295 E.K.
"All set, Junior?"
"Aye, Legatus. All set."
The Legatus said nothing for a moment, merely watching from where she sat by the window, slouched upon an arm, as the lights around and along Waycastle Myia were lit, casting aside the gloom and uncertainty of darkness with the certainty of lamplight. Still bandaged from head to toe, the slight form of Aretaphila Myia was healthier than it had been for a long time. Stronger, though still not strong enough to match her indomitable will. Some worried that it would not be strong enough by the time the Centennial Trials descended, but some would find their contrite and treasonous musings shushed with a single cyclopean glare.
The Centurion she spoke to stood instead. Dressed in travelling clothes, a jacket over a tunic compared to the bathrobe Aretaphilla wore, Katha felt a strange tension build in the silence of the Silver Bell's distant gaze. The Cyclopean Elder then turned, looking up at her Cyclopean Junior, and despite the farcical nature of her attire, Katha could not help but feel the weight of the world pressing down upon her. Such was the will of a Single Pillar King. Such was Aretaphilla Myia's sense for dramatics and presentation, that a breeze blew in from the window, framing their encounter in the theatrics she no doubt felt it deserved, attire be damned.
"Then one more thing before you go, XXI."
Katha tilted her head, but she did not have to wait for long. A chime sounded, clear and pure, felt and heard deep within her soul. On reflex she raised a hand and it closed about a pair of clear silver bells connected by a string, a small thing that could fit easily in her hand. Its chimes were purifying and powerful and rang with the Song, and even an idiot could not deny the power that echoed within them. Yet, when Katha tried to ring them again, no sound came out. They were completely, perfectly silent.
"Before I went on and faced the Five Coloured Lightning," Aretaphilla said, arms crossed and her silver flesh raw and ravaged, "I had with me a set of bells. Huge thing, weighed a ton, but it was something I had on me since the start of my journey, meagre as I was. It saved me, but it was also extremely inconvenient. Who cares enough to carry around a set of twenty odd bells of varying sizes?"
Katha considered her words for a judicious moment, aiming for the combination that would elicit the least possible ire. Her judgement was immediate. "You, Legatus."
"Correct! But you certainly don't, so instead of something as impressive as a set of twenty, you get just the one." A broad grin on her face, Aretaphilla closed her good eye. "Make sure to keep it with you at all times, junior. You never know when it might be useful."
"...It's a Tribulation Treasure, isn't it?"
"Well, if you're just going to say it outright…" The Silver Legate scoffed. "Obviously, junior. Consider it a loan and pay it back with interest."
"...If it is a Tribulation Treasure, wouldn't it be best for me to put it aside somewhere safe until I am to face the lightning?" Katha asked. "I would rather not damage it before I start."
"Well, if you're worried about that sort of thing, Katha, you will not survive Five Element Tribulation."
The word, ringing sharply, was like a slap to the face.
"Call it what you like. Call it being careful. Call it being judicious. Call it preparing for a rainy day. Hell, call it wanting to be like your Legatus. I get it." Aretaphilla smirked, her dull eye glinting with grim history. "We do
match now. But no matter how you dress it up, that is fear, plain and simple. You're just admitting you're scared. And that's what will kill you."
"I know," Katha sighed. This was a conversation they have had before. "But what if it is stolen?"
Aretaphilla set down her hand lightly upon the armrest, but it was as weighty and thunderous as any storm and any blow. "Again with the what ifs," the Silver King said. "You're still not listening to me, so I guess I have to be straightforward with you, Vanguard. There is no if. There is no could be. There is only one path ahead and it is the one you will
walk. Because the moment you think there is another road you can travel down, you will die. Heaven strikes at uncertainty, XXI. You give it an inch and it will take your life."
Once again, Katha was shown another look into the uncompromising mind of a Single Pillar King. A mind that could not comprehend alternatives, could not brook stepping back, could not consider the lateral paths, because a single deviation from their chosen road would be certain death. And by the time they crossed the Five Coloured Lightning, they have been so purified that they cannot even consider such a deviation.
That was not what she wanted. She could not follow that sort of endless road. How can one Judge if they cannot walk a mile in another's shoes?
That was the Tyrant's path. And while it seemed all too sensible at times, that was but testament to the madness upon whose precipice she walked.
The worst part was that this was one case where she could see the logic.
How irksome. To walk one's own path that matched, but did not follow, another path was frustratingly, some could say maddeningly, difficult.
"...I understand," Katha finally relented. "I'll carry it with me at all times."
Aretaphilla raised an eyebrow, but simply raised her arm back to rest her head upon it. "Good," the Silver King said with a nod. "Finally listening to your elders, are you?"
"Only when it makes sense."
"And there she is," she said, smiling at last. "But perhaps I should be thankful, because that means you always listen to me. If you're lucky, you won't need to use it at all."
They shared a quiet laugh. Luck has never been on their side, whether as Clansmen or in their families. "Is it some sort of horrible last resort that will cost me dearly?" Katha asked.
"Oh, no. I just want it back."
A moment of silence, as small as the Silver King, passed as Katha wondered how serious she was being.
"Best get going, XXI. I've got a rendezvous with someone in a bit." With that, Aretaphilla turned back to the window, watching the going ons and nothing-doings of the sentries of the Dawn's Fist. "Try not to die, you hear? I've got plans riding on you!"
----
300 E.K.
The Storm Encroaches
Tribulation Looms
Fight For Your Life
Sleep had been fitful and done with one eye open - and if Katha could have managed it, both eyes would have been - but it had been restive enough. Waking amidst popping joints and creaking bones, Katha stretched her arms above her head in the dank darkness of the cave before she reached into her satchel and pulled out a handful of low-grade Spirit Stones.
It was time to test her resolve. That, or die trying on Turtlebone Mountain. One was certainly likelier than the other.
She was under no illusion about what Tribulation would offer her after the fact, even if she survived. She might reach a new level of Cultivation and gain strength few ever do, but she would also be spent and exhausted after fighting the Five Coloured Lightning. The storm would only draw more beasts to her location, and though they would know in their bones to beware the lightning that rained, once it stopped they would be free to do as they pleased.
Surviving Five Element Tribulation would be miracle enough. Surviving the aftermath would be something else entirely. But it was that or have zero hope of making it off this forsaken mountain at all.
Because she knew enough of Five Element Tribulation to know that it contained just enough of a Dao echo to draw the attentions of a Nascent Soul. And she knew enough of her Legate's plans to know that she and others as bullheaded as her would be with the Grand Elder, somewhere along the Pass. With luck, she would draw the
right Nascent Soul's attention.
She did not know where along the Pass their Grand Elder and all the others involved in the current Centennial Trial would be, or if they were around the Pass at all, but there was no other real option. Still, if the timing was just right, if she lived just long enough…
…Well, objectively it was a long shot. But that was the best she could manage, and a slim chance of survival was better than no chance at all.
It would have to do. The
[Judgement] was clear, and so she would live with it.
----
Katha emerged from the cavern ready to brave the lightning, yet what awaited her at the mouth of the cavern was the same Mountain Goat from before, its rectangular eyes judging her as it pawed at the ground, one clopping hoof stomp at a time.
She looked it in the eye, Hornsword slung over her back and Oathshield already extended on her arm. The Goat stopped stomping and looked back at her, not responding. Not gearing up to attack. After a moment, Katha retracted the Oathshield again, back to a simple - if bulky - bracer.
A moment passed and it simply grunted and stepped aside. It clearly knew that Katha was on the verge of Tribulation and it had no intention of forcing her hand. Beast or not, if she involved Tribulation Lightning then and there, they would both die. And as far as she knew, Heaven had other plans to punish the impertinent Juniors who reached the fourth Keystone.
Beast it was, subservient to the Will of Heaven, it simply watched her pass as she proceeded to the highest nearby peak at a brisk pace.
She moved purposefully but not hastily, never running but never dragging her feet either as she climbed steep steps and crossed valleys. Through all this, not once was Katha accosted by beasts. It seemed nature itself was letting her go by, like a champion paraded home… Or a prisoner towards final death at the execution grounds.
It was not long, only a few hours, before she reached her destination sometime before midday. A flat-topped plateau greeted her, craggy and bereft of trees and life of all sorts. It was truly desolate and truly isolated. A lonely place at the top of the world, with little but the sky for company and the yawning earth around to contemplate, it was a suitable place to do the unthinkable, and surrounded by kinetic solutions were she of a mind to correct this madness in a conclusive fashion.
Up above, Katha saw the storm clouds gathering. There were always clouds above the skies of Turtlebone Mountain, and one could not cross its vast spans without residing under the dreary blanket of stormy promise, for what else would it soar beyond? But the ones that gathered over her were different, crackling with a rage that was personal and specific, as opposed to the generalised loathing that storm clouds normally emanated. No, these ones intended to punish, and they radiated constantly with that eagerness, that zeal to strike.
In truth, though Katha had avoided thinking about it so far, these storm clouds have been gathering for decades by this point. Ever since she had made that breakthrough in the depths of the Yuan Mountains, the rumbling tension had been building within her. All who sought to climb the rungs of immortality felt it tug at their Dantian, that yearning pressure, and Katha was no exception, except in the intensity of the dissatisfaction. Every keystone crossed only made that yearning stronger, and for one like her who crossed the third in a decade, the enormity of it proved a terrifying prospect on reflection.
But now, it was only expected. The Legatus was right. It was the only way forward.
It simply was.
Satchel on her hip, Hornsword planted on the ground and one hand raised skyward as if reaching, the supplicant Katha Theodoros let out a short, triumphant sigh.
"C'mon. Prove me wrong."
----
Katha Theodoros 34
Five Element Tribulation
Woe Betide Thee
Pitiful Creature Beneath Heavenly Decree
Death Comes
----
Then and there, lightning the colour of the depthless ocean fell upon the plateau, again and again like monsoon rain. The thunder roared a deafening design, yet the ground did not shatter. And so, Katha did not move a muscle, simply waiting. It was no danger, so reaction was pointless. This, she had
[Judged] so.
When the lightning ceased eight seconds later, after eight strikes, what stood before her was slight, petite, and cyclopean. Clad in fine silks, wearing golden anklets and golden bracelets each studded with dazzling gemstones and the stars of the earth, the ensemble this one wore contrasted well against flawless silver skin. In her hands she held a teal blue wand, tipped with a silver heart that sparkled with starlight and dazzled with harmony and warmth. Her smile was similarly radiant and sincere, and this most of all made Katha wary in the extreme.
Because Aretaphilla Myia never wore her emotions on her sleeve. Not once. Not ever. And yet, what wore her face before her was a nearly perfect reproduction.
For Heaven to steal the likeness of a Single Pillar King so early on in this Tribulation bode poorly for the rest of it.
"About time, XXI," the false Silver King said, her voice the same clear bell chime, but filled with a delight so infectious it seemed to brighten the stormy tribulation skies above, the blue flashes seeming to outshine all other colours. She let out a gentle laugh as she twirled her wand and struck a girly pose, worryingly appropriate despite her age. "But look at you! Challenging Heaven… And at half my age! Kids these days are
so wild, Centurion. I'm honestly rather proud of you!"
As she spoke, a mist had descended upon the plateau, centred on the Silver King. Not one whiff had touched Katha's skin, and yet it was a foreboding omen in spite of - or rather because of - the imposter's exuberance. Yet, Katha did not move to strike. Somehow, she knew there was more to this.
There was something else. Striking now would be a mistake. "I'll believe it when I hear you say it, Legatus."
Aretaphilla pouted back at her, a worryingly suitable expression on that face. "But I just did, though?"
"...Why of all people, Heaven chose
you as its avatar, I'm honestly afraid to find out."
"Again and again with the false modesty," Aretaphilla tut-tutted in a manner that was so very
like her if not for the cheer, an immediate turnabout from her earlier sulking. "You already know full well why I'm here!"
"Of course."
Aretaphilla beamed. She never beamed. "Then let's begin, Katha!"
Aretaphilla Myia (False)
The Unfettered King
The Song of Heaven, Formless yet Vast
With but a flourish of her wand, the False King gathered the mists to herself. Another twirl and spouts of water burst from the ground below as serpents and as spears. Katha dodged them easily, and where her feet landed the plateau cracked into spiderwebs. Her speed was unreal, with even waterspouts right underneath her missing her outright, but as they rose into the air they fell to the earth not as scattered droplets but as directed torrents. Imbued with Qi, propelled with force, even the slightest glance would leave lasting wounds for the battles onward. And beyond these, Katha knew she had to be wary, for the mists the False King had gathered and were still gathering were much the same. They were charged with Qi and similarly hazardous.
The longer this battle lasted, the more dangerous this battlefield would become. The battle had to end immediately, even if it was a heavy expenditure for so early into the trial.
Just her luck that Water came first.
Gripping the Hornsword in both hands, Katha
swung, a crescent bow wave of Sword Qi splitting apart a waterspout and casting it aside as an invisible, harmless mist. She charged right through it, following in her attack's wake as the False King conjured more attacks and more mist. A solid wall of water stood in her path and she split it apart like nothing against a blade of Nascent Chitin.
In but a step she was now face to face with Aretaphilla Myia, and in seconds her sword now swung for the False SIlver King's neck at speeds unreasonable for a Qi Condenser.
But when the blade made contact, it was against a wand cloaked with a layer of liquid song.
"So
impulsive, XXI!" Aretaphilla Myia grinned. She raised a hand as she sang an octave higher and a spear of water shot at Katha from behind her head. While the Iron Devil dodged to the side, the false Aretaphilla stepped back and unleashed yet more plumes of water as an invisible mist descended. "Just be faster next time! It'll work, I'm sure!"
Katha weaved past the next series of attacks in twists and turns, splitting waterspouts with sword and shield. At the last moment, she hurled the Hornsword straight at the False King. It flew straight as an arrow and carried great force, but the False King simply stepped to the side and let it plunge into the dirt.
"Faster, not further!" The False King called out, a gentle gesture without a hint of mockery. The sincerity only made the implied insult sting more. "Throwing your sword never works, XXI! Honestly, you
Theodoroi are too straightforward! No wonder you keep dying in Tribulation!"
"Probably." Katha's face remained a stony impassive mask as she extended her left hand. "But against you, I can't afford to fight you at your best."
A single finger closed. The ground beneath them rocked and shuddered.
Krak! Thoom!
The Hornsword tore its way out of the ground and through the False King's chest hilt-first. It smashed into Katha's outstretched left hand and she let the momentum carry until it rested against her shoulder. The imposter stumbled before falling to her knees, water pouring out of its chest cavity like blood should.
Looking up, lips trembling as they curled into a strained smile, the false King began to speak. The Hornsword beheaded her before her lips could move and she splashed across the plateau like a tub of bathwater.
Swiftly. Decisively. The Unfettered King died for now.
---
And so ended the first cycle of water amid distant heavenly disdain and clouds sparking with five coloured lightning. While some would dwell upon the face she wore, Katha instead mulled over the role the False Silver King played. The
[Judgement] there was clear and concerning in equal measure.
The Silver King, Aretaphilla Myia, was a woman famed for her mastery of the Dao of Song. Amongst the Single Pillar Kings, none were her match when it came to elevating others to their pinnacles, though in turn she herself was not so unassailable. What was a Song, after all, without an Audience? While the true Aretaphilla Myia did not bother with water, given she had
other things she could weave into truth with her Songs, the False Aretaphilla Myia was much like the True Silver King. Battlefield control and support. Elevation, not domination.
Yes, the False King of Water supported others instead of herself, a battlefield controller who deigned to wear her down and turn the battlefield against her, instead of taking it against her. Even now, the plateau was littered with Qi-charged puddles and areas of invisible mist, and as the Tribulation progressed she would have to contend with more and more.
And when forced to take the battlefield against her, the False King of Water had already forced her to reveal one of the powers of the Hand of Spite, all to end a battle in three minutes. Because any longer and it would be a problem.
If this is the calibre of a False King specialising in
supporting others…
"Just like the real deal…" She muttered.
Heaven really was not pulling any punches.
"As is its want," an even-toned voice rang out from behind her, not once heralded by the fall of lightning or the clap of thunder. Katha snapped around and through mists saw a man of bronzed complexion, coated with a greenish patina that left it almost brassy. His expression was severe, his garb modest, his hair golden. He wore the laurels of a Legate and carried himself with the dignity of one. Katha knew him, not by face but by reputation.
Above, the storm pulsed both blue and green brightly, the other colours muted in comparison, a foreboding sign.
Antonius Emmanuel Elanora (False)
The Undying King
The Truth of Growth , Life after Death
"In words you'll care to remember, XXI," the clear bell voice of Aretaphilla Myia chimed from behind him, "Heaven is raising the bar."
"Second King today," Katha muttered. "Which means I'm going to be fighting five of you."
"Assuming you get that far," Antonius responded. He produced a spear, a gnarled branch of wood tipped with a leafy spearhead, and struck it against the ground. "But that is unlikely in the extreme. Unfortunately, you are going to die today."
The second Legate of the day slammed the butt of his spear against the ground. Promptly, puppets of living wood emerged from the depths of the plateau, effigies that wore familiar faces as they shambled into formation about him.
Katha narrowed her eyes.
Very familiar faces.
She saw her father, his face a permanent severe sigh. She saw her grandfather, his eyes closed in misery forever. She saw her niece, screaming rage eternal. Her nephews. Her kinsmen. Her clansmen.
Her brother, weeping like she always joked he did, now forever framed in bark and wood.
"My family? Really?"
"This is the path you have chosen. This is the path you must walk. To strike me down is to strike them down." Antonius spread his arms as the effigies melded their energies with him, girding him, reeking strongly of
Wood. "That is the Judgement you seek, Katha Theodoros. The deaths of every last one of your kin, by your own hand. Will you still strive, knowing it lays beyond a mountain of your own flesh and blood?"
"Of course I am." The answer was instantaneous, not even worth consideration. "But your false equivalence insults them more than it insults me." She raised the Hornsword and pointed it at the Legate. "I will walk this path over many corpses in my lifetime, but not theirs. Just yours."
Antonius scowled and let out a shout, the wooden ghosts raising their broken spears and shields. A ghostly Hoplite framed in green-black and bronze panoply sprang from them and stabbed down at her, spear in an overhand grip. She knocked it aside with the Oathshield, but the blow was unreasonably heavy. It ran cold with the chill of the grave, stealing the warmth in her body. No, numbing her senses.
Contact would be dangerous.
She closed for a strike with the Hornsword when bolts of water shot up from around and curved at her from every direction but the front. Katha snarled as a water spout grazed her cheek and an angry patch of red rust spread out around the cut. Aretaphilla tut-tutted as she waved her wand hither and thither, before raising it high and calling forth a watery owl three times her height and twice Katha's.
"Priorities, XXI!" She called out in that same infuriating sing-song tone. "Me or him! Who's the bigger danger?"
Katha bit her tongue instead of retorting as the ground split open again. Yet more wooden corpses emerged, this time bearing the faces of those she knew in the 427th Legion. A woman with grey feathers in her hair, a man with a vertical scar that divided his face into halves, a literal bear of a man. They clawed with skeletal bark hands already clasping broken spears and shields, and they took their place around te Undying King, bolstering the Hoplite yet further.
Vexing,
vexing. The longer she took, the stronger the Formation got and the more attention it demanded - and the more cuts Aretaphilla got in against her. And for all the strength and speed of her body, she was but one person. She could only fight one of them at once.
Very,
very vexing.
She threw the Hornsword again and it simply clattered off the shield of the ghostly Hoplite. She swiped her left hand this way and that, but there was little control and less speed. Each clang only stole more momentum, until it only made a little bit of noise. The Hornsword fell to the ground and embedded itself halfway through the earth. Now she was disarmed
and she had two Kings to fight.
But Katha charged anyways.
She threw herself forward against a fully unfolded Oathshield. The water owl, Oelivert, crashed straight against her, water splashing all around it like a fan and in large splashes onto her. Patches of rust began to spread over her, miniscule but plentiful. And oh, oh so very painfully.
But she broke past the water and struck against the wood. And having reached the Formation head on, her right hand thrummed with Fire Qi enough to crackle like a newly lit bonfire.
She struck, her fist like a thunderclap. Fire bloomed outwards like the petals of a flower. The effigy of her father crumpled like paper as the flames began to spread throughout the formation. The Wood Qi that anchored the Hoplite only fed the flames more and more, even as Antonius tried to control or douse the inferno that would be. Aretaphilla commanded water and yet more water to throw onto the Formation, but yet the damage was done.
As Katha retreated, five effigies from her family collapsed entirely. The Hoplite that the remainder sustained was now that much less coherent. Smaller. And too far to strike at her now.
She flicked a finger on her left hand against the back of another, and time froze completely.
Katha dove to the side, sliding across jagged rock like it was smooth silk, and hooked her leg around the Hornsword. She swung about it and her left hand traced the flat of its blade as she kicked it loose, spiralling in the air. An instant later, less than a heartbeat, time resumed, and she had already launched herself into the air, halfway through a full backwards rotation.
The Kings raised their guard, Aretaphilla a screen of water, Antonius raising his Hoplite's shield, but there was no preventing the inevitable now.
The back of her heel struck the Hornsword's pommel. As it shot towards the Hoplite, the Hornsword ignited, blazing like a comet and striking like a meteor.
Friction, after all, was a law with many jurisdictions. Like air resistance.
The Hornsword struck hard and the space around it detonated. The Formation scattered completely and the Hoplite died. One of Antonius' limbs was severed entirely. Katha landed an instant later, her eyes closed and her knee crashing against the Unfettered King's sternum through a protective mist that made her skin scream with pain as another layer of rust began to coat and spread over it.
"Reckless again, XXI," the imposter chided with amusement. "At this rate, you're--"
A second blow, a mighty crunch, and the Unfettered Aretaphilla Myia splashed against the rocks once more.
She strode towards the delimbed Antonius Ambrosius next, briskly but in no particular hurry. It was not that she could afford the time, but more like she could not afford the exertion. Her left hand was getting sore, her Qi was running dry, and she was covered in rust. The Undying King was still drenched in the protective screen Aretaphilla tried to raise around him, and she had to force each patch of rust to peel off with painful applications of Earth Qi first. She needed to recover some strength before she could end this cycle decisively.
"Your words…" Antonius laughed as she approached. His bronze body was turning pale, for all that as a fake he had no actual blood. "Bold words they are… But you killed them all anyways. And you didn't even feel a thing. There's a word for that, you know…"
"Yes. There is." Katha pulled the Hornsword free from where it sat, between Antonius and his left shoulder and arm, and held it above Antonius' head. "Monster."
She let it fall and gravity did the rest. Antonius' head rolled free of the rest of his body, and by the time it came to a stop, it was a solid block of wood.
----
So ended the second cycle of Wood. In the skies above, Heaven rumbled yet more discontent, five coloured lightning sparking again and again through thunderclouds, lessened for now but no less spiteful. Katha did not care.
Gasping for breath she fell to one knee, right hand against the ground and left arm limp. This much, two cycles in? Almost a third of her Qi spent and yet more use of the Hand of Spite, in just two cycles? She looked up at the five-hued storm clouds cracking with Tribulation Lightning, blue and green most prominent amongst its prismatic display. Water and Wood had fallen already. Following the elemental cycle, the next would be Fire.
Katha knew a number of the Kings. Most by reputation, but a few in person. And she knew enough to know who was most likely to mantle Fire.
All Kings were troublesome. It was in their nature to be so, to rage against heavenly precept and cultural norm. But the likely next one… He was relentless in the extreme.
Grunting, she forced herself onto her feet and pulled out a low-grade Spirit Stone. She fed on it as much as she could before the next phase began. The lightning would fall for the third time soon.
And it did so less than a minute later. The third Cycle, with jagged red and crimson, rained down upon the plateau.
And through Antonius Emmanuel Elanora's former corpse erupted a clawed hand of molten magma. It climbed outwards, revealing molten skin that ran like an unsightly ooze, heat haze distorting the King's silhouette even as it emerged. Bulky, lightly clad, his forearms and shins were made of molten stone. With a dark rictus grin, it looked at Katha with thinly disguised contempt.
No. Hunger.
It charged, slaking molten stone like petals in its wake.
Amaranth Castellanos (False)
The Consuming King
The Hunger in the Blood, Yearning and Consuming
With flailing claws and hooked feet it lunged right at her, a whirlwind of flaming, balefully orange blows.
Again and again the blows rained like fire from the sky, ceaseless and endless. Even bare misses sizzled against her skin, even the True Blood of Iron struggled against such oppressive heat. The vaunted invincibility of her bloodline expression proved insufficient against the searing magma of the blood. Every blow she could not dodge had to be caught against the Oathshield lest her flesh cook and scream. Each weighty slam she met felt like a hammer blow against her bones, precise and painful, sunbursts of agony.
But Pain remained a close companion. And she waited for her opportunity, past the blazing rain and flaring pain.
The moment a gap opened, a punch thrown just a hair too wide, Katha struck. An upwards kick and a wave of Sword Qi followed. The Consuming King's left arm and leg were cut open, not off but certainly wide. The King stumbled back as a horrible molten visage, blood pouring from his rent sinister side, and Katha broke free of close range at the very edge of the plateau.
They regarded one another, Katha's chest heaving while Amaranth's blood flowed freely from his wounds. Then with a grunt, he simply tore off his leg and arm and regrew them without a second thought.
He brought his hands together, newly grown and old alike, as a palm and a closed fist as he nodded lightly at Katha. He smiled, steam escaping his jaws as he breathed, and despite his amiability he continued to look at her like a monstrous heathen. A heretic. "You're pretty good at this fighting thing, aren't you?"
"Where are the other two?" Katha asked warily and firmly.
Amaranth smirked and jabbed a thumb over his shoulder behind himself. The corpse of Antonius Ambrosius pulled itself back together, every dismembered chunk of bark and wood tied together by vines, and stood back up. The scattered puddle that was Aretaphilla Myia reconsolidated into a bubble, where bumps and lumps pushed outwards until it popped and she was once more upright and mobile. They took their positions, Antonius besides Amaranth as equals, Aretaphilla behind the both of them as companion.
"Quite well, thank you," Antonius said, voice dripping with venom.
"I'm glad you care, XXI," Aretaphilla beamed, expressing uncharacteristic sincerity.
"...Right." Katha straightened herself and rested the Hornsword against her shoulder. "So, what's your spiel? What thinly veiled excuse are you going to use to try and beat me to death?"
"Honestly?" Amaranth shrugged. "Didn't really think about it. Was planning on beating you to death regardless. But now that you mention it, I got a question for you. You're trying to Judge Heaven, right?"
"Get to the point."
"Heaven is the ultimate oppressor of the Clan. It is the only reason we teeter constantly on the precipice of annihilation, since the days we were chased into the Third Sea all until now. Calling us devils, marking us for death, and all for what? You say Heaven is unjust, no?"
"Does it matter if I do?"
"Why not oppose an unjust system with everything, no matter how heinous? Why not use everything at our disposal to defy it?" Amaranth snapped his fingers and a spark of flame crackled out. "Why
not the Blood Path?"
Katha shook her head. This attempt at a 'gotcha' was honestly disappointing. "Because there is more to this war than the end. Because I'm not a raging psychopath obsessed with my own strength to the exclusion of all around me,
or to what that path would turn me into." Her response was even and tepid. She did not care enough to put real steel into her words. No use making an inspiring speech when no one was around to listen. The truth alone was enough. "I am not desperate to get strong. Not anymore. Not now that I know the value of the means to any end.
"Oh?" The Consuming King cupped his chin. "This, even though you're wary of walking an undeviating path?"
Katha nodded and planted a hand on her hip, the Hornsword canted further along her shoulder. "No pact with unrepentant evil."
That statement, old and bold, hung in the air for a moment. Words that none present had ever heard the Old Man speak, but words that resounded across the annals of Golden Devil history regardless.
At once, each of the False Kings turned grim and grave.
"Bold words," said Aretaphilla, melancholic in her smile.
"Unwise words," said Antonius, his frown turning bitter.
"I see you have chosen death," said Amaranth, his flames rekindling stronger and hotter.
In that instant the ground shuddered. Amaranth rocketed forth like a blazing meteor as he screamed towards Katha. Bearing no weapons but his fists, each knuckle was emblazoned with their own runic canticle of the pain destined for the Ironblood. They streaked orange, so bright was the glowing magma that all else in her vision turned dark as night in comparison. All she saw were two smears, amber and orange rushing constantly at her, searing her skin and ready to run her through.
She blinked the smears out of her vision as her body acted on instinct. Waves of Sword Qi swung out, swing by counter-swing, and she forced the Consuming King back. But in that moment the ghostly Hoplite of green graves struck downwards with its spear and grazed her side. Where it cut, brambles dug into her flesh and flared spikes of pain into her. As she tumbled, she felt the dampness of a rainy drizzle tickle her skin and herald rusty torment.
Her left hand dug into the ground. Friction maximised and she stood steadfast where she was as she tore it out of the ground. Her hand steamed, water droplets vaporising on contact, as she pressed it against her side. The wound cauterised as the brambles burned and her world turned into pain. Yet, there was no time to care. Reaction in this circumstance was ancillary, so she simply did not, as was
[Judged].
The Hoplite continued to loom over her as it attempted another overhand stab, but Katha knocked this one aside with the Oathshield if only barely. Knocked to her knees, she continued to struggle, defiant in her iron splendour.
"All that and still fighting," the false Antonius sneered. "Lethe almighty, you're a
real monster." At his command the Hoplite reared back and readied one more stab.
It fell, like a commandment from above. There was no dodging, no blocking. Only one card left to play.
[Canticle of Theodora - Mistweaver's Mirage]
Katha snarled and swung back against it in a kneeling position. And in the clash that followed, that singular moment when blade's edge against spear's tip, she danced and vanished.
It was not the sort of technique one performed while sitting down, but circumstance demanded she learn to make it work, no matter how much Qi she burned. Speed was her birthright and she wore it well, whether she had the energy for it, as desperation cared not for fairness but for results. However expensive the Canticles of Theodora were, spending Qi like water was the only way she could reset the game now.
Another card played, Katha danced amidst the mists as rain began to fall and the raindrops began to sizzle. The Consuming King was already upon her and he matched her speed for speed, step for step. He struck and something nasty popped and snapped, yet Katha simply slapped her hip back into place like it was the most natural thing in the world as she continued to dance.
"Hah!" Amaranth bellowed, his laughter deep and throaty as befit a burning molten monster from the heart of the desert. "Monster indeed! You just dislocated your hip and just popped it right back in!"
The monster who regrew an arm and a leg threw yet more punches, yet more blazing flames that left more trails in her sight. This time, Katha met him blow for blow, the Hornsword a blur of motion. All the while, the only thing that left her mouth were breaths.
[Canticle of Theodora - Tempest Death Dance]
"Come
on, Katha Theodoros! Scream a bit! Rage a little! FEAST AS YOU LIKE!" Each time his fists met the Hornsword they bled, yet the magma he spilled was worn on her smouldering skin like fresh morning dew. They continued to rush attacks, flurry after flurry, strike after strike, chaining on and on and over and over as they dashed across the plateau, heedless of all obstacles. One fought because to stay still was to die quick, but the other fought because to stay still was to
desire death.
She struck and she swung, matching his fists with her sword blows. Qi continued to be spent like gold at an auction as she sought out even the slightest opportunity. Finally she struck forward and stabbed with the Hornsword, tip blazing orange and white with molten heat.
[Canticle of Theodora - Red Sky Provocation]
A supreme blow, it should have struck cleanly through his dantian and ended the battle. Yet, she stabbed and Amaranth simply caught it in his belly. He laughed as molten blood bubbled around the entry and exit wounds, feeling nothing that mattered. Katha reacted immediately and drove a punch against the Hornsword's hilt. The blade of Nascent chitin shot cleanly through Amaranth's body, right at Antonius behind him, but the launched blade was simply caught in a sudden sheaf of ice, generated instantly.
In the corner of her eye, Aretaphilla pointed her wand at Katha, tut-tutting.
"Did you like my new trick, XXI?" She teased.
It was a pretty good trick. Instead of admitting it, Katha glared at her imposter Legate as she formulated a plan, quick as she could. For a moment.
Things were bad. Water was also Ice, she had forgotten, and it was only snaring the Hornsword more with every passing instant. It would take too long to pull it free, especially with a False King right in front of her and a second behind
him, gathering yet more strength with every wooden effigy he pulled from the ground, now bearing the faces of family of blood and iron.
And looming over all this was the Unfettered King, the fake Aretaphilla Myia, who stood…
…Who stood not too far away.
She understood immediately. Throwing up the ice had made Aretaphilla exposed. With loss came opportunity.
Shame it sucked to grab it. But in the end, there was only one real option besides dying like a dog.
Katha pushed her left arm through the hole in Amaranth's stomach without a second thought and lifted him up. The Consuming King began to shout, both praising her audacity and crying in alarm, but she
touched with the Hand of Spite and froze his time. Only a fraction of a second, but it was enough. Even doing this hurt to the point of numbing as she seared with the gnawing, toothy pain of Qi exhaustion, and when Amaranth's molten blood spilled onto her, her skin and flesh sizzled and melted as pain shot out from her arms up and down her spine.
Yet she did not scream and she did not care, even as she hurt and
hurt. Instead she lifted him over her head, mouth shut to keep the molten blood from burning her tongue, like he was light as a feather.
And then she threw him, right at Antonius.
As he flew, Katha stopped time for an instant a second time. Yet more pain, yet more searing
nothing ate her dwindling Qi reserves as overreach compounded on overreach. Her chest burned and she could not breathe, but she still threw herself at Aretaphilla.
When time resumed, her arms were already wrapped around her waist, an instant from barrelling right into her.
They connected and they tumbled. Water raked across Katha's body and left patches of rust, but it mattered not. She picked Aretaphilla up by the legs and dragged her right over to Amaranth, bent over on Antonius in the midst of a bonfire of his own making.
As the Consuming King and the Undying King tried to pick themselves up amidst burning tatters, the effigies torn apart by Amaranth's landing, they saw a horrific visage. A woman cast in iron, one eye dead and the other all but dead. Her flesh a dull orange from the heat, covered in patches of dirty rust. The silver streak in her hair stained with magma blood, she strode towards them, dragging their own comrade behind her by the ankle in an increasingly corroded palm.
The image of death, she was relentless. Pitiless, remorseless, she would not die. She would not stop. Even if the world turned against her, she would continue on her crusade, destroying as her bloodline demanded.
Death to the enemies of the Imperator.
Amaranth barked a laugh as he awaited the next move with open arms. "You know, I think this is the first time a King beat an Elemental Avatar to death with another--"
Katha swung Aretaphilla at Amaranth, head over heels. On contact there was a sharp hiss as water neutralised flame and detonated into hot, expanding steam. She swung again and again and continued to bash and strike, wielding the imposter Legate's limp body like a flail. A dozen blows and a dozen seconds later, both Amaranth and Aretaphilla were steaming puddles, one of cooling magma and the other of melting ice.
All that remained was the Undying King, once again. His Formation was in the midst of reconstitution and a trio of effigies now stood between him and her; her father, her brother and her sister-in-law, faces frozen in horror. He displayed no fear, but no Hoplite loomed overhead. His Dao Heart had been shaken and now he was at her mercy.
The effigies moved to protect their master but were cast aside with a single swiping hand. Katha stepped over their torn bodies as she picked him up by the neck, hand clenched loosely around his throat. Everything hurt but she did not care. Angry or not, her
[Judgement] was clear. If he came back the first time from wood, it only made sense to deny all kinds of wood.
"I am going to be thorough."
"This will be unpleasant, won't it you metal monster?"
She shifted over, finding a vein of molten rock in the ground anywhere Amaranth had streaked across, punched through or bled upon. She found a puddle quickly, amber rock-blood, and pressed Antonius into it. Hands wrapped around his neck, she felt him die as he burned to cinders, steadily dipping further into molten magma blood.
Nothing soon remained but an unsightly, cooling patch of ash black rock of gloopy texture.
----
Three cycles done, two left to go.
And Katha was in agony, still sizzling all over, still covered in dried blood and flaking rust. Half her Qi spent, her satchel half-melted and her things spilled all over. With two left to go, she wondered drearily if she would even see the fifth.
She walked over to the Hornsword, now laying on the ground after the ice ensnaring it had melted, and picked it up. It was heavier than it should have been. No, its balance was off.
She checked again. No,
her balance was off. Her arms were getting numb.
On the third cycle and faltering already. How vexing.
"You're not even trying to make it fair, are you?" Katha sighed as she looked upwards. "I didn't even prepare properly for this. You're just trying to kill us at this point."
Heaven responded by sending four more bolts of lightning, each a prismatic hue. The fourth cycle was beginning now.
With a sigh, Katha frowned as she awaited the fourth False King.
And blinked at the handsome three-eyed man pushing his way out of the ground, a man with no relation to Antonius Emmanuel Eleanora and a man she's known for quite some time. A man she even recognised as a senior, maybe even a friend on a good day. "You're Earth?" She asked incredulously. "But that's just not - you're not even trying to be fair anymore! You can fly!"
A beat. Katha narrowed her eyes. "...
Can you fly?"
Gaius Antonius (False)
The Burrowing King
The Shameless Pursuit , Ever Lurking, Ever Crawling
"Probably. Depends on how I'm feeling today." The False Gaius pulled out a cigarette as was his fashion and struck it alight with a snap of his fingers. "But honestly, whippersnapper, ever since you stopped being a Genius, I frankly don't
need to. I could probably kill you with a pinky finger."
"Relax, Antonius," Aretaphilla laughed. Now she stepped out of the fog, whole and hale and hearty. "Give her a little slack. She
just beat a motherfucker to death with another motherfucker!"
"I am well aware," said a nonplussed Antonius Emmanuel Eleanora.
"No, not
you,
Gaius. Ugh, why do you two have the same name? And not even in the same place!"
"Because shut the fuck up." The Burrowing King pointed straight at Katha. "I owe the girl a sick ass fight."
And at that, he fell straight through the earth as if stepping off the cliff's edge, with no trace of his passage on the plateau, not even a ripple on the earthen face. As he did so, more effigies of wooden make and screaming visage emerged from the ground, but now they did so more frequently and no longer only around Antonius. Amidst the mess, as Katha cut and swung her way through whichever collection of brambles emerged around her, a pair of clawed hands tore free of the earth at Katha's feet and grabbed at her ankles. She kicked herself free and ripped them off at the wrists, but all it took was one moment.
So began another onslaught.
Gaius emerged halfway out of the ground. One swing, forearm against her chin, and she tumbled freely through the air. She swung back at him despite discombobulation but he was gone as quickly as he arrived.
Then another impact before she hit the ground.
With heat and a howl, Amaranth descended upon her with fists aplenty. His knuckles bled freely and spilled molten blood all over which burned on contact. In the single moment before she hit the ground, the Consuming King had struck her a dozen times. Molten rock blood now clung onto her skin, slagging her armour, singing her clothes.
The pain, she would note for later, was excruciating.
Katha hit the ground hard with a mind racing with instructions and actions and a body too pained and ravaged to act. Such was the limitations of the
[Judgement], laid bare for her to contemplate. She lay embedded into the ground, too pained to move with a ghostly green Hoplite over her, thrusting a spear at her overhand. By barest moments and bloodborne instincts she blocked it with the Oathshield and turned piercing death into painful impact, but at that same time Gaius simply barrelled into her from below.
Once more she tumbled through the air, and once more the Undying King's Hoplite struck her with its shield.
Now she flew, and now the impact jolted her body with life - or perhaps a concussion? Amaranth appeared again to deny her a clarification, pinwheeling over her before kicking down with both feet. Katha struck not hard earth but freezing ice, a glacier made just for her. The chill was bone deep, like a sharp cutting pain that split through every part of her that touched it. Through the noise and the haze and the numbing nothing of the cold that left only pain, Katha distantly noted that the ice did not appear to inflict the rust rot upon her body. A quirk of ice Qi doing ice things?
Weird. Intentional? Irrelevant.
Suddenly, as if overflowing, the glacier grew around her and tried to encase her within it as a frozen throne. Instead Katha tore herself free, left arm first. She opened her hand and the Hornsword slammed into her grip, still glowing red hot and dripping with Amaranth's burning blood. She stabbed into her frozen throne and thawed herself free, feet first, knowing that the blood of the Consuming King would be more than enough to overcome the nature of the Unfettered King's Ice. At least the fourth cycle still contained this small elemental incongruence?
What would she do when the fifth cycle descended? Questions for later.
"So, how was that?" Gaius asked? His voice was here but his body was nowhere. More than likely, he was directly below her. Tactically brilliant… Morally repulsive. "Wasn't that a sick ass combo? Props to the other three for the help. And props to
you for surviving."
Positive banter was new. "Pure luck," Katha replied curtly. Saying more hurt, but saying nothing was not an option either. The fake Gaius wanted to talk and every moment he did was a moment she had to catch her breath again.
"Luck!" The Burrowing King cackled. He launched back onto the surface, his head sticking through the ground and all three of his eyes wide as he grinned from ear to ear, manic with praise. "Luck, she calls it! Luck is something you have not a drop of, Theodoros! Luck is Heavenly
chutzpa, the special sauce dipshit turtleborn need to keep up with the likes of you! What
you have is a strong body and basically infinite pain tolerance! The barrage was not the sort of thing a normal Condenser can survive, you know?"
He chuckled, a cigarette still in his mouth. "It's honestly a shame, you know? The fact you are going to die today."
"Staistically, sure," Katha grunted. "But every time you monologue the scales tilt in my favour."
The false Gaius suddenly stopped smiling. He rolled his shoulders, twisting his head this way and that in a figure eight. He seemed worked up and sighed heavily as his gaze transfixed back onto her. "And
that's why. You're talking about statistics and points and
odds like any of that fuckin' matters. But it
doesn't, white girl. What you
should have said--"
A ghastly green spear, more pillar than anything else and the largest attack so far, crashed into Katha from above. She dodged and twisted to survive and the Consuming King leapt right at her on all fours. Hands and feet bashing against the ground like a monster, Amaranth crossed the distance and caught her by the neck before slamming her right into the ground. Her skin sizzled where his clawed grip tightened around her throat. The pressure was immense and the pain dulled into numbness by the second as the ground around and beneath her softened and liquefied before the Consuming King's heat. As she sank into the ground, Gaius walked up to her, hands in his pockets and all three eyes glaring contemptuously down at her.
"--Was 'prove it'," he completed with a sigh. "But you're too busy counting numbers. Measuring odds.
Calculating how many auroch balls it takes to Ascend. Well, that might work for something pathetic like the
9th Heavenstage, but this is the 13th! You don't become King by being conservative."
"No, I thought not." Katha shrugged, nonchalant despite the desperation of her hand flailing blindly through the rocky bog ground for her satchel. But as Amaranth pushed her deeper and deeper down, Katha raised her left hand, holding a set of bells by the string that connected them. "But what if I said I was hedging my bets?"
Amaranth's eyes widened, as did all the Kings', as Katha rang them with a toss. The bells clashed together with a clear, undeniable Note, like falling water and midsummer rain. Soft and delicate, it was felt by all present.
And then Amaranth Castellanos was suddenly thrown off of Katha, his hand still clutched around her neck even as the rest of the arm was torn off by a deluge of water. And not one drop struck the younger Cultivator.
Gaius whipped around at the apparent interruption, shocked that no Heavenly Lightning fell to punish the interloper, when a second stream appeared to strike him. He slipped beneath the rock to avoid it, giving Katha space to pull herself upright on the Hornsword. As she rose, she saw Aretaphilla, their eyes meeting. The gaze of the Unfettered King was devious, conniving, and utterly convicted in a way that was comfortingly familiar, rather than unnervingly so.
"Pity, XXI," the false Myia crooned, mocking rather than sympathetic, "You were
so close to saving it for number five."
"Legatus, this is a Tribulation. Interference is death. So how did you figure this out?"
"Hm? Oh, this." A flourish with the wand and more beasts and water and ice emerged from the mists, directed at Antonius' formation even as the Unfettered King directed yet more streams of striking flows into Amaranth's back. "It's painfully simple, XXI, I'm honestly disappointed now. I'll give you a bit of time to think on it."
She paused, smirking at Katha and waiting for her to respond. The redhead frowned back. "I'm in the middle of Tribulation, Legatus. No games, just this once?"
"Fine, fine, but you still need to give me… oh, ten percent effort? Tell me, what is the Heaven Shaking Song?"
Katha took a breath. Her first breather since the fourth cycle began. "Everywhere."
The Unfettered King smirked. "You're goddamn right it is. Now go pull your weight."
Then and there a green spear crashed down between them, Antonius' Hoplite now grown to the size of a true Colossus. Hornsword in her hands, Katha moved to meet his formation hand to hand, even as Aretaphilla hurled water and ice and mist to deny the Consuming King his feast. The ground erupted with all manner of spears, arrows, and fast moving shards of metal that thundered in their passage, Gaius giving no quarter and offering none, yet Katha continued to move. Gaius had three eyes and Katha had but one, but the fake she faced was not nearly the marksman of the original. Speed was enough to avoid them, in sufficient quantity.
Speed was Katha's birthright.
She arrived before Antonius in a flash and upon the crack of thunder. The air of her arrival beat against his wooden effigies and sent them reeling as she swung the Hornsword, ready and red with heat.
This time, there would be no slow, certain death.
The first swing, certain and infallible, caught against the neck of five effigies and sent them flying. Immediately the second, faster and shadowless, split Antonius' head into diagonal halves.
[Canticle of Theodora - Cloudcaster's Chant]
But even as Antonius' body fell in different directions, Katha swung again as she sent herself into a mid-air cartwheel with explosive power. Another expenditure of Qi, expensive but hardly wasteful in order to secure a certain kill. Her Judgement proved righteous when the Burrowing King emerged right then and there from the earth, ready to contest her tenuous grip upon the firmament.
Instead, Katha invoked Theodora and swung once more.
[Canticle of Theodora - Squall Beneficence]
Antonius' body, with brambles already growing to bind the severed pieces back together, split into four chunks further. The same strike tore apart the sum total of his formation. Together this ended the Undying King's role this cycle, and for that temerity Gaius struck her cleanly in the stomach. She was launched downwards from the hooking fist, even as the rest of the Undying King's effigies of her family and friends literally withered upon the vine.
Katha struck the ground. She jolted. And her mind raced. Gaius soon emerged over her with a three-pronged trident in his hand, and with a sneer slammed it down on her. The blow grazed her skin, unable to find more than skin deep purchase upon her iron skin. Katha rolled quickly and pushed off the ground and onto her feet.
Past him, a spout of water was hurled at the Consuming King and instantly vaporised by his heat, bathing the plateau in hot mist and summoning wispy clouds about them all.
"Fancy trick," Gaius snarled with rage that was not truly his. Heaven must be running out of patience, to be this close to forgetting the roles of its puppets. The Legatus has a talent for testing limits. "No, really. Disrupting the Cycle like that is quite inspired. But tricks won't get you past me."
"No, probably not." Katha raised the Hornsword over her head. "I'll have to beat your ass to do that."
Gaius whistled, long and sinister. Despite his snarl, he smiled. "Then let's get to it, kid."
He vanished into the ground once more as Katha struck furiously at it. The ground shattered beneath her and the Burrowing King was exposed. Instead of fleeing deeper into the ground, he struck up to meet her falling blows, spears in hand even as he shot shards of molten metal with a strange cylindrical contraption.
The natural thing - the sane thing, even - to do would be to try and avoid the attacks that came surely for her. Even with the legendary toughness of the Blood of Iron, taking unnecessary damage was foolish. This she knew.
Sadly, none of this damage was unnecessary. Because it was the only way to strike Gaius down here and now.
Heedless, Katha descended upon a falling sword.
And she struck. A single blow, clarified.
Gaius crested the top of the hole and reached its edge right as Katha crashed into its bottom. His head hit the ground a second after the rest of his body. He smiled, impressed even as he turned to sand and returned to the earth.
Katha was out of the hole soon enough, having seen none of that sentiment. She emerged just in time to see Amaranth cooled into slag, run through by icy spears courtesy of the Unfettered King. Three out of four Kings were now dead.
All that remained was Aretaphilla Myia, and the Unfettered King looked at her with levelled eyes and crossed arms.
"What are you waiting for, XXI? It's just me left," the Unfettered King said. "End the Cycle."
"...After a breather?" Katha suggested.
"Yes, but no. Not up to me, kiddo. Good luck on number five, it's a doozy. So don't wait this time!"
The silver-streaked redhead nodded at this facsimile of her mentor before she drew a neat line upon the King's neck. The King's head splashed across the ground not long before the rest of the body did.
In her pocket, the bells that had rung now seemed to ring with charged anticipation.
----
Four cycles down and with only the last to triumph over, Katha had all but expended her Qi. Only a third left and without time to respire more spirit stones to make up the difference. If she could find any.
Her body was covered in bloody welts, Gaius' attacks having done their job. It would have been worse if not for the Legatus' gift, but now it was played and Heaven would not let it happen another time. She would need to create the opportunity to regain an ally, but with what?
Her left hand throbbed more powerfully than ever. The power that the Obsidian Tower had granted her was not obliging her with solutions. Only tools.
Once more, Katha sighed. She hoped it would not be for the last time, but she would not be surprised if it was.
"Because the final King is Rina Callista, isn't it?" She looked up at the sky, crackling five-coloured lightning. Now each of the elements was represented, blue shifting to green into red and brown and finally amber, before once more becoming blue. "The first King. The Paragon. The World Lord you despise so much. How are you going to make her? How much will you mock her nature?"
Heaven answered with a bolt of lightning, bronze and gold and resplendent and cold, taking her vision. Fingers wrapped around her neck with the certainty and unyielding strength of a true King. They pressed and the breath was stolen from her, the pressure immense, the iron deforming. When the spots in Katha's eyes cleared, the one she saw stood diminutive in stature but domineering in presence, bronze skin and slight stature completely engulfed by the magnitude of her piercing golden gaze as she was held up like a doll to be discarded.
The World has called. The World Lord Cometh. Woe betide the Enemies of the World.
"Katha Theodoros. Child of Iron. Scion of Occupiers. Heir to Butchers." Each word uttered was an indictment that filled her with shame that was not hers, each delivered as solidly as the fingers now wrapping around her neck. "You and your forefathers have devastated the balance of this world. For that, you shall pay the ultimate price."
Four more bolts of lightning fell. Molten red, verdant green, earthen brown and clear bell blue. The Kings arrived as a unit, Five Kings for one purpose. They stood together, a shield against everything Katha was claimed to represent. They stood behind the greatest of their number, the unyielding paragon herself. Herald of the Clan's rebirth.
Katha could almost choke on her epithets.
Rina Callista (False)
The Hero King
The Final Bastion, Unyielding Against For the World
Hanging like a wet rag Katha had no leverage and no strength to summon. Her hand went to her satchel immediately and grasped for the silver bell. She rang it at once, no hesitation, no shame. In the face of the Hero King's opening gambit there was nothing to do but scamper for advantage.
The single note shook heaven with its clarity. Water's nature shifted as was its right and the Unfettered King's serenity turned to audacity. She flourished with a pose, one leg elegantly poised behind the other, as she gestured with her wand.
At once a dozen spears of ice formed up and shot out from around her. Hero King Rina was pelted by shard after shard of frozen Qi, each a blow enough to rip formations asunder and puncture fortress walls and each but glancing off her bronzed flesh. She turned her head aside only slightly, the mildest tilt of confusion and disdain but momentary.
She released the vice grip that held the redhead up, instead snatching her head like a softball and driving her straight into the ground like a nail or a segment of palisade wall. Then the Hero King sped away, a shockwave in her wake, ready to face one who had turned their backs on Heaven, traitor to the Fivefold Fellowship. As Katha sought to pull her head free of the ground, a voice murmured in her head. Aretaphilla.
"Good choice, Junior," the Silver King smirked.
"I'll handle the Princess and you take the other three. Considering you've made it this far, this should be a bargain!"
Katha did not bother arguing that point. Any help was good help right now. But that meant she still had other, more practical concerns.
"Any time you buy me will be appreciated."
Her Legatus smirked back at her.
"Of course, it is your Tribulation. But then there shouldn't be any problems if I beat her, right?"
Katha blinked.
"No, not really, but… Can you?"
Aretaphilla chuckled. Through the ground was the roar and crash of lightning, softened to a sizzle by the splash of waves and water.
"Think on the Five Element Cycle, XXI. What does metal feed into?"
To this, Katha allowed herself a small smirk.
If only there were miracles during Five Element Tribulation.
She pulled her head free soon enough. Sputtering, tasting gravel, Katha had barely enough time to pull her head free when a legion of the dead grabbed her ankles.
Tens, hundreds of effigies were standing up from the earth. The shells of the previous cycles walked as Antonius Emmanuel Eleanora drew upon the energies that remained to drive them, himself joined by his own echoes of battles prior. The hoplite that loomed overhead was massive, larger than any Katha had ever seen before, before or during this Tribulation. It did not even bother to stab at her, instead simply lifting its ghostly sandal.
Katha tried to push upright, but more effigies rose and grabbed her by the wrists. She was pinned and unable to move, held down by sheer weight of the damned, the sins that the Undying King promised she would commit. No sword in hand, little Qi left to spend, Katha heard only the overwhelming crackle-snap of lightning diffusing and vaporising water and ice as the Hero King sought to correct the deviation she had wrought.
As the sandal approached, as the air pressed down on her, Katha could do little but grip her hands and press her fingers into the ground.
Before it ever met her, the sandal caught fire, and the effigies along with it.
The conflagration spread through the Undying King's legions like a wildfire and in seemingly an instant a fifth of it was gone. The hoplite's leg was now engulfed in flames that savaged sympathetically across the Formation, no matter that it was mortal fire. The effigies that held her hands were turned to cinders by the heat of air resistance, turned maximal with a simple yet substantial gesture.
Katha rolled and kicked upright in time to see the Consuming King, wearing the ashes of dozens of effigies like a coat of paint, ripping through the hoplite, grinning with glee with bloodsoaked claws extended. She reached out with her hand and the Hornsword answered, but the one she met upon the flat of its blade was not the Consuming King's hands but the Hoplite's spear.
Titanspear on Hornsword, the blow sent her into the ground up to mid-shin. The Consuming King kicked at the spear's shaft and changed his trajectory entirely before pivoting off a foot and swinging at her side, a blow she met with the unfurled Oathshield. Locked in position, Katha knew she was left wide open with a King yet completely unaccounted for. Yet though her mind raced for a way to break the deadlock, solutions proved to be scarce.
Time, ironically, proved to be the missing key. The conflagration consumed more of the Hoplite and soon its spear crumbled beneath the heat. Hornsword now freed, with but a single hand with which to use its massive bulk, Katha girded herself with all the Qi her meridians could grasp. Bursting and aching, a hundred pinpoints of pain lost amidst a thousand more, Katha sought to cut down one problem as quickly she could.
[Canticle of Theodora - Sun-Searing Defiance]
A massive sweep split the Hoplite in half and half the effigies to boot. One of Antonius' echoes died in pieces, shattered by the raging spite of the First Vanguard. Yet the exhaustion that grabbed Katha and squeezed was not merely raw, but painful. With a gasp, Katha found the strength stolen from her, Qi consumed in vast quantity that should not be possible.
Until she realised who was still hammering upon her shield with split, bloody fists, the bonfire he embodied now burning all the hotter with blue-white flame. The Consuming King had evolved yet again, like the Undying and Unfettered Kings had demonstrated. What other powers did the rest now possess? What new arsenal did the Burrowing King command? How much of the Hero King was present?
Irrelevant. The Consuming King was eating her Qi. The Consuming King had to die right now.
But Qi could not be used to finish the job. She did not have enough and he would simply burn more off.
Exhaustion clawed at her again. Her guard dropped for an instant. The Consuming King saw his shot and took it.
Katha's left hand, numb and throbbing, tensed and grasped at natural law again, right as Amaranth made his decisive blow. Action and Reaction imbalanced itself and he was sent flying back by his own force, strength enough to pulp the striking arm. A wound that would recover soon enough, but still an opportunity she could grab. With the seconds and minutes she had won, she tried to pull her legs free from the earth.
But then the unaccounted-for Gaius Antonius simply pulled her in, eager to demonstrate the totality of his domain. Exhausted, dry of Qi, she could do little in the darkness but bear the Burrowing King's blows. Held by the shoulders with big, bear-like hands, the Burrowing King grinned as he spoke with the tenor of an old friend, eager to show off a new trick.
"Those were some pretty slick moves, kid! You're still swinging. I respect that!" Then in the dark depths, Katha saw light. Three points of light. "But this is the point where I'm gonna kill you. Hopefully you'll still be recognisable."
Katha reflexively began to open her mouth to protest, but grit it shut. Gaius' eyes lit up with beams of power with heat enough to sear and burn even Katha's flesh, golden heat and light of intense power reflective of the clarity that the true Gaius has spent a lifetime and more chasing.
And she simply raised her left hand before her face, catching each of the three beams in a palm of muddy, bruised, and above all invincible celestial iron, the like and purity of which has not been seen in uncounted ages. Her palm burned, yet she pressed it nonchalantly, with all the urgency of shading a lamp. And she cupped it over his eyes before reaching for his neck with the other hand as she invoked the runes of Spite once more.
Abruptly, relaxing as if sighing, Gaius froze as time around him did. And Katha exerted with palm and hand on his forehead and neck, until his head went one way and his torso went another. Gradually, purposefully, she worked to divide the body of a King. The Burrowing King, one who commanded the earth and the depths below.
She pressed, and twisted, and
pushed harder and harder. And as time about Gaius' head resumed, as the earth around them began to sunder, as Katha freed them both to the light of the sky and the sun above Turtlebone Mountain, there was a snap and Gaius' body went limp.
Then she relaxed, hand still cupped over Gaius' eyes. And in that singular moment of calm, one that surely could not last, she could finally look over to the echo of her Master and see what she had brought to bear against the greatest of the Lonely Path's adherents.
A grand owl of frost and rime danced in the air amidst shrieks and tempestuous wing flaps with a single tracing beam of light. A grand titan of the sea and stone had already been broken against the crags of the Turtlebone Foothills, never to recover despite the lightning shuddering through its veins. And the Unfettered King herself, the Silverlord of Song who selfishly sought to save everyone, continued to sing as she summoned the sea and the storm and the sky and the snow, raining spear after spear in a barrage on the Hero King that would stretch into eternity and the beginning. A battle grander than any she had ever fought and ever seen. The arsenal of a kingdom, brought to bear for a single soul.
Wasteful, some would say. But Aretaphilla Myia was never one to be bothered by things as scarcity and cost. If it were important enough, she would empty her treasury and spend, spend,
spend. Because nothing mattered but the mission. Nothing higher than the Song.
Katha closed her eyes solemnly for a moment before she turned back to the battle at hand. Where a thing of blood and fire loomed overhead, a predator waiting for its prey to feel despair before beginning its assault.
Amaranth descended, dribbling blood and immolating with Qi. And Katha held up Gaius' limp body before uncovering his eyes.
Three beams struck against Amaranth's chest and unleashed power and light. Amaranth screamed as the light blew out chunks of his torso, his neck tenuously attached by mere strips of molten meat, and the force launched him back, and Katha simply hurled Gaius' body after him. She followed suit with a mighty leap, clearing the hole and returning to the plateau.
There, an army of the dead awaited her. A hundred effigies, some charred and others cinders, stood before her. Overhead, a giant with no legs loomed, propped up on its arms. Amidst them, in command and in control, stood the Undying King with a spear in hand.
Katha clicked her tongue as if she were annoyed, but in truth the opportunity was a blessing in disguise. For at her feet, disoriented and vulnerable, were the ailing Consuming King and the paralyzed Burrowing King.
She kicked one of them up first and it was Gaius who she collected first. She hurled him like a spear with an overhead toss, over the effigies and through the Hoplite's ghostly flesh, right onto Antonius. The beams that Gaius emitted continued to flense and pierce, even as the Undying King tried to deflect the beams and turn the Burrowing King's gaze another way.
Next, Katha reached down to the Consuming King, foot pressed on what remained of his torso and hands wrapped around his head. She pulled, tugged, and pulled again, and with a wet crunch ripped his head free. Flesh sizzling, molten blood burning, Katha hurled the head much the same, like a pot of burning alchemical fire.
Amaranth's Head struck Antonius' shoulder. Antonius' grip slipped and turned Gaius aside. And Gaius' light struck Amaranth's head, blasting through the skull and right into the matter that made up his being.
Fire, orange and black, erupted furiously, shaking the earth and thundering the heavens. Loud enough to make Katha cover her ears, and weighty enough to bring her to her knees, at once did three Kings detonate and at once did the Iron Supplicant strike at each of them.
And when the dust settled, each of them lay splayed out on the ground, Amaranth's body underfoot, Gaius across Antonius. No effigies, no mist, no clouds of fire. Simply but the three of them.
But none of their bodies faded. And Katha narrowed her eyes as she stepped aside, as Gaius sat up and righted his head's facing, as Amaranth regrew his head out of his neck stump like a flower blooming from a stalk, and as Antonius planted his spear into the ground and his skin turned from charred and torched to bronze and hale.
Katha held the Hornsword before her, ready to continue. But none of them made the first move to strike. Not even Amaranth, who instead moved to join his fellows. Each of them held a gaze on Katha a while longer, Amaranth a wild feral grin, Gaius a prideful and perhaps appreciative nod, and Antonius a stern, disdainful scowl.
But when they turned their heads another way, Katha followed their sight and found her fists clenching, her heart pounding, her reason faltering.
For in the sky, held aloft through a bronzed arm shoved through her chest, was Aretaphilla Myia. Unfettered King and Silverlord. Thrashing stubbornly, weaker and weaker, as the false heart that merely pretended to pump was now crushed outside in the very grip of she who had claimed it.
Water was fed by Metal. But in this way, Metal had now reclaimed Water.
And the Hero King's gaze swept across the land, and the other Kings knelt as the Will of Heaven made itself known. Each disintegrated gradually, turning into a stream of elemental Qi. Each fed into the Hero King's flesh and panoply, bolstering it, enhancing it. Earth fed Metal, Fire fed Earth, and Wood fed Fire.
As each was consumed in turn, soon Aretaphilla would vanish and feed her as well, broken down into her components until Water fed Wood. And at last, the one who stood in the sky, backed by the dais that demonstrated her worth as World Lord, gazed down upon the world she administered and guarded and saw but one enemy left to quash.
With her outstretched arm, the one that had slain Aretaphilla, she pointed at Katha, the interloper, the child of invaders. And with but one word she uttered, the world distorted and shuddered.
Amber into violet, violet into green, green into monochrome and monochrome back to clarity. The world shifted in waves, consumed by the power and authority that the World Lord demonstrated. She pulsed power, cycled fuel, as Element fed into Element and turned from five disparate, separate, but unified elements into a single seamless whole. A Five Element Dynamo had been formed, cycled eternally within the dantian of the Hero King, the World Lord. There was now no opportunity for disruption, no way to end the sympathy. There was now only power, one infinitely escalating, one forever growing. Perpetual motion had been achieved before her and now it had but one direction.
Through her and into stygian hell, so she might present judgement to a sinner bearing a legacy of sins.
There were no words left for the World Lord to share. Her hair and eyes, goldspun and harsh, were now platinum white and frightfully serene. Her flesh, bronzed and indomitable, was now golden and pure. Her presence that was once undeniable and absolute was now all-encompassing, as real as the very earth she stood upon, the very breath she took. She stood in the air as was her right, for the cradle called gravity was for lesser things, younger things still needing nurture.
The World was here. The World Lord Cometh. Kneel ye foolish supplicants upon the World.
When she next gestured, it was with an upwards finger, and the earth itself responded to send her skyward.
A pillar of rock, higher than the foothills, shot up faster than she could twitch and harder than living memory could record. Sent up flying, she was soon sent downwards, a crushing elbow to the gut that stole her breath and cracked her ribs. Faster than fast, harder than hard, the Hero King showed no mercy and offered no quarter.
She simply struck, each blow truer than the reality of her situation.
Death would soon come.
Every move she made was quickly countered, for it was foretold on the winds that blew across the earth. Every strike had its strength stolen, bathed as she was in the waters of wisdom and weakness. The rage she tried to summon, the heat of passion and will to stay in the fight, could not hope to exceed the raging firestorm that burned within the World Lord's brow. The blows that did connect could not possibly hope to pierce the earthen walls of the World Lord's enduring flesh. And the speed that she demonstrated, swift as lightning and twice as precise, belied the weight of the metal that she faced and was now being devastated by.
The first blow that sent her into the sky numbed her legs.
The second that struck her down broke three ribs.
The next flurry broke one arm and the kick that followed crumpled the other, shattering even the bones in the fingers of her left hand.
Precise jabs and strikes, attacks she could never hope to guard against with mangled arms nor avoid with numb limbs, stole her breath and her concentration.
And the heavy hammer blows that followed simply punished her with crunching bone and bleeding flesh.
It was all she could do to keep her hand about the Hornsword, for losing it, Katha knew - though what part of her, she could not figure out - would truly mean the end of things.
The Hero King, the World Lord, offered no words and betrayed no emotion. She was but an instrument of the World that she protected and loved with every inch of her body and every breath she took. Whatever rage she felt, whatever justice she meted out, whatever pain she knew for those who had suffered in the world, all were internalised and all was locked away. All she offered Katha were her fists and the words they bore: a promise of death.
Such it was that with a final crushing blow, Katha's head snapped back and her skull suffered a crack, even celestial iron unable to withstand the assault that the Hero King delivered. Katha was sent flying, then bouncing, then skidding off the cratered face of the plateau that now knew Five Element Tribulation. She caught herself from flying off and tumbling into the craggy foothills only by the greatest of fortunes, as the edge of the Hornsword dug into the ground and she managed to exert what strength she could left digging it deeper.
Panting, gasping, in a world of hurt, Katha looked up through one bleary eye to see the Hero King standing across from her. Not moving, not breathing, not blinking, all she did was raise an arm. The same arm that had gestured towards her. The same arm that ended the Silver King.
Surely, the same arm that would end her.
The sky crackled, viridescent five-hued lightning. It struck down upon the Hero King, empowering her with all the strength she demanded as was the World Lord's remit. And she twisted her wrist just so, two fingers forward, as she unleashed that same lightning bolt right at Katha Theodoros, lightning enough to kill Nascent Souls and certainly more than enough to punish the temerity of this junior before her.
With little recourse, with no strength, with less Qi and a body full of hurt, Katha sought defiance where she could and hid behind the broad blade of the Hornsword as a shield, praying that Nascent Chitin could bear the power of even a fraction of Heaven's spite.
Her world turned blue, then green, then red and brown and yellow. Again and again, over and over, cycling through the colours faster and faster until they turned white and blazing hot, it was all Katha knew. Numb to the world, numb to her senses, feeling nothing but the inevitable, Katha saw but white.
And then in that moment, a paper slipped from her pocket.
In that moment, white turned to black.
Light turned to darkness.
And in the absence of sensation, Katha knew clarity.
----
When the world next came into focus, one etched with creeping darkness across the horizon, it was upon a long road with a green stripe painted along the middle across its entire length.
Katha blinked and found that everything seemed larger than it should be and both her eyes worked. Experimentally she even raised to cover them one by one, just to be sure. Her hands looked smaller, too. Dantier. Gentler in ways she had not been in decades… almost a century.
"Ah," she said, her voice higher and lighter than the one she had grown accustomed to. "I'm a kid again. Is this where souls go when people die?"
The jangle of chains was her answer. To her side loomed a thing in a long black coat, one so heavy and baggy that it obscured all features beneath it. It wore an iron mask and in one hand it held a long stick of oak, gnarled and old as eternity. In the other, the thing held a set of chains. Chains that were not clapped on anyone, but chains meant for Katha, she knew.
Katha frowned. She looked down the road, the Green Mile that led into the distance. In the far off place, she saw a platform, a tall frame, and several people hoisting up a large, angular blade to the very top. An execution platform, then.
So that was where she was headed. Death.
"Strange for souls to be brought to their deaths after death, though," the child of Iron mused. She looked up to the thing in the cloak beside her, who simply rattled the chains again.
Katha began to take a step, expecting no conversation, but was pleasantly surprised to hear it speak. Less pleasant was the voice it spoke in. "Do you know why you're here, Katha?"
As they walked, Katha looked up at the cloaked, masked thing as it undid the iron mask it wore. Unclasped with a clank, the face that appeared beneath as it was removed was her grandfather's. "Of all faces, yours?" Katha asked in disbelief. "I mean no disrespect, grandfather, but as I go to death, I expected…"
"You expect to be escorted by someone more relevant to your life experiences, hm? Or perhaps someone closer to you? Your brother, maybe? Your peers in the Dawn's Fist? Your Legatus? Or perhaps that Jingshen archer who crippled you?" As they walked, Tormenos tut-tutted. "None of those, I'm afraid. Or perhaps all of those. You're mistaken, granddaughter. You're indeed headed to death, but you are not dead yet."
"Oh? Last I recall, I was being beaten to a pulp by the Hero King Rina in the midst of Five Element Tribulation. I'm hardly an optimist, grandfather, and even the most hopeful soul would admit that surviving that sort of Tribulation is impossible." Katha raised an eyebrow. "And last I checked, I'm no longer ten years old. So this makes very, very little sense."
Her grandfather, if it truly could be him, chuckled lightly. "Certainly, it does not. I'm sure you want an explanation, and I would love to give nothing more, but time is short and you would not understand it either. Simply know that there are forces beyond you, seeking to preserve you."
At that moment, for one instant, her grandfather's faced changed, bronzed complexion shifting and beard growing, a green patina shining through as his eyes turned from cold blue to piercing gold.
As quickly as the thing in the cloak wore the face of Manuel Konstantinos, however, it shifted again, acquiring more features of the turtleborn and bright red hair. Shu Enya now greeted her, with a corresponding shift in demeanour.
Katha caught the hint before he even spoke, a sudden realisation to mind striking like the Hero King's lightning. "Grand Elder Konstantinos. He gave me something when we met. He gave me… You?"
Her father, as it were, craned his head. "In a sense."
"Why? He has so many greater things to concern himself with. My tribulation can't possibly be as important as the Clan or the movements of the Region, to say nothing of what nonsense the Legatus has cooked up alongside the Ninth Prince."
"Get over yourself. You matter." The glib sharpness of her father's tongue pricked, but it was a welcome sort of irritation. "How many Golden Devils reach for the fourth Keystones? How many attempt Five Element Tribulation? Each one is a potential threat to the Clan and a potential boon for the Clan. You are one of them, and the Optimatoi cannot afford to lose talent like you to something as paltry as Heavenly spite."
"...I see." Katha gestured to the execution platform in the distance, now closer. Absently she noted that her proportions were shifting again. She was now sixteen, the age she had joined the Clan as a Cultivator. The start of her journey. "So, explain that."
"That would be your death at the hands of Heavenly spite."
"There we go," Katha sighed. "That's what this journey is for? To find closure?"
"It can be for many things," her father mused vaguely. As ever, he could be frustratingly cerebral at times like these, when he was fishing for Katha to come to her own conclusions. "But I'm sure you can guess at the implications here. What happens when you reach the end of the Green Mile?"
"I die, obviously."
"Obviously. And can you stand still?"
Katha shook her head. Physically she could, but she suspected it would not actually help matters. This was a space of allegory, not natural law. "You're meant to help me. Can you?"
"Define help."
"That means no. Understandable."
"No, really." The cloaked thing's face changed again, becoming her brother's, her twin's. From certain angles it was the man he once was, and from others it was the one he currently wore, the one that the Whirlpool Yin Art had given him. A face that resembled hers, though of course it did. "Define help."
Katha narrowed her eyes. "Why this? Why am I walking to my death, instead of simply being vaporised by lightning? What is the purpose of drawing out my death, if there isn't any way for me to delay the inevitable?"
"Ah, that." Rathos Theodoros stroked his chin for a moment, resting the oaken stick against his shoulder. "Simple, really. Recontextualise a bit. How has the Tribulation at large been like?"
"A fight for my life."
"Has it been?" Katha raised an eyebrow at him, but Rathos simply craned his neck some more. "No, think about it. You call it a fight, but has it really been one? Has this at all been fair?"
"...Fights are fair?"
"Tribulations, nominally, have rules. Even the ones we fight have rules, conditions even Heaven must work by. Has this?"
"Five Element Tribulation is different."
Rathos, now closer to his feminine aspect, continued stroking his chin. "Is Five Element Tribulation different, or is your
Five Element Tribulation different?"
Katha rolled her eyes. She blew her bangs out of her face and noticed that now she had that streak of silver in her hair, after the Beetle had done its work. "They're all personalised on some level due to Dao resonance and because Heaven has a grudge. Does it matter that they're different?"
[Of course it does.]
The booming chitter of the Nascent Scion Beetle startled Katha, but the mandibles of her erstwhile teacher continued to chitter. [You, Unworthy Aspirant, are on the road to Rule. Others have risen and seven Kings continue to rule. But Heaven has a vested interest in keeping that number down. You are the newest to tread this path. You are to be made an example of.]
Katha heaved a sigh, not of relief or frustration, but simple tension. "Yeah… Yeah, I figured. Even though I don't plan on becoming a King, Heaven does not care. Because I could
."
The Nascent Scion Beetle remained silent for a moment, judgemental as ever. [Do you think Kingship is the most dangerous path you could tread, Unworthy Aspirant?]
"Of course it… Isn't it? It's the path that the Soup Chef left behind. It's the road that hews most cleanly towards defying Heaven."
[Then why aren't you walking it?]
"Because I don't wish to Judge Heaven in that way. Not in that single-minded fashion."
Another chitter. [Nonsense. The truth, Unworthy Aspirant. Or I will watch you die.]
"...Aren't you supposed to be helping me?"
They were getting closer now, perhaps two thirds of the Green Mile remaining. The Nascent Scion Beetle remained as stubborn as ever. [I cannot help you overcome mediocrity. I can only give you the means to do so yourself. So. The truth.]
"I'm serious. I do not want to walk a single path, the path of the Lonely Dao. There is more to things than my beliefs. More to Law--"
Katha frowned, a lump forming in her throat. Her left hand itched slightly and she scratched it. There was clear significance to that word, but she did not understand what. She might never understand what.
Thoughts for later.
"More to Law than one belief. Law is the unison of multiple beliefs. Their culmination, to reach righteous outcomes."
[So you seek a righteous outcome for all?]
"Yes."
The Beetle, for the first time in all the years Katha has ever known it and for the first time in all the years Katha has dwelled upon it in memory, seemed amused. [So you seek to abolish Heaven and establish your own laws. Is that right, Unworthy Aspirant?]
Instinct drove Katha to reject that premise out of hand, to refuse to consider it from the sheer audacity of the matter, but she kept it at bay. Deep down, she knew that was exactly what she was proposing. Indeed, it was exactly what she sought to do.
In order to reform Heaven, one had to overthrow Heaven. For what else would shake Heavenly foundation?
"...Yes. I will overthrow Heaven and change its laws, so Judgement may become more equitable. That we may all be treated fairly."
[And if others disagree with your Judgement?]
"I will accommodate - within reason. It is the spirit of the Law that matters, not merely the letter. But it is through the letter that the spirit can be divined. And I intend to have that letter be something that all people can read, so all may understand Judgement and know it to be Just."
The Beetle nodded, then it shrank in the cloak. The face that peered out now was gleaming silver flesh, a cheeky smirk drawn with each corner of her mouth.
"I always knew you were something special there, XXI. Wouldn't have caught my eye if you weren't. Ambition enough to shake heaven… It's almost enough to make this Mommy shed a tear!"
At this, Katha shook her head. Of course even here, her Legatus would be self-aggrandising. "So, I'm on collision course with Heaven and it wants to kill me before I gain the power to actually manage it. What then? How do I get out of this? Because you talked big, but ultimately the Hero King tore out your heart and became the entire Fifth Cycle, powered by some kind of… Virtuous Five Element Dynamo?"
"Your naming sense needs some work, XXI. It's accurate, but too on the nose." As they continued to walk down the Green Mile, Aretaphilla moved to tap Katha on the forehead with her oaken walking stick. The clang was metallic, not against bone, and Katha realised she was now dressed in the panoply of Centurion XXI, including the corinthian helmet that would mask her identity.
If she made it through this, there would no longer be a need for a helmet like that, huh?
Another bonk on the forehead. This time the clang was distractingly loud. "Enough daydreaming, XXI, you have a Tribulation to beat. What is your plan?"
"You were my plan. Then you died. Now the Hero King wants to make sure I die too."
"You didn't have a backup plan?" Aretaphilla clicked her tongue. "This is disgraceful, XXI. You should always plan for things to go wrong."
"You, specifically you, told me not
to think about these sorts of things. Just that I would
succeed Five Element Tribulation."
The Silver King's cunning smirk only grew wider. "Yes. Yes, I did. And now we're in this sort of situation. What does that mean, Katha?"
"That I made a mistake and will now die for my arrogance?"
Another click of the tongue, sharp and ringing with the note of a glass bell. "Nonsense! Arrogance is the entire point. Think, XXI, think. What is the mission of the Clan?"
"...Conquest, enlightenment of these Seas, and a great deal we no longer remember or understand because it's been forgotten?"
Aretaphilla blinked, then waggled the hand that carried the chains, jingling and jangling them. "Not what I was going for, but… yeah, more or less. And what did we do that made Heaven punish us so?"
"As we remember it? Something about trying to overcome Heavenly Law. I'm assuming something similar to what I'm apparently going to do?"
"More or less. That's two for two, Theodoros, I'm shocked. You just might be a credit to your bloodline!"
Katha rolled her eyes. That compliment was so backhanded she cannot even think of a punchline to go with it. "The point? We already went over how I'm planning on overthrowing Heaven. I've already made my peace with it."
"Have you, now?" The Silver King's smirk was sly as ever, but tense in a way that it was not just a little bit ago. "All the crimes of the Clan, all the sins of your House? You've made peace with all of it, have you?"
"I have to. Everyone has done bad things. We must do better. This is my start on how."
"Hm. Well, bad things are a matter of principle, you know?" They were now more than halfway through the Green Mile. The execution platform that once loomed in the distance was no longer a distant concept, but rather an immediate, somewhat distressing future. Annoying. Is this how this allegorical space was keeping time? "Let's try a game, XXI. The Annals of our history claim that the Sea-Conquering Army came to this place in order to institute order and unity, to prove that there was a place for cooperation in this quest for Immortality we all undertake. Is that evil?"
"It certainly doesn't sound evil. But there's a catch, obviously. In order to institute this order, we must upend the old order. And that involves bloodshed."
Aretaphilla nodded. "And indeed, oceans of blood were shed. Is that right? Perhaps, perhaps not. Generally I think it depends on whether you believe the Clan's statements or consider it to be propaganda. Do you think you can make your peace with that? War, for the sake of changing a system, because we think it does?"
Katha does not respond in time, because the SIlver King moves on immediately. "Of course you do. You did just declare war on Heaven just now. Let's go over an actual
conundrum, shall we? Long ago, during the age of Tagmatarchis Komnenos, the Clan intervened to protect mortals predated upon by Blood Path Cultivators and bled dearly for it. In doing so, they were punished by the Righteous Path, who considered our intervention then to be a violation of 'face', and in so doing were struck by the Devil Punishing Coalition."
Katha began to speak, but Aretaphilla raised a hand. "We were then chased into the Desert from the Mountains and needed to find new lands and a new home, lest we be destroyed while we wandered. In doing so, we invaded the lands of the Shanqu Clan, put them to the sword, and took their lands for our own. In our plight to avoid annihilation, we annihilated a different people. Is this just? Of course it isn't. It is simply what it is." Without missing a beat, the Silver King asked the real question. "But is this sin something you can make peace with? That in order to survive evil, one must do evil?"
To this, Katha simply nodded. "The history of the Clan is regrettable, but it is also just that. History. The decisions we made then were affected by the circumstances of then. The crimes committed then may not have left anyone we can pay amends towards, nor are we in any position to pay amends at all. It is a shame that the Shanqu were wiped out and it is a shame that it had to come to that. But this is a piece of history we must live with. Accept, at once as an unavoidable mistake, a grave loss of life, and another of the crimes Heaven has forced us to commit."
This made Aretaphilla's smile grow slightly. "So if it is ultimately Heaven's fault, it's okay then? If I blame the slightly salty taste of my water in the morning on Heaven, does it excuse the beggar who peed into the well the night before?"
"I… What?"
"Nothing, nothing. Just an old woman's musings, nothing to be bothered by." Aretaphilla chuckled before raising her hand over a poorly hidden smirk. "Unless? Answer the question, XXI."
"Which one?"
"You tell me," the Silver King snickered. "Clock's ticking, XXI. I'm not the one being led to my death."
Katha sighed, long and hard. "As ever, it depends on the crime and the time. And besides, this isn't a matter of determining who is at fault, but whether I have made peace with it. And I have." Katha shrugged. "Besides, I wasn't alive then. It has no emotional weight on me. It is a desert, but it is a peaceful desert."
"Mm… Then how about something closer to home, hm? A thousand years or so and change ago, your ancestor, Nagaeon, was slain by a Cultivator of the Fifth Sea, one with scales on his body and techniques of a snakelike disposition. A Cultivator that is, in fact, the First Prince of the Naag and the older brother of your erstwhile friend and senior, the Ninth Prince. Doesn't this anger you, even a little?"
"The First Prince was said to have targeted Elder Nagaeon in order to right wrongs committed by the Vanguard in ages past, back when the Sea-Conquering Army still had the strength to invade the Nine Seas," Katha responded. "This is symptomatic of a cycle of hatred that has persisted for millennia or longer. It is regrettable that Nagaeon died to the First Prince or that my ancestors butchered theirs, but I have no quarrel with the Ninth Prince. I have no intention to avenge that slight, nor do I see a reason to."
"And yet, Nagaeon's death was what lead to the downfall of the House. Your aunt's disenfranchisement, your mother's death… If you go far enough, it can be blamed for every single misfortune you have suffered during your childhood. You are what you are because the Ninth Prince's brother killed your ancestor. Every insolent iron ounce, even."
"Life works in strange ways, doesn't it?" Katha smiled lightly.
"Strange indeed," Aretaphilla nodded softly. "But even so. Can you make peace with the fact that your lot in life, your ancestor's death at the hands of your friend's brother, all this came to be because of crimes your ancestors committed before even Nagaeon's time? And all this bloodshed in the name of what is, apparently, a virtuous mission?"
This time, Katha was silent for a moment, with only the monotonous sounds of sandals on the road to mark any passage of time. Could she truly find peace with this? One crime that has persisted across time, to have touched her even so lightly?
Of course she could. "Yes. The cycle ends with me. The House will do better. And it already has."
"Aha. So you say. So you intend. That remains to be seen, you know? Who truly knows what will happen? Maybe with the resurgence of the Blood of Iron, you'll all turn into bloodthirsty fight monkeys again." Katha frowned at Aretaphilla, who chuckled and waved it off. "Oh please, you've thought of this joke before. It's funny!"
Katha was not laughing at that moment.
"Oh fine, fine. An actual question then."
Aretaphilla adjusted her hood. Her build changed, her posture, her face. The one that wore the hood was now a man, one wearing his black hair in a topknot, his eyes sharp and keen no matter how far into the distance or how close to himself he looked. He turned to her, seeming to gaze into eternity.
"When the Golden Devil Clan invaded the territories of the Jingshen Clan," Jingshen Bei Wulong began, "That began a war that killed hundreds of thousands and ended with the total victory of the Golden Devil Clan, now hegemons of the Desert, with full control of its vast mineral wealth. All that cost were the lives and livelihoods of the Jingshen Clan and all who bore that name or sought it for protection.
"Among them were the Jingshen Bei, who were all but decapitated with a single blow, all their Elders and Experts left crippled and mortal with a single blow, all left to die of Qi starvation or to kill themselves ritually for the sake of any sort of dignity left to their lives. The remnants left to seek refuge in the lands of the Strength Purity Sect, where the next generation will be left destitute and to fend for themselves on the frontlines of the war on the Demonic Path, because all the knowledge they would have had to cultivate no longer applied without a steady supply of Spirit Stones.
"To say nothing of how they were carted from their ancestral homelands past the mountains, with the supervision but not the protection of the Golden Devils, all because the defeated did not need dignity. And this left this family more fractured than ever, poorer than ever, and hurt for the sake of victory. All because the Golden Devil Clan sought hegemony, not harmony.
"My father is dead. My brothers are dead. My betrothed is dead. My family is dying. All this death and more can be laid at the feet of you and your Golden Devil Clan and its virtuous mission."
The voice of the Young Silver Archer echoes with the chill of a thousand thousand graves, piled high behind him as a foreboding mountain of regrets. He speaks not with the stoicism of a man of focus, but the apathy of a son, a brother, a husband-to-be left to mourn alone.
"So tell me this, Katha Theodoros, Genius of this generation of the Theodoroi Vanguards; can you make peace with the fact that your peers and elders brought death to your foes in this lifetime? However justified, however necessary? Can your virtuous mission, which has continued to leave behind victims, bathed in blood and iron, be just? Can you make peace with its sins?
"Are you fit to judge yourself, let alone Heaven?"
Katha was left speechless for a moment. Only once did Wulong ever speak so frankly with her and it had ended with her meridians shattered and herself left to die on a floating island, hanging onto life by the barest of threads. All this… To tell her about the price of war? A war that may have been the most virtuous one they could have fought short of the wars they did fight against the Cannibals, because the Jingshen Clan were indeed vying for dominance of the Desert and would have annihilated them in the same fashion?
Why did he think revealing the price of war to a warrior would work?
Why was it working?
"Answer me, Katha Theodoros," said Wulong, who remained as stone-faced and unreadably stoic as the last time she had seen him, emotionally devastated in a way only one who did not show their emotions overly much could ever be. "Can you make peace with the bloodshed of the path you walk? The bloodshed you will bring? The bloodshed your forebears have left behind? Because every step you take, every challenge you overcome and every foe or innocent you fell will leave in your wake an ocean of blood."
"I only kill the deserving."
"And you are fit to judge? You, heir to butchers?"
Katha Theodoros gritted her teeth, a scream threatening to escape her. She felt rage - no, she felt frustration. She felt a deep sense of being wronged, of the unfairness she had to face.
But why did she feel that way? Killing was the way of the world, was it not? Killing was part and parcel of being a Cultivator, was it not?
It was, despite everything. And it was, despite everything.
Despite, despite, despite.
"...So that's what it was."
"Is it?" Wulong asked. It was a sincere question. "What is it, then?"
Katha sighed. The Green Mile stretched onward, but not for much longer. And the naked truth demanded acceptance.
The naked truth that Katha Theodoros did not like killing.
Cultivator of the Clan, bearer of the Iron Blood, heir to the Vanguard, such a truth might be laughable. But even killing Blood Path Cultivators was unsatisfying in that way. Martially it may have been satisfying and it was certainly necessary at times, but dealing death was not an inherent pleasure. And Katha hoped it never would be one.
So to know that any path would lead to bloodshed…
It was a tough pill to swallow. But it was a necessary one to accept, not something she could run away from. And she did not need to say it to Wulong, for Wulong was not the one who needed to hear it.
Her path was the one that was marked with discomfort since the beginning. Cultivation was not a path one should walk without a destination in mind, after all, and what she sought was change to the world they lived in. If she was going to change anything, it would have to be with the system she lived within, not an ideal she dreamed of.
What a bitter truth to accept. But it was the one she chose.
So she nodded. "No matter how many suffer, no matter how many guilty or innocent will die, I will walk this path. Because I must walk. Because it will be walked. And because if I walk it, I can ensure that compassion to the innocent will be given, just as retribution to the guilty will be given."
In expected taciturn manner, Jingshen Bei Wulong simply nodded. "I see. That is good, just as it is good that you had reflected on this before. Faltering your resolve would be bad, particularly in the midst of Tribulation."
"...Okay. But why are you here? I thought the one in the cloak would be someone close to me, like friends or family or teachers. You're someone who tried to kill me. You're the first person who was this close to killing me. And you still might!"
Wulong shrugged in reply. "I cannot divine how your mind works. We are similar but at the same time we are not alike. I can only guess that it is because I am, as your first serious opponent, a teacher of sorts."
"I fought an Expert in my first real battle."
"And if you beat them, they were not a serious opponent." His ability to read truths was unsurpassed as ever, Katha mused. "If they were, you would be dead. Let me guess… Cannibal?"
"...One Boat, One River Pass. So yes."
"As I said. Not a serious opponent." Then, Wulong turned to face the front. Once more his face was taciturn in a strangely serene way. "We are here."
Katha turned as well and realised her field of vision was now more constricted. Once again she was one-eyed and forged of iron, her left hand marked by the Obsidian Tower. Before her stood the execution platform, the guillotine's blade held high and ready to claim her neck. Before her was a large crowd, filled with the faces of every single person she had ever killed or wronged. Each of them booed and jeered at her, eager to see all this finally done, her neck split and her head rolling.
Around her, standing on the platform, were the Five Kings. And once she saw this, Katha finally realised what all this was.
"An allegory for my Tribulation," Katha muttered. The Green Mile was not a space outside where she was plucked to for a reprieve, but a metaphor, a divorced perspective for the entire Five Element Tribulation so far. It was not a trial, but rather a drawn out execution.
Heaven never had any intention of offering even a chance for her to rise beyond Qi Condensation. It only wanted her dead because of what she was. Because of what she might do. Because of what she might become.
One of the five standing before her. One of the seven that lay in the world beyond.
"Sharp as ever, Katha Theodoros," said the black cloaked thing, its voice now a chorus of all who had walked with her, yet at once also gentle and even, like a warm blanket. It wore the iron mask again, but past it was not flesh, but pure darkness. Always was. A shadow, hiding others from Heaven's sight. "Sharper than expected, even, sharp enough that I am not necessary. You may be worth something yet, small as you are."
Katha's eyes narrowed, noting the familiar turn of phrase. But nevermind that. Needs must. "All this was you?"
"No. The spark, yes. But the clarity of your path and the certainty of your truth, that is all yours. Where I expected to lend you comprehension and obscuration and time, I have lent time alone. Curious, isn't it?"
Curious indeed. And Katha wanted to know more, though she knew she never will. Alas, needs must. "What are you?"
"What else?" The black cloaked thing responded. "I am the shadow you think I am."
"Is that true?"
"It is true enough for your purposes and mine. Now, one last question. Ask away."
Dozens floated in her mind, but only one passed her lips. "What do I do now?"
The shadow thing smiled and it laughed melodiously. "Well," it said, the voice it spoke with now a musical and flighty thing, "You are
in the midst of Tribulation and you are
about to die at the hands and magic of the false Golden King, so that is really up to you."
Her voice was a much needed comfort. A reminder of why she chose this path.
"Time to choose, my clever baby," spoke Riala Theodoros' voice, gone but not forgotten. "Are you ready to die?"
The choice was simple. It was also the hardest choice she had ever made in her life.
"No. I've got too much to live for."
The shadow nodded. As she walked towards the gallows, flanked by the five Kings, the black cloaked shadow walked behind and then into her, completely unnoticed by the Kings that presided over her execution. When next it spoke, it was in the aspect of darkness it truly embodied.
"Then fight," the shadow boomed in her mind, in all its myriad voices. "Fight Heaven. Oppose it with your Will. And when it is done, child of Theodora, we shall see how far your path goes."
The darkness consumed her fully. Blackness became everything.
And then black became white. Darkness became white.
And she stood up, ready to face the storm.
----
As the storm died and the Hero King lowered her arm, what greeted her was not a blasted crater and the gratitude of the World, but a woman on her feet, bearing a sword that was at once smaller but no less weightier than the slab of chitin that it once was. The Hornsword was no more, flensed and obliterated of all impurity as it was by Heavenly Lightning and Killing Intent. What remained behind was compressed and compacted, hewn in the shape of a curved sword roughly half the woman's height.
Hornsword no longer, it had been purified by the very force that sought to destroy it and its wielder. And in much the same way, the woman who had cowered behind it in defiance of certain death, the one who had been marked as an enemy of the World, fit only to be terminated by the World Lord, now stood tall and proudly against a foe she could not possibly overcome. No… A foe she
should not possibly overcome.
The reality that was and the reality that is were now in disjunction. There was a mistake. Why?
Why?
It could not make sense. There was a death of information, a lack, a total void and absence of information and meaning that the Hero King could not divine. The World had no insights, so the World Lord was left grasping at air. Without an understanding, what could the World Lord do?
She balled her fists at the woman with the sword. The World Lord could correct this oversight. The World Lord could destroy the enemies of the World - and this enemy, however changed, was still an enemy.
"Is that the way of Heaven, then?" The woman asked. She stood unmoving, for
she had judged it unnecessary. "To destroy that which it cannot understand? To simply obliterate all who would challenge it, for the crime of challenging it? No recourse but subservience, no fate but slavery? In life, or in death? Pathetic. I weep for you."
The World Lord said nothing in reply. There was nothing to say and there was nothing that needed to be said. Death was the only verdict and so it would be delivered.
She moved, a darting dash, a wall of wind. The weight of metal, the speed of wind, the sound of thunder. Hero King Rina struck with seismic force and dizzying speed, surpassing the paltry strength she had demonstrated in the battle before.
She struck once, for once would be enough.
And the woman, unmoving and unbowed, simply caught that fist.
----
For the nature of Tribulation was of two parts. Temperance, and Killing Intent.
After all, as the saying went, Tribulation was three parts Killing Intent to seven parts Vital Force. For most of those who faced Heavenly Tribulation, anyways; for the Golden Devils, who had displeased Heaven by challenging its by-laws, the ratio was altered. Three parts Vital Force for seven parts Killing Intent.
Allegedly, that rule remained true for even Five Element Tribulation. And it
had to be true, for others had crossed that rubicon before, not least among them the first to do so; the true face of the one who now tried to cave her face in, knuckle by knuckle.
But at the same time, she had been
shown that her Tribulation was different, the same way that
all Five Element Tribulation differed. Heaven was not beyond altering its laws to suit its desires, after all. But that insolent inconsistency had limits of its own. Which meant that if all Katha faced throughout the five cycles were attempts at murder…
…That only meant that the vital force that would empower her further was simply lurking beyond gates that were barred with deathly intentions. Impossible to open, but still existent.
Such had been Old Gold's gift to one unaware of such a thing. A thing of shadow, a thing to blind Heaven, if only for a moment. A moment enough to receive that vital force and become strong.
Strong enough to overcome Heavenly killing intent? Despite her broken bones, her bruised flesh, the pain that both screamed sharply and thudded dully within her body?
That was now the question to put to the test.
Tribulation, after all, was still a trial to overcome. And without that killing intent, one will never demonstrate their tempering.
Which brought Katha back to the here and now,
[Judging] herself strong enough to simply
catch the Hero King's punch with an open palm. The Hero King's expression wavered but slightly, a mere fractional widening of her eyes, but it
did waver and Katha capitalised. With her other hand she thrust forward with the molten blade of what was once the Hornsword, stabbing right through the avatar of the Fifth Cycle.
The blade made contact and pierced easily through, a hot rod through butter, but the Hero King retreated easily. She slid herself off the blade and righted herself in the air, creating space with the versatility of movement made available to her.
Only to find the Ironblood once more in her face, left hand twitching, blade mid-swing.
Katha Theodoros
The Adjudicating King The Righteous Sage The Rightful Emperor The Presumptuous Fool
In all of Heaven and Earth, never has there been a fool such as you…
Tempered by Tribulation, one hurdle from Ascension, the unrivalled body she had been granted as a Qi Condenser had now been augmented to a level beyond, as well as a continuing ability to manipulate natural laws as Gravity with the literal twitch of a finger. Though she did not master the skies as the World Lord did, she had enough brawn to make up the difference.
A swing and a cut and the Hero King's arm went. Another swing and another slice and the aperture behind the Hero King was chipped, a part of its grand design turning dark. A third slash and it was darkened permanently as it split into thirds. The Hero King hung in the air for an instant, no longer able to arrest her fall or grip onto the sky, with no leverage and no control to speak of.
Almost lazily, with a straight grasping arm, Katha reached out and the Ironblood caught the Hero King by the neck. She swung about, her mass and strength completely overpowering the Hero King's, and she threw the Hero King towards the ground like a handful of pebbles.
The Hero King sailed towards the ground and she struck the plateau like a meteor, creating another crater to join the others. When Katha landed, it was not with the monumental weight of a ton of iron, but lightly as a feather, with all the poise and precision expected of an Expert of the Clan and more.
Yet the Hero King remained unbowed. She gestured with her stump and grew her arm, a blessing conferred by the World. Katha craned her head as she saw the counterblow to come and found it wanting, filled with a strange, certain calm that she simply
knew what would come. She had
[Judged] it so, so it would be. What she saw further, however, was more than that.
Around her the plateau lit up, on the ground, on the stones, in the pits and where she cut. Incomplete as it was, the set of twelve not finalised, it still drew power and focus out of the earth and into her.
With the molten blade that
cuts, Katha Theodoros moved and
cut.
[Canticle of Theodora - Eye of the Stormbreaker]
She now stood behind the Hero King, a fair distance away, bearing a sword steaming misty blood. And the Hero King fell to one knee, the top half of her body now separated from the limp and strengthless lower half.
There was no scabbard to sheathe the blade, but even where one existed she would not bother. Katha did not turn around, for despite the supreme nature of the singular strike she knew it was not enough. The Hero King had been split into diagonal halves, that was true. But the Hero King still stood, and within the Hero King still spun the Five Element Dynamo. With enough power she could rebuild herself, and with enough time she would have the power. Even the aperture that granted that power focus could be reformed with enough time - most likely a matter of minutes.
Daunting that prospect may be, Katha felt no fear or even trepidation. Because she knew that this battle would end in a matter of seconds if done right. And it would be.
There was no reason to rush these things after all.
Turning about, Katha readied her blade again. And this time, she aimed for the immaterial before she swung in an almost lazy fashion.
And one strike turned into seven lines, each cut a different line in space.
The World would Fall. The World Lord Bleeds. Rise up, all ye betrayed by the World.
Standing perfectly still, Katha simply watched. One eye on the Hero King's body, ensuring that her broken body would not regenerate and rebuild with the infinite energy of the Five Element Dynamo within her where a soul would otherwise be, the other eye on the Dynamo itself, to ensure that what was cut was also
[Judged].
And this time the Hero King moved not. Instead she sighed as she turned to ash bit by bit, carried away by the wind. Water left her first, a blue haze that covered the world with light rain. Wood was next, vital energy suffusing the plateau and blessing it with new life. Fire came after, soft warmth that chased off the chill and nurtured the wilds. Earth after brought steadiness and foundation to what would come, softening the craters and the rifts in the land. Metal left last, the catalyst that would harmonise the elements.
With a sigh, Katha finally lowered her sword and let the tip rest against the ground, a job finally done. Tribulation was finally over.
She glanced upwards, still frowning.
Almost over. The sky remained overcast and the clouds overhead continued to crackle with five-coloured lightning. Less of it, certainly, but less was not none. There remained Killing Intent yet for her to withstand, no matter that the Avatar of the Fifth Cycle had finally been dealt with.
She really had been marked for death by Heaven. What a strange thing to be proud of.
"Come on, then," Katha said to the sky, arms wide and beckoning. "You have no cycles and no Kings left to throw at me. Let's get this over with! Judge me if you dare!"
Heaven agreed and responded with a bolt of lightning, five coloured and spiteful in the extreme. And Katha met it with a raised sword held skyward.
In the moment of contact, she was blessed with a vision. Of Iron stretching from peak to peak, all across Turtlebone Mountain, shields raised against an endless sky of stormy clouds and the rain of rust and ruin that they heralded. Even as they fell, even as the rain washed them away, the fields of Iron endured, for that was how they lived. That was how they died.
And even against certain death, they would never falter. Until the last of them died and even after that, they would endure against the Storm forever.
As the vision faded and as the last of the lightning died in a crackling roar, as Five Element Tribulation finally came to a close, Katha Theodoros finally relaxed and released all the tension that had built up within her body. Almost all at once she was reminded of the pain and damage her body had suffered, the amount of Qi she had expended, and so, so much more.
It had been a great deal of truths to uncover in just one day. But even so, there was one thing left to manage. It would be a shame to pass out now, before she could choose a Pillar to construct.
Especially given the enormity of that choice.
On the one hand was the Lonely Pillar Path, an all-encompassing truth that would define all that she was and all she would become. Master of all she purveyed, as King she alone would
[Judge]. She alone would state what was right and what was wrong. She would deliver justice as a Paragon, unaccountable to anyone, tireless and eternal in the name of
[Judgement], singular and definitive.
On the other, then, was the Orthodox Path, the one more well-trodden, the establishment of seven or more Pillars that would together become her truth. Her Judgement then would be a broader and more communal concept, gathered through compromise and mutual understanding, not a single decider. It would require admitting weakness, but in doing so allow for it as well.
And if she walked that path to its conclusion, if she raised what was but whispered in the oldest texts… One could surpass the Kings and rule as Emperor, with powers exceeding what they could offer.
As a King, she would become powerful in ways no mere Expert ever could be. She would be another Callista, another Myia, another Antonius… A Paragon. An Ideal. But even Kings struggle. Even Kings will suffer Heavenly disdain, and for all their strength, they lack the means to overthrow Heaven, merely defy its design.
As Emperor, she may well be able to.
And for all her doubts and hesitance as to the nature of being King, of being undeviating and forever dedicated to a single ideal, in truth - a truth she had to excavate over her Tribulation, on the brink of death itself… In truth, it was a choice between the power to defy Heaven now, or the power to
create Heaven in the future.
There was no assurance that the Ninth Pillar Path would ever allow that to happen. But she had every assurance that the Single Pillar Path would not let it happen to her.
Not with this Dao. Not with
[Judgement].
So with that in mind… How else could she choose but to overthrow?
In the roiling sea of power and focus that churned within her Dantian, that place of bubbling iron and barely-contained power, the first of many Pillars was raised from the depths. Not an all-encompassing power, cracked in nature and leaking obsession enough to twist reality, but simply a power. A truth, condensed into a single word.
[Retribution]. The first expression of
[Judgement], as well as the one that stuck closest to heart.
Her expression finally relaxed. Pain and damage and exhaustion finally catching up, Katha closed her paths.
And as she collapsed amidst a wellspring of life amidst a barren mountain range, the first of those who refused the Lonely Pillar Path rose towards their destiny.
[Final Wordcount: 22262 Words]
