The Declining Storm
He flexes his fingers, and a unit of men splits in two before a scintillating missile from beyond the horizon carves the land in twain where they had just stood. His grip on his cane tightens, and three kilometers in the other direction, three men manning a net launcher adjust their aim just so and catch a particularly skillful raider in their trap. He breaths, and the storm winds howl, ripping free from the grasp of desperate shamans beating their drums.
He is Yuan He, and he is the Storm.
His body, grown so frail and withered sits in the silent center, surrounded by spiralling golden coils that stretch far above the clouds. It does not escape him even now, how much he had come to resemble his old foe. Where once he stood in defiance under the stormwracked sky, the thunderous stomp of a divine beasts hooves ringing in his ears, with only a ragged collection of survivors and volunteers at his side, now he is the bringer of ruin.
His rains flood the valleys, his lightning sets the fields of aflame, and his winds scour the mountain peaks and skies. The Argent Sect will never allow the Emerald Seas to be ravaged by the Cloud men again. His awareness is the storm and within it, he knows every soldier as they were his own fingers and hands. A squadron led by a young Inner Sect disciple falters under fire from swarming nomads, and he draws the power and layered techniques from five squadrons not engaged. The beleaguered soldiers blades and arrows blaze, and the young disciples eyes burn with power far beyond his limits as he leaps into the sky and cleaves the heads from horse and horseman alike. A group circles silently under the rain seeking the flank of their supply lines, and with hardly a thought, a task group abruptly changes routes to intercept. Every moment a dozen, a hundred obstacles are revealed and men reorganized.
He is the Argent Sect, and yet he is alone.
Through their own senses he felt the champions of the Sect, the Elders who's back's supported it all. He saw Zhuge Ke, standing astride the head of his own dragon companion, fighting a whirling duel in the sky with a barbarian khan, a duel whose outcome was already decided as the fool brute he fought was maneuvered into the dense labyrinth of formation traps that Zhuge Ke's very thoughts wrote in the air.
There stood a haggard boy before the door of a ruined homestead. His eyes were as dull as his belly was sunken, and his pallid fingers were marked by dozens of scabbing cuts and pricks where blood had been drawn to paint the defenses that had shrouded the building.
He saw Nai Zhu's cackling flames consuming the the sky sledges and gers, of a tribe forced to abandon all to flee, taking her time consuming the poor few who had been left behind to slow her down, for she knew that those fleeing wouldn't escape the grasp of the White Plume's interception.
He heaved off the crumbled shingles which muffled the wailing cries of a child. There lay a girl child in the ashen ruins of a baronial manner, barely more than an infant and already scarred terribly from burns. He scooped the child into his arms, knowing she lived only because of the silken talisman gown she had been wrapped in.
The children of Ogodei's ruin, even they were growing fewer now, only those handful which had achieved the Sixth realm remained. Of his companions, only Shi Ying remained now.
The prodigal genius of the fallen Shi stood silhouetted in the sky, her smiling face twisted in hate. Her flesh burned with the energies and powers of all sixty three of their surviving companions, her three dantians and scores of meridians blazing with such light that her mere flesh was rendered a phantom. Her hair whipped about her face in the burning, cloud rending wake of the great stone she had torn down from beyond the heavens to strike Ogodei in the dearly bought moment of weakness purchased with the life of Guan Zhong.
And one other, he supposed.
"Pfah, It ill suits you to be maudlin, Yuan He," the voice rumbled from beyond him, echoing a hundred times over among the golden coils, coming down far above.
"I know you ill understand it Xuelong, but I am old," Yuan He did not speak through the withered husk sitting in the storm's eye, but on the wind and the crackle of the lightning."I have earned the right to be whatever I like."
There was a rumbling scoff from the sky, and then a came the building of radiance, a group of nomads was ralling about a leader, far from the location of any of the Elder's. Through the eyes of a disciples spirit beast, a mere third realm thing hidden away in a scraggly tree's boughs, he guided his long time companion's shot.
A river of lightning tore the sky asunder, liquified three hills and reduced a score of men to ash ash in an instant. The little bird whose eyes he had used fluttered away, protected by his will despite the distance.
Yet, despite everything, their actions were not without loss. The nomads were canny and knew the land. They fought with the desperation of beasts cornered in their dens. Soldiers and disciples fell in ones and twos, and each was another pinprick on his flesh, a reminder of failure, that no matter how mighty, one man could not protect the world.
Yet there remained things amiss. Tribes were missing gone from the routes they had followed since Ogodei's defeat had settled, and there was little sign of the creatures below. He knew better than to accept it as good fortune or his foes weakness. He had the reports. There was a great mustering under their feet, a clarion call that stretched far beyond the vault they had discovered, and a great gathering was reported in the far east, in the hot lands south of the Sun's grave.
Many had wondered if some power had protected those mountains from the Sun's wrath long ago, now he had to entertain the notion that such a power might be a foe. Yet, right now none of that mattered.
In his ancient chest, heat burned and on his forehead heavenly light blazed, the power of a storm lashing out against the confines of his upper dantian. Though a nomad's hands had done the deed, those beasts were what had truly taken his successor from him, the man he had raised in his blood brother, Guan Zhong's place.
They had taken his boy. The last proof of the true family he once had.
Even across the battlefield, he heard Guan Zhong's last laugh, his arts giving his body such weight that no light or qi could escape his grasp. Ogodei's spear punched through his chest, even as his hands grasped the barbarian's throat, and for one glorious instant, held him still.
The ancient body at the eye of the storm rose to its feet, and its open eyes revealed an infinite plane of crackling electricity, ill held by human flesh. Where it's gaze fell, the lightning came.
He saw his wife, withered beyond her years, spirit scarred and ripped full of holes by the terrible forbidden ritual arts which had enabled it all, had made them able to grasp and shunt their foe to their chosen battle, and confine the Sky for a battle that would only end when he or every one of the companions was dead.
The scattered tribes fled the advance of his Argent Sect.
Through them, he hunted them down like dogs. He saw himself through their eyes, the awful figure at the center of an unstoppable storm.
He saw the bubbling magma and melting stone at the center of the kilometers wide crater move. He saw a bright horn like solid lightning rip from the stone, and lightning fell at the sound of the spine chilling whinney. He saw the face of a man, cold and hard, his eyes burning with the fury of the righteous. A burned husk fell from his spear into the magma. His armor was cracked, his beasts scales were scorched, and blood ran from a hundred wounds, yet still he stood, and the storm came at his call. He felt despair, knowing that even now, all of their sacrifices had not been enough.
Yes. Yuan He could see that same despair in the eyes of Khan's great and petty.
Such was war.
A stab of pain echoed through his being, and though he did not falter in his command, he did turn his gaze inward, to the hair thin rupture in his lower dantian.
At least this would be his last one.
His time was ending. Perhaps, if an old man could deign to dream, the youngsters would do better than he.
AN: We will now have a vote on negotiations. Ling Qi is confident that she can fulfill the minimum requirements so please vote on which of the following points Ling Qi should focus on.
[] Sharing of historical texts and information. Strengthening the purported cultural ties will go a long way toward mollifying grumbling from more conservative factions in both parties.
[] Push for an exchange of people. You can't stay, but in speaking with your companions Meng Dan has volunteered and assured you his aunt would approve. Bringing back someone nobles of the Emerald Seas can see and speak too would surely help.
[] Don't press your luck more than necessary, you've established good relations, let things grow from there
He is Yuan He, and he is the Storm.
His body, grown so frail and withered sits in the silent center, surrounded by spiralling golden coils that stretch far above the clouds. It does not escape him even now, how much he had come to resemble his old foe. Where once he stood in defiance under the stormwracked sky, the thunderous stomp of a divine beasts hooves ringing in his ears, with only a ragged collection of survivors and volunteers at his side, now he is the bringer of ruin.
His rains flood the valleys, his lightning sets the fields of aflame, and his winds scour the mountain peaks and skies. The Argent Sect will never allow the Emerald Seas to be ravaged by the Cloud men again. His awareness is the storm and within it, he knows every soldier as they were his own fingers and hands. A squadron led by a young Inner Sect disciple falters under fire from swarming nomads, and he draws the power and layered techniques from five squadrons not engaged. The beleaguered soldiers blades and arrows blaze, and the young disciples eyes burn with power far beyond his limits as he leaps into the sky and cleaves the heads from horse and horseman alike. A group circles silently under the rain seeking the flank of their supply lines, and with hardly a thought, a task group abruptly changes routes to intercept. Every moment a dozen, a hundred obstacles are revealed and men reorganized.
He is the Argent Sect, and yet he is alone.
Through their own senses he felt the champions of the Sect, the Elders who's back's supported it all. He saw Zhuge Ke, standing astride the head of his own dragon companion, fighting a whirling duel in the sky with a barbarian khan, a duel whose outcome was already decided as the fool brute he fought was maneuvered into the dense labyrinth of formation traps that Zhuge Ke's very thoughts wrote in the air.
There stood a haggard boy before the door of a ruined homestead. His eyes were as dull as his belly was sunken, and his pallid fingers were marked by dozens of scabbing cuts and pricks where blood had been drawn to paint the defenses that had shrouded the building.
He saw Nai Zhu's cackling flames consuming the the sky sledges and gers, of a tribe forced to abandon all to flee, taking her time consuming the poor few who had been left behind to slow her down, for she knew that those fleeing wouldn't escape the grasp of the White Plume's interception.
He heaved off the crumbled shingles which muffled the wailing cries of a child. There lay a girl child in the ashen ruins of a baronial manner, barely more than an infant and already scarred terribly from burns. He scooped the child into his arms, knowing she lived only because of the silken talisman gown she had been wrapped in.
The children of Ogodei's ruin, even they were growing fewer now, only those handful which had achieved the Sixth realm remained. Of his companions, only Shi Ying remained now.
The prodigal genius of the fallen Shi stood silhouetted in the sky, her smiling face twisted in hate. Her flesh burned with the energies and powers of all sixty three of their surviving companions, her three dantians and scores of meridians blazing with such light that her mere flesh was rendered a phantom. Her hair whipped about her face in the burning, cloud rending wake of the great stone she had torn down from beyond the heavens to strike Ogodei in the dearly bought moment of weakness purchased with the life of Guan Zhong.
And one other, he supposed.
"Pfah, It ill suits you to be maudlin, Yuan He," the voice rumbled from beyond him, echoing a hundred times over among the golden coils, coming down far above.
"I know you ill understand it Xuelong, but I am old," Yuan He did not speak through the withered husk sitting in the storm's eye, but on the wind and the crackle of the lightning."I have earned the right to be whatever I like."
There was a rumbling scoff from the sky, and then a came the building of radiance, a group of nomads was ralling about a leader, far from the location of any of the Elder's. Through the eyes of a disciples spirit beast, a mere third realm thing hidden away in a scraggly tree's boughs, he guided his long time companion's shot.
A river of lightning tore the sky asunder, liquified three hills and reduced a score of men to ash ash in an instant. The little bird whose eyes he had used fluttered away, protected by his will despite the distance.
Yet, despite everything, their actions were not without loss. The nomads were canny and knew the land. They fought with the desperation of beasts cornered in their dens. Soldiers and disciples fell in ones and twos, and each was another pinprick on his flesh, a reminder of failure, that no matter how mighty, one man could not protect the world.
Yet there remained things amiss. Tribes were missing gone from the routes they had followed since Ogodei's defeat had settled, and there was little sign of the creatures below. He knew better than to accept it as good fortune or his foes weakness. He had the reports. There was a great mustering under their feet, a clarion call that stretched far beyond the vault they had discovered, and a great gathering was reported in the far east, in the hot lands south of the Sun's grave.
Many had wondered if some power had protected those mountains from the Sun's wrath long ago, now he had to entertain the notion that such a power might be a foe. Yet, right now none of that mattered.
In his ancient chest, heat burned and on his forehead heavenly light blazed, the power of a storm lashing out against the confines of his upper dantian. Though a nomad's hands had done the deed, those beasts were what had truly taken his successor from him, the man he had raised in his blood brother, Guan Zhong's place.
They had taken his boy. The last proof of the true family he once had.
Even across the battlefield, he heard Guan Zhong's last laugh, his arts giving his body such weight that no light or qi could escape his grasp. Ogodei's spear punched through his chest, even as his hands grasped the barbarian's throat, and for one glorious instant, held him still.
The ancient body at the eye of the storm rose to its feet, and its open eyes revealed an infinite plane of crackling electricity, ill held by human flesh. Where it's gaze fell, the lightning came.
He saw his wife, withered beyond her years, spirit scarred and ripped full of holes by the terrible forbidden ritual arts which had enabled it all, had made them able to grasp and shunt their foe to their chosen battle, and confine the Sky for a battle that would only end when he or every one of the companions was dead.
The scattered tribes fled the advance of his Argent Sect.
Through them, he hunted them down like dogs. He saw himself through their eyes, the awful figure at the center of an unstoppable storm.
He saw the bubbling magma and melting stone at the center of the kilometers wide crater move. He saw a bright horn like solid lightning rip from the stone, and lightning fell at the sound of the spine chilling whinney. He saw the face of a man, cold and hard, his eyes burning with the fury of the righteous. A burned husk fell from his spear into the magma. His armor was cracked, his beasts scales were scorched, and blood ran from a hundred wounds, yet still he stood, and the storm came at his call. He felt despair, knowing that even now, all of their sacrifices had not been enough.
Yes. Yuan He could see that same despair in the eyes of Khan's great and petty.
Such was war.
A stab of pain echoed through his being, and though he did not falter in his command, he did turn his gaze inward, to the hair thin rupture in his lower dantian.
At least this would be his last one.
His time was ending. Perhaps, if an old man could deign to dream, the youngsters would do better than he.
AN: We will now have a vote on negotiations. Ling Qi is confident that she can fulfill the minimum requirements so please vote on which of the following points Ling Qi should focus on.
[] Sharing of historical texts and information. Strengthening the purported cultural ties will go a long way toward mollifying grumbling from more conservative factions in both parties.
[] Push for an exchange of people. You can't stay, but in speaking with your companions Meng Dan has volunteered and assured you his aunt would approve. Bringing back someone nobles of the Emerald Seas can see and speak too would surely help.
[] Don't press your luck more than necessary, you've established good relations, let things grow from there
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