by Ivan Kal
“If you please. I am your subconsciousness, and it is as good of a name as any.”
“So, Hunter, can you tell me more about my ki affinity?” Vin asked, as that was the most pressing matter. Knowing his affinity would help him craft his fighting style more appropriately, as already he had noticed that his previous techniques were completely compatible.
“The ki of the Hunter had been that of shadow and hunger,” the cat said.
Vin immediately felt the truth of its words. He had been trying to figure it out, but it had not been as simple as it might seem. Shadow aura was not elemental in nature, and it had been extremely rare on his world. Here, he had encountered it, but the ki inside of his core now wasn’t simply shadow ki, but rather the combination of that and hunger ki, which he had no experience with. It was one of the aspect ki affinities unique to spirit beasts.
“You already knew this,” the cat added.
Vin frowned at it. “I wouldn’t have asked if I had known.”
The cat shook its head. “You are refusing to accept a part of yourself, that part which you think is the beast. But the beast no longer exists. There is only us.”
“How can you say that it doesn’t exist? Kyarra showed me her memories of the fight with Ming-Li. I turned into a beast shrouded in dark smoke.”
“The Shadow Shroud was the Hunter’s Surging technique, and we fought as only someone with the experience of both a beast and a spirit artist could. Did you not wonder how we managed to hold our enemy at bay? To harm them, even? You yourself have said that she was beyond you before.”
Vin didn’t answer. He had wondered how Ming-Li had allowed herself to be injured by a beast.
“It was because while it looked like we were only a beast, we were not. Our skill and power were unfamiliar to our enemy, and allowed us to surprise her and take advantage. Enough to momentarily exceed the step we were at the moment.”
“You are saying that I can use that power myself?”
“It is your power now. I allowed your side to be in charge. This means that all I, as the Hunter, knew and could do is yours to do with, the same way that I could use all your skill and power when I was in charge.”
“Can you take charge again?” Vin asked.
The cat gave him a long look. “I could, but it would not truly be you losing control—more like another part of you stepping to the forefront. As our souls bonded, many of your darker and subconscious thoughts were swallowed up by what used to be the Hunter. I embody them now.”
Vin didn’t know what to say to that, but in the end, he was a spirit artist—and if there was one thing that every spirit artist wanted, it was more power. The Hunter and the power that now filled his core was a way for Vin to grow stronger faster.
“How do I gain access to all that power?” Vin asked.
“You need only accept yourself,” the Hunter said.
Vin sighed and bowed his head. “I had always known who I was, yet now it somehow seems like that isn’t enough.”
“That is because you have changed, even before you encountered me. You used to be the greatest spirit artist that your world had ever known. A monster of power and might, and all that you wished for was yours to take. Yet you are not that person anymore, the moment your soul was ripped from your body, you changed. You do not have the power you once wielded. You no longer live the life you once lived.”
Vin closed his eyes. Every word that the Hunter said was true, and he had already known it, only he hadn’t wanted to admit it. Its words were now echoing in his head: they were the two parts of the same person. The Hunter was all the things that Vin didn’t want to admit, that he feared and pushed away.
“So who am I now?” Vin asked.
“That is not a question so easily answered. We are something new, other than what both of us had been before. We need to discover who we are, to accept our new reality. What is our purpose?”
“To stop the Arashan,” Vin said immediately. He opened his eyes and looked into the eyes of the cat, seeing the other part of his soul reflected there. He saw the lie there, and for a moment he felt the urge to look away, but he didn’t. He was never the one to shy away from the truth. “I…I want to get revenge on those who had taken my world from me, my body, all that I had achieved. To punish those who had abandoned their Path for the promises of the Arashan. But… The truth is that I want… I want to climb up the steps of the Path. To craft a new way, to raise the spirit arts to a new height.”
“Yes, your path before me had been filled with violence, and it is only more so now. We are not meant to sit in meetings among those who are unworthy of our time. Why are we still here in this city of stone? We know that the Arashan are out there in this world, yet we have spent months sitting here doing nothing.”
“It is not that simple. I know nothing of this world. I don’t even know how to start searching for them. And I have been training, climbing the steps of the Path and getting stronger.”
“Is that really it?” The Hunter tilted its head, its eyes blazing for a moment with eerie blue light.
Vin took a deep breath. He knew, of course, what the Hunter meant. Every moment he spent here in the plane of his soul, he felt the connection between the two parts of his soul grow stronger and closer to each other. With every word spoken between them he was embracing more of his other side. “I have people I care about now, a friend…and perhaps more.”
It was one thing that Vin had never had back on his world. He had always been set apart from everyone else. He had masters who vied for his attentions, hoping to be the ones to teach the greatest prodigy the clans had seen in a thousand years. To be the ones whose Way Vin would learn and master, whose name would be spread across the world. He had followed the Way of the Heavenly Crashing Lightning, and he had pushed the Way ahead, added to its techniques and secrets. It made him a person to be respected, feared, and admired from afar.
Now, however, he was not that person anymore. He had met people who he had come to care about, and he knew that that connection was holding him back. He didn’t want to lose them.
But being a spirit artist was a lonely path, one that each person walked alone.
Vin turned his eyes to the stars above him. They shone so brightly, calling to him. Vin had not been meant for any life other than that of a spirit artist, to walk the Path and explore new heights. He had set that aside for his friends, for Ashara and Kyarra. To walk the Path was to struggle.
“I understand, but it does not mean that I can simply walk out into this strange world and find them.”
“Of course not, and we are nowhere near powerful enough to take on our enemies, not yet. But knowing what it is that we desire, is to accept that our place is not in this city of stone.”
“You are right, but there are still things here that I must do,” Vin said.
“As long as you understand that our time here will not last forever.”
Vin nodded. He felt a sense of purpose settle deep into his core, and he smiled at the feeling. It reminded him of a time long ago, when he had first decided to become a spirit artist. A singular goal fixed in his mind. Things were more complicated now, but at its core, Vin only wanted one thing: to climb to higher steps.
CHAPTER SEVEN
MING-LI
Present
Xiang Hao Ming-Li walked among the workers, barely able to contain her sneer. She hated these people. All but a few were weak, not even worthy of being called human. She couldn’t understand how they could live lives that were so devoid of anything of worth, how they could stand being so weak, unable to defend themselves. She could snap her fingers and kill them by the thousands, and they were so frail that they wouldn’t even comprehend what had happened to them.
And this world, for all the glory of its bountiful aura, was rotten. Their cities were larger than any on her world—there were wonders of stone and metal here unlike anything she could ever imagine—but for all of that, it was beautiful only when looked upon from
the outside, from far away. Step inside their cities, and you would be met with the stench of millions boxed together in tight streets, each so full of excrement it made her want to gag or stomp her foot and turn entire sections of the city to rubble. Their wonders were filled with harsh lines of stone and dark wood, and their clothes were as bleak as the land. There was no color here, no grand gardens like those that every Clan on Orb had boasted. The cities of Orb had been filled with nature, trees grown alongside the streets in every color imagined. To be a gardener on Orb was a great honor, to shape nature and create wonderful weaves of plants—bridges that were grown, ponds that shined they were so clean, such that you almost couldn’t see the water.
Her world had been a paradise for all that it lacked in aura. It had been shaped by the spirit artists, every gardener a master, one who gave his own ki to make their charges greater, bountiful and majestic.
But here, with all the power available to them, they did nothing but seek meaningless power. What did it mean to rule over millions when one couldn’t see a simple arrow coming for one’s heart?
Ming-Li did not understand them.
The people were all the same, having the same stories, the same lives. They were drones living under the rule of others, simply because they claimed to be better than them, claimed that their wealth and their nobility made their blood somehow more worthy to lead. It disgusted her. She had spilled enough blood to know that they were all equal, that no one was born better than anybody else. It was what they did with their life that mattered, the strength that they achieved in that time.
But in the end, it didn’t matter—she did not need to do anything. The Arashan Host would soon arrive, and this world would in time learn the truth. They would either bow or they will die.
In the Host, the strong led and the weaker followed. Ming-Li, as one of only two spirit artists within the Host, was among the most powerful beings in its ranks. She knew that their—now her—god, Khalio, would reward her for her service. Simply by joining the Arashan she had been given a great power: a tether, which she could use to draw in raw aura from the god himself, allowing her the precious aura to convert into ki that she had lacked on Orb. Here on this world, it wasn’t as crucial, and there was enough around her to fuel her advancement. But the god’s aura was powerful in its raw, pure state, even. Should she ever deplete her now monstrous ki reserves she would be able to use his power as a backup. It was not as powerful as her processed and compressed ki, but it would be good enough.
It made her wonder at times how it was that the ki of spirit artists was so much more powerful than even that of a god, but she had come to the conclusion that the god had never had the need for a more powerful form of ki. His was an ocean without end, and he could squash her with it just as easily.
Ming-Li knew that the god was interested in the spirit arts, however. Narzarah, the Great Commander of the Host, had said as much. Ming-Li knew that she would have a favorable place in the host once the gate was open, and she could see that it would not be long now. After all, the gate’s construction was finished.
She glanced at the massive stone construction: carved with the Engravings of the mages that she didn’t understand, it was as tall as an eight-story building, thick and wide. The last thing necessary were the massive gems filled with mages’ ki that needed to be placed in their spots at the base of the gate. The Arashan mages that had come to this world with her told her that the gems were required for them to connect the gate to the world-core, which would allow them to draw enough power to bridge the vast distance between worlds. She didn’t really understand much of that, but she didn’t need to.
Since she had joined the Arashan she had grown strong, had reached the sixth step of the Path. She had fought Kai Zhao Vin, the greatest spirit artist of her world, and nearly defeated him in a duel against him and a powerful mage. She knew that she should’ve been able to defeat him—she had been standing on a greater step than he in his new body. But she had underestimated him, had allowed the mage time to cast her spells, and she had not foreseen his changes. He had absorbed the soul of a spirit beast; he should’ve lost himself to madness of the beast, yet hadn’t. He was not the greatest spirit artist of her world for nothing. And Ming-Li, in her revelry of gaining power beyond what she could’ve hoped to have on her own world, had forgotten that.
She had been arrogant, had forgotten what being a spirit artist meant. She had thought herself greater, and him insignificant in his weakness. She had been wrong. Kai Zhao Vin was worthy of respect, always. Only now did she truly understand how truly talented he was. She had reached the sixth step only because she had been given resources that she would’ve otherwise lacked, and in all the years since she had been here she hadn’t had any insight into how to take the next step.
She had refined her power, expanded her core and filled it with powerful fire and poison ki. She had grown in strength, to be sure, but she still felt like she was as far away from the seventh step as she had ever been. There was something that she didn’t know, something that she was missing. She lamented the fact that she was on this world, only because she didn’t have access to the scrolls of her people which might provide some insight. She knew that if she had remained on Orb, however, she probably wouldn’t have gotten as strong as she was by now regardless.
Vin had managed to reach the seventh step, when no other master had in a thousand years. Ming-Li knew that there was a chance that Vin had caught up to her in the time she hadn’t found him, and a part of her was afraid of that—afraid that perhaps he had regained all of his former power, had reached the seventh step of the Path. But the other, the part of her that was a true spirit artist, was exhilarated at the thought, because it meant that crossing blades with him might give her that insight that she was lacking.
Her walk was interrupted by a soldier, a officer of the Lashian Legion.
“Master Xiang Hao,” the man said respectfully, bowing low to her. “The Grand Marshal requests your presence.”
Ming-Li looked at the man, not saying anything for a moment. She didn’t like the Lashians, as she had little respect for the weak. She made exceptions for a few of the mages who were at least passably powerful, and the fragment-bearer, the Arc Commander. The rest were nothing to her. But Darza, the Arashan mage in charge of their group on this world, had urged her to contain herself—and while Darza did not presume to order Ming-Li around, he did speak with the authority of Commander Narzarah, whom Ming-Li did agree with most of the time. The Arashan mages, at least, were far more powerful than their Enosian counterparts, and even the Arashan soldiers that had accompanied them were greater. Their connection to their god made them stronger and faster—not nearly enough to be a match for a spirit artist, but far greater than the ordinary people of this world. They wore enchanted Arashan gear, too, which give them an additional edge.
“Lead the way,” Ming-Li told him, and followed along. As they walked, she looked around at the bleak faces around her, none daring to meet her eyes. The workers were all well fed and taken care of. The Lashian Empire did not believe in overworking and killing its workforce, and in that at least they had some sense: a dead laborer is a wasted one. Just because they were taken care of, however, did not mean that they were happy. She knew that none of them knew exactly what it was that they were building, only that it was a secret that could cost them their lives. They were not allowed to leave the plateau in the mountains, and for years none of them had seen their families. Only the assurances of their overlords that the construction was nearly done was keeping them subdued.
They passed the wooden barracks and the mess halls and reached a small wooden fort. They entered, the guards not even looking in their direction as they passed through. Walking inside the structure, it immediately was as if they had entered another world. The inside was lavishly decorated, with curtains, paintings, and maps. Thick woolen carpet was beneath her feet and Ming-Li grimaced as her boots left muddy imprints in it. On her world she would
’ve never committed such a crime, but here, where there were mage servants it was a simple matter for them to remove the dirt from the carpet.
She was led to one of the smaller receiving rooms, and motioned to enter alone. Inside, she was met with the Grand Marshal Darvo Tou Benerof, cousin to the Emperor, and Commander of the Lashian Legions. He stood behind his table and behind his chair, with his arms resting on its back. He was a tall man, imposing, his piercing green eyes surrounded by his long red hair that rested around his shoulder in dreadlocks. He wore his standard uniform, black with green embroidery at the hem, and the symbol of his empire—a blade piercing a black-and-yellow sun.
To the side of the room was Darza the Arashan mage, of a race called the Darji. When they had first arrived on this world, the Arashan had worn a magical glamour to hide their true form, but now there was no need for it. The man’s horns stretched from his forehead upward, framing black hair that was tied back in a loose ponytail. His skin was dark and had a red hue to it, unlike the pale Darji of this world. From her talks with the man, Ming-Li had learned that there were many races in existence, and that they were all spread around many worlds. Some worlds had only one race, like Orb had only humans, whereas others had many. Darza nodded at her, and Ming-Li returned the gesture.
The last person in the room was familiar to her: the red-haired Arc Commander Danir Nou Reiff, a bearer of a fragment of power—the Sun Blade. He was not, however, in a good shape. His head was bound in a bandage, with it covering his eye. His right hand was bound likewise and put into a sling. This surprised her, as she had seen mages do some pretty impressive acts of healing. The spirit artists that focused on those arts could do more, although their power lay in different paths.
“Master Xiang Hao,” the Grand Marshal addressed her. “I’m glad that you can join us. Arc Commander Danir here has just returned from his pursuit. As we suspected, they were spies.”