel's memories because it doesn't have those Permissions?
So. Is he about to go full blood path on the fifth sea? He did say he was gonna eat it. Sure, that probably mostly means the turtle child and we're fine with eating beasts for power, but he doesn't come across as particularly discriminatory in how he gets his power ups.
Against their friends, they are as meek as lambs. Against their foes they tear out eyes, consume blood, smash groins. There is no room for mercy against foes.
That was for the "Viciousness" option which we did not take, going for Resoluteness -- "The strongest Dao-heart is the strongest cultivator. If your disciples never falter even when fighting across realms you shall be satisfied." -- instead.
That sort of quote seems on-point and on-theme for some xianxia and xuanhuan though. That whole 'Mercy to the enemy is mercilessness to your friends!' thing. It's a very "dog eat dog world" viewpoint... but for a world that is dog-eat-dog, it's just "Well, it's more of the same." In a world where you can only trust your in-group and the out-group will likely fuck you over given a chance, well... Not a uniquely horrible mindset. Admittedly that's not exactly a sterling compliment, but...
Man, I'm reminded of our old Heraclius remarking that Nascent Souls all seemed to be amoral in some way or another.
That you usually had to break something in yourself in order to be able to break through into Nascent Soul; and then continue on after breaking yourself, and somehow heal after breaking yourself. Given that Occi's described the Nascent Soul tribulation as being like a heavily devout person suffering a religious crisis, yeah...
So. Is he about to go full blood path on the fifth sea? He did say he was gonna eat it. Sure, that probably mostly means the turtle child and we're fine with eating beasts for power, but he doesn't come across as particularly discriminatory in how he gets his power ups.
I think he's just going to be looting the shit out of it. And causing mayhem and stirring up trouble.
I don't think he's going to be using Blood Path -- if for no other reason than because the Blood Path didn't exist as a thing until the Soup Chef created it, so...
Then again, the Blood Path was created as a derivative off of the Beast Core consumption Cultivation method -- of taking a Beast Core from an animal and using it to cultivate, rather than breathing in Qi from the air, or consuming Qi from Spirit Stones -- so who knows. If somebody who knows enough about Qi and cultivation in general might know enough basics and fundamentals of Cultivation to be able to look at the same thing the Soup Chef did and go "Huh, so... you can Cultivate using humans too" like the Chef did...
Then again, using the Blood Path gets you Cursed. If you use the Blood Path, you can't use air-breathing or Spirit Stone cultivation as easily. And in a Living Sea, there'd be more Qi available in the air and in the artifacts and stuff.
Also? In a Living Sea? The Curses for doing Blood Path would be so much worse. So Blood Path might not be profitable at all, simply due to the sheer amount of pain that the Curses of Heaven would cause.
So only the old bhirgu's soul remain? And we will have a (OP) Will that want to preserve itself.
Yeah the fifth sea will not have a good time. Still given Wills limitations and what said Will already said I sure things will not go That easily to his/it ways.
I really do like the fact it will bring to it master that request at the end of things.
