“What of it?”
Suddenly, he understood why Einen was looking at the black tattoo on his chest so warily. It was a sign of his awakened Inheritance. However, as they’d already discovered, the Black Blade wasn’t part of his Inheritance from Traves and the Dark Storm clan. It was a terrifying weapon that had been granted to Hadjar because of another ancestor, the Black General.
A weapon capable of drawing power from its victim…
“But I didn’t activate this ability of the sword before, when I fought other cultivators...” Hadjar objected.
“Because you didn’t know you could use it back then.” Einen reminded him. “Or maybe it can only absorb a Spirit, and that’s why it isn’t capable of draining a cultivator below the Spirit Knight level.”
Hadjar thought about it and looked down at his right hand.
“If you are right, my bald friend, this ability should be kept a close secret.”
Einen immediately, without a second’s hesitation, cut his palm with his dagger and swore an oath not to divulge any of the secrets he’d learned from his friend.
“There was no need for that,” Hadjar said, frowning. “I trust you like a brother.”
“And I trust you, my barbarian friend,” Einen smiled. “But this oath has another benefit: even if someone uses a mental Technique to disembowel my mind, they won’t learn anything except that I’ve sworn not to divulge your secrets.”
Hadjar nodded and slashed his palm with his knife, also swearing the same oath. They hadn’t done this before because there’d been no cultivators in the Sea of Sand who could, as Einen had put it, ‘disembowel their minds’, but here, in the heart of the Empire…
“I’d like to put this theory to the test,” Hadjar said with a slightly dreamy sigh.
“By the Great Turtle, you’ll get a chance to do so, my friend,” Einen said, a predatory grin spreading across his face. “Dinos is right, the other Schools’ disciples will be waiting for us on the Imperial Road.”
Hadjar grinned too. Nothing pleased a warrior’s heart as much as the anticipation of battle with a new, strong opponent.
Chapter 474
No one was going to leave the Valley of Swamps that night. Moreover, the warriors set up camp right next to the giant’s body. Due to his very high level of cultivation, he continued to radiate an aura that could easily destroy a mortal or stop a weak practitioner’s heart, even after his death. Maybe that was why none of the Valley’s beasts had hurried over to try and eat the dead body.
The night was frighteningly dark in this area. Because of the endless vapors rising up out of the swamps, which were also dangerous, the sky was always obscured by low, dark clouds. Even in the daytime, there was little light, which made it seem like it was always dusk. And when night fell, it got so dark that even the fires didn’t really disperse the darkness.
Hadjar was sitting beside one of the fires. With a slight half-smile, he peered into the darkness. He heard some drunken laughter and moans from time to time. The cultivators who’d participated in the battle against the Primeval Giant were still largely teenagers, no older than sixteen to twenty springs. They were relieving their stress in two ways accessible to both mortals and cultivators alike: alcohol and sex. By the High Heavens, Hadjar would’ve gladly joined them. The last time he’d had sex was almost a season ago, back in Underworld City, and the last time he’d gotten drunk had been with Nero. Alas, he only had his pipe full of tart tobacco to entertain him. After lighting it and making sure that no one was nearby, Hadjar pulled the scroll depicting the Black General’s sword strike out of his inner pocket.
A year ago, a single glance at this image would’ve been enough to destroy Hadjar’s soul. Even now, things hadn’t changed much. He still couldn’t meditate while immersed in the mysteries of the stance shown in the scroll. However, thanks to the method of meditation he’d obtained in the library of Mage City, he could very successfully visualize the image in his mind and meditate using that. He’d been able to do this before, but thanks to the Mages’ Technique, the process was now dozens of times more efficient and looked like ordinary training.
In general, starting from the Heaven Soldier level, cultivators no longer needed to train their bodies, only their spirit. The stronger their core of power became, the stronger their body was as well. Therefore, all training was limited to deep meditations. Some legends said that a few Spirit Knights and Lords could spend whole years, if not centuries, immersed in meditation while trying to break through another threshold in their cultivation. Hadjar didn’t believe that was true.
Fixing the image of the Black General in his mind, Hadjar put the scroll back and fell into deep meditation. Resisting the unthinkable pressure of this simple image, he repeatedly plunged into the mysteries of the Sword Spirit contained in this simple attack. Hadjar felt these secrets filling his mind and reaching for the small spark of knowledge he had about the Way of the Sword. He felt the roaring stream contained in the scroll sweeping away and destroying even the thinnest thread of knowledge available to Hadjar.
He was certain that the level of sword mastery that the Enemy had possessed far exceeded the Sword's Heart and the Sword Kingdom. It was such a high level that Hadjar couldn’t even imagine how powerful the Black General had been. Nor could he fathom how powerful those who’d been able to destroy him and imprison him in his afterlife on the Mountain of Skulls must’ve been, either.
In his mind, Hadjar imitated his ancestor’s strike thousands, no, tens of thousands of times. The Enemy had been able to make an attack that had cut through an entire mountain, but Hadjar was still just waving the Black Blade around senselessly inside his mind. He lacked true knowledge and understanding of the deepest mysteries of the Sword Spirit.
Despite this, for many months now, Hadjar had been repeating this slash over and over in his mind. He’d been gathering the knowledge grain by grain. No difficulties or obstacles would stop Hadjar from reaching his goal. He would spend dozens of years trying to replicate the attack if need be. If that’s what it took, so be it. In the end, when he finally succeed, he couldn’t imagine what horizons of power would open up before him.
After spending at least seven hours training, Hadjar woke up only when the pipe fell out of his mouth. Tapping the ashes and dirt out of it, Hadjar got up and stretched. There was no real need for him to do so, it was just a simple habit.
Touching his bandages, Hadjar listened to his body. The wound left behind by Dinos’ amulet had almost healed. The Technique hadn’t touched his meridians or energy channels, otherwise the wound wouldn’t have healed for several weeks.
Still, no matter how fast and agile a cultivator was, the most important thing when it came to their survival was always their Technique for Strengthening the Body. Without it, even if a cultivator was faster than thought, they couldn’t dodge the pressure of someone else’s aura, or a Technique like the ‘Hammer Whirlwind’, or the Technique Anise had used.
“Thank you, venerable Master,” Hadjar smiled, touching the dragon tattoo on his chest.
The only Technique for Strengthening the Body he possessed had been obtained almost a decade ago. It was utterly worthless, being only a Mortal level Technique, and it would probably do nothing against the attacks of a Heaven Soldier, a Spirit Knight, or a Primeval Giant. Moreover, if Hadjar’s ‘defenses’ had really been limited to just it, Tom’s amulet would not only have severed his leg, but also easily ended his life.
The only explanation for how he was still alive was the dragon heart that had been beating in Hadjar’s chest for nearly fifteen years. Over the years, it must’ve ‘digested’ his blood enough to make it far less human. Although, as Traves had said, Hadjar would never be a human again, and never become a proper dragon, either.
Hadjar smiled up at the sky as he filled his pipe again and blew out a cloud of smoke. Up there, behind the heavy clouds, colorful and bright stars were shining. He began to understand his maternal ancestor, the Black General. He
’d been neither a spirit, nor a god; neither a human, nor a demon; neither a slave, nor a free man. Hadjar wondered who he had seen when he’d looked at his reflection in a stream. Or, like Hadjar, when he’d looked at the swamp and seen himself reflected in the muddy water.
“I’d better shave,” Hadjar muttered, stroking his beard.
He took out a curved dagger, the kind that cultivators used to carve cores out of monsters’ corpses, when he heard a slight whisper on the wind. For many, this sound would’ve been easily dismissed as the rustling of grass or the chime of baubles in their hair, the clink of metal plates, or a simple whistle. However, to Hadjar, it was like someone was calling him from afar and whispering something to him.
The tattoo on his back, left behind by the Sword Spirit, responded with a brief flash of pain, and the whisper died away, as if it had been cut off.
“That’s strange.” Hadjar stowed the dagger, leaving his beard be for a few more hours. “This has never happened before.”
For the first time in eight years, the tattoo on his back had somehow made its presence known. Straightening up, Hadjar looked in the direction the whisper had come from. For some reason, he wasn’t surprised to see that the ‘voice’ was coming from right behind the fallen giant.
“Damn it,” Hadjar swore with a sigh, and followed the wind’s whisper.
Chapter 475
Using a small, makeshift torch to light his way, Hadjar came close to the... giant’s ass. Fortunately, he hadn’t reacted like ordinary humans after they died — he hadn’t voided his bowels. Hadjar had seen it happen during the wars... The sight had been both horrifying and repulsive. Perhaps that was why some soldiers had refused to help collect all the bodies and prepare the funeral pyres.
Just in case, he tied a wet cloth around his face. Drawing his simple artifact sword, Hadjar headed toward the crack in the ground left behind by the giant’s fall.
As he went inside, Hadjar was glad he’d put the handkerchief over his face. It smelled worse than a cesspool down here, but he’d heard the call of his old friend, the wind, and he was determined to follow it.
As he descended into the pit, Hadjar found it easier to breathe. The giant’s body was still up there, and he was sinking deeper and deeper into the crevice. The walls were getting drier, and the stench of swamp lessened.
The light from the torch was barely enough to dispel the darkness. It was so cold he felt it in his bones. If clouds of steam were escaping from the mouth of a Heaven Soldier, it was difficult to imagine what would’ve happened to a mere mortal down here: they would’ve probably turned into an ice statue instantly.
After walking about a mile down the crevice, Hadjar stopped at a dead end. There was no doubt that the wind had brought him here for a reason. His old friend had always given him useful hints. Since it had spent a lot of power to break through the barrier of the Sword Spirit’s tattoo, it had definitely not done so for the sake of playing hide-and-seek. This dead end surely wasn’t a dead end at all.
Hadjar, after fortifying his simple blade with his energy, slashed at the stone wall. He did so again and again, until the stone that blocked the passage broke apart. Immediately, Hadjar had to close his eyes and cover them with his hand. A bright, flickering, greenish light assaulted them. After his eyes adjusted, he opened them and saw an underground river. However, it was a very strange color — light green.
“Well,” Hadjar smiled. “That’s lucky. Thank you, old friend.”
Hadjar had seen this kind of river before. By the High Heavens, it felt like he’d come across it in another life, or in a half-forgotten dream. He and his sister, Princess Elaine, had been stuck in an underground grotto. Of course, she hadn’t known that he was her brother at the time. The water there had also shone because of a rare type of grass growing within it.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Hadjar stripped to the waist and dove in. He’d barely begun diving when he felt a powerful pressure on his mind. His eyelids were drooping. His vision grew dim. The streams of water were barely distinguishable, the stone walls around the underground river were eroding and melting away, and the bottom, where the strange grass grew, was swirling. All of this, of course, was only taking place in Hadjar’s sleeping mind.
“Dream Grass!” Hadjar guessed.
It was one of the resources that he needed to advance to the middle stage of the Heaven Soldier level. Each meditation Technique that guided the path of a true cultivator had its own requirements, but, by the High Heavens, the ‘Path through the Clouds’ meditation Technique needed a truly monstrous amount of resources.
Hadjar overcame the first few yards through sheer willpower, but once he dove a little deeper, he felt his consciousness giving up. After thinking about it for a second, he bit the tip of his tongue. The sharp flash of pain jolted him awake for a moment and he was able to do a few more strokes. Then the underground river hit him with such a powerful pressure that, along with trying to put him to sleep, Hadjar realized it was affecting his memories, too. Scenes from his past were gradually leaving his mind. They were getting lost somewhere beneath a layer of mirages and gloom. This layer was as acrid and viscous as the Valley of Swamps itself.
“No!” Hadjar exclaimed mentally.
Inside his mind, he drew the Black Blade and, filled with rage, began to hack and slash at the pressure that was bearing down on him. The mirages crumbled into flickering dream dust, his half-forgotten dreams brought out from the depths of his childhood. After all, every person had dreams that went hand in hand with them throughout their life. Gradually, they turned from the mirages and games of the subconscious into life experiences. They influenced a person’s decision-making, and the very course of a person’s life.
This dust poured into the most microscopic cracks in Hadjar’s soul defenses and became a barrier against the pressure. The grass was only about eight inches away now, but it was at that point that Hadjar felt his mind drifting away. The stone walls of the cave gradually became the stone walls of the Palace. The dull murmur of grass transformed into his mother’s loud laughter. Even the tufts of grass themselves, swaying in the current, were now Queen Elizabeth’s hair.
“Hadjar, my dear boy,” she said, lifting the scowling four-year-old into her lap. “What happened? Why is my little scholar so pouty? Don’t you know that the harder you pout, the slower you will grow because your cheeks will become too heavy?”
Hadjar turned away and crossed his arms in displeasure. Elizabeth laughed and began to tickle him. He fought back as hard as he could... wait, no, he didn’t fight back at all, he liked this game.
“Look over there, my little scholar,” Elizabeth said, stopping the game and letting the child catch his breath. “Tell me what you see.”
“A window,” the little boy said reasonably.
“And what’s behind it?”
The boy looked closely. What was outside the window? Behind the garden where, soon enough, he would be playing with his little sister? Behind the ancient mountain where the castle of his father’s ancestors, the previous Kings of Lidus, was located? Behind the Sea of Sand, the Empire of Darnassus, behind the vast expanses of unknown lands, plains, mountain ranges, seas, oceans…
“I don’t know.” The boy said, shaking his head.
“That’s right.” Elizabeth ran the tip of her nose over her son’s cheek. “Never forget that feeling. The feelings of the unknown. It is sometimes even more important than the opposite, because it will push you to do the most incredible things. Never be afraid of the unknown, but boldly accept it into yourself. Now go to asleep, my little scholar. Sleep…”
The boy turned back to the window. A cloud obscured the sun and the shadow it created allowed the boy to see his reflection for a moment. Instead of his small face, he saw the handsome visage of a young man. A young man who was floating weightlessly in the water. His arms and legs were gradually being enveloped by tufts of an odd grass. They were pulling him deeper and deeper into the abyss of the river
. They drew energy out of him as they did so, becoming even denser and brighter.
“No!” The boy’s cry merged with the roar of the sinking Hadjar.
His blue eyes flashed with the light of his immense willpower. A force so strong that it couldn’t be broken even by the falling sky. So sharp that it could cut through the threads that Fate used to imprison people. It was through his will, his faith in his own strength, that Hadjar was able to break the shackles of the forced sleep. He could now see the bottom again, the walls of the crevice, and the tangles of Dream Grass.
A moment later, the wave of mirages and dreams struck him again, but it was too late. Summoning the Black Blade into the physical world, Hadjar made just one movement. A black-and-blue crescent surged out of his blade. After flying for several yards along the bottom of the river, it left many pounds of Dream Grass rising to the surface in its wake.
The pressure immediately abated, and the glow in the underground river began to fade. Hadjar, feeling his lungs running out of oxygen, hurried to gather the tufts of Dream Grass. Doing so while in the water wasn’t the easiest of tasks, but he couldn’t let them get to the surface. Since they grew underwater, they could lose their properties once they touched the air because he hadn’t cut them properly.
When he surfaced, Hadjar was holding a skin filled with water from the river and about seven pounds of Dream Grass. He almost collided with Einen.
“What?” He asked his friend.
The islander, covering his nose, first looked at Hadjar, then behind him, and then at the water skin.
“What’s that?”
“A few pounds of Dream Grass.”
The bald man swore eloquently, but, alas, some expressions from the language of the Islands had no translation.
“I don’t understand what you’re so upset about, my friend. We’ll be able to sell everything that’s left after my training for Glory points.”
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