Land of Magic

by Kirill Klevanski

“That’s not why I was swearing,” Einen said. Retracting his spearhead back into his staff, he turned and began walking toward the camp. “By the Great Turtle, only you, my barbarian friend, can exit the stinking ass of a dead giant not covered in shit, and with a rare resource in your hands, no less.”

  “Look who’s talking!” Hadjar muttered and followed his friend.

  Chapter 476

  Training with the Dream Grass was much easier than training with the essence of Primordial Water. That was probably the case because he wasn’t breaking through to the middle stage of the Heaven Soldier level, but just doing ordinary training. After absorbing the energy of about three pounds (which cost a lot of money in the market), Hadjar gave the rest to Einen. He didn’t really protest, knowing it would be pointless to do so. Hadjar wasn’t going to wait for his friend to get lucky like he had with the thousand Glory points he’d gotten from Tom. Maybe four pounds of the Dream Grass wasn’t enough to earn that much, but at least it would equalize things.

  “We could pool our points together. That way, one of us would have enough to take the fully-fledged disciple exam,” Einen suggested.

  “Do you really believe that?” Hadjar grimaced, not because of his friend’s words, but because it was rather painful to remove a bandage from a healed leg. “If we split up, we’ll just be expelled separately.”

  “The Tarez,” Einen guessed.

  “Yep.” Hadjar nodded.

  On the morning of the second day, the cultivators who’d survived the battle with the giant began to gather slowly. No one took any oaths, but it was clear that they wouldn’t make it on their own. The ‘Meltwater’ and ‘Quick Dream’ Schools had probably joined forces and were now blocking their path to the capital. A massive battle was brewing.

  “Have you noticed how they’re looking at us?” Einen got up, covered their fire pit in dirt, and stowed his staff in a special sheath on his back. “I’m sure they want Ian’s sabers.”

  “It’s a pity Tom took the body.”

  “Did you want to talk to the Mentors and Masters of ‘The Holy Sky’ School?” Einen asked, puzzled. “That’s why Dinos took Gorr’s body. To prove that an ordinary disciple was using Techniques that, by all rights, he shouldn’t have possessed.”

  Hadjar joined his friend and headed for the camp. The cultivators had fenced off a small paddock, where their Frogohorses and the rest of the mounts grazed. It would take them at least four months to get to the Imperial road on foot, and that’s if they ran as fast as they could for the entire four months. So, the mounts were vitally important to all of them.

  “I don’t care about Dinos’ intrigues,” Hadjar shook his head, “but I’m certain that there are traces of demonic energy left on Ian’s body. I don’t think Helmer bothered to erase them. He views all of us with the same disdain a lion would give an ant crawling across its paw.”

  “What’s that got to do with you?”

  Straightening the saddles on their Frogohorses, they tried to talk as discreetly as possible, because they were surrounded by a couple hundred other cultivators. Many of them were busy doing the same thing they were.

  “For some time now, I’ve had ties with the Lord of Nightmares,” Hadjar hissed. “I don’t want Ian’s body to incriminate me somehow. If that happens, I won’t have to talk to the Masters of ‘The Holy Sky’ School, but the investigators of the Secret Imperial Agency instead.”

  “If it exists, of course.”

  “Oh, believe me, my bald friend, there are Secret Agencies in every country. The bloodhounds. The men in black. All sorts of maniacs who do the dirty work that others would never agree to do.”

  “If you weren’t a Prince, my barbarian friend, I’d think you were paranoid.”

  “And if-”

  “What are you whispering about?”

  The friends were interrupted by Dora Marnil. The elf girl, who had removed her armor, was now wearing a leather top and tight pants. It was no wonder most of the cultivators were staring at her. They were young men, their blood boiling with hormones. They saw someone they could admire, a strong cultivator, and someone they could lust for, a beautiful girl, all in one. They didn’t care that she wasn’t human. On the contrary, that just gave their fantasies and dreams a certain zest.

  “We’re discussing Helmer, the Lord of Nightmares,” Einen said casually.

  Hadjar looked at his friend in disbelief, but then realized that there was no other way around it. They’d already seen firsthand that Dora could somehow sense lies. In principle, cultivators only gained this skill at the Spirit Knight level, but something was different about the elves… So, when they told her a half-truth, they weren’t exactly deceiving Dora, but they weren’t telling her the whole story, either.

  “Did you decide to tell some children’s horror stories to pass the time?” The girl smiled, climbing up on her fat Frogohorse. “Or did your drunken tales run out?”

  “We didn’t drink,” the friends answered in chorus with great sadness.

  “Yes, I know.”

  Hadjar and Einen immediately tensed.

  “Don’t be nervous,” the girl waved her hands. “I didn’t follow you around. I just kept an eye on you.”

  “Why?” Hadjar climbed into his saddle with a grunt. By the High Heavens, he hated not being able to walk on his own, a character trait caused by his decade spent as a cripple. “Was there nothing else for the eldest heir of House Marnil to do but keep an eye on two ordinary disciples?”

  Einen looked at his friend reproachfully. They, mere commoners by the standards of the Darnassus Empire, should not have associated so frivolously with the high-born. Or great-born... Hadjar didn’t know the exact term. In Lidus, everything was much simpler. Still, the islander said nothing. He was also wondering why Dora had watched over them.

  “To be perfectly frank…” Dora said, suddenly blushing a little, and turning away. “I mean, I don’t really know anyone at ‘The Holy Sky’ School, and…”

  “What about Tom Dinos?”

  Dora batted her eyelashes and laughed.

  “I know all the heirs of all seven clans! But what I’m talking about is that I don’t trust anyone besides you two. Also, Hadjar, I haven’t fulfilled my promise to give you a spatial artifact yet. And if you die because you foolishly made an enemy that you can’t handle, I’ll never be able to fulfill that promise.”

  She was clearly hinting at him irritating Tom so much. Hadjar sometimes caught the young heir looking at him.

  “He’s already forgotten about me, I think.”

  “Tom?” Dora laughed again and patted her Frogohorse. She had a special connection with animals that was apparent to everyone. “He’d rather forget his own name than forgive anyone. He’s stubborn like that. You’ve already crossed his path twice, and, by the Great Forest, he won’t allow you to do so a third time. So, Hadjar, in addition to House Tarez, you should also worry about the Predatory Blades clan.”

  Hadjar swore under his breath.

  “You, my barbarian friend, have a strange passion for making enemies,” Einen grunted. “We’ve only been in Dahanatan for a couple of months, and we’re already at odds with two of the seven most powerful clans.”

  “I wouldn’t say that.” Dora smiled and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. With just this one movement, she attracted as much attention as a Princess at a ball. “If you were truly at odds with the Tarez and Dinos, then, with all due respect, you would’ve died a long time ago. However, their servants will obviously try to curry favor with their masters at your expense.”

  “Their servants.” Hadjar repeated. “As a child, my mother taught me that if a dog barks at you, you should-”

  “Walk past it,” Dora finished. “My father told me that, too.”

  Hadjar’s mouth curved into a predatory smile, and so did Einen’s.

  “No, you shouldn’t walk past it. My mother said that a dog only barks at people it can bark at. So, it’s your own fault when it bares its
teeth at you.”

  “How can I stop a dog from barking, then?” Dora asked.

  “Be strong enough to make it whine instead of barking.”

  They made their way over to the Imperial road in silence. The Dinos siblings and their servants were riding at the head of the column. Several inner circle disciples rode at the rear in case they were attacked from behind.

  However, the disciples of the ‘Meltwater’ and ‘Quick Dream’ Schools were apparently so confident in themselves that they hadn’t bothered to set a trap. Hadjar could easily see why that was.

  On the second day of their journey to the capital, the disciples of ‘The Holy Sky’ School came across three thousand cultivators from two other Schools. Hadjar had expected some kind of exchange where both sides insulted each other, but instead, as if they were at war, both sides simply gave a very concise order:

  “Attack!”

  Chapter 477

  Hadjar leapt out of the saddle and, along with the other disciples of ‘The Holy Sky’ School, attacked their foes. They didn’t care that the enemy outnumbered them more than ten to one. Such minor inconveniences couldn’t break the strong will of true cultivators.

  Leaving a trail of black fog behind in his wake, Hadjar charged into the enemy ranks first. Or rather, he thought he did. Using the sixth stance of the ‘Light Breeze’ Technique, Hadjar moved at a speed someone at the initial stage of the Heaven Soldier level should never have been capable of, but even so, he wasn’t the fastest disciple of ‘The Holy Sky’ School.

  Anise was the first to ram into their foes’ ranks. As she attacked, the plates of her artifact armor unfolded from her silver shoulder pad to cover her body. Just like in the battle against the golems of the Primeval Giant, she swung her sword only once every time, and then moved on to her next target. She moved with such fluid grace that she appeared to be dueling one opponent after another, despite killing them by the dozen. Scarlet ribbons filled the air in the wake of her rampant attack.

  “Not so fast, Dinos!” A roar sounded from the back of the enemy formation.

  Leaping over his own comrades, a giant landed directly in front of Anise, smashing the stone-paved road beneath him to bits. He was more than seven feet tall. His muscles were so heavy and huge that a mere mortal would’ve been crushed by their weight alone. He held a broad, ten-foot-long sword. It weighed at least a thousand pounds, but the cultivator from the ‘Meltwater’ School swung it as easily as Hadjar wielded his classical sword.

  One swing of the man’s sword conjured an unprecedented wave of power. Anise, standing in front of it, looked like a piece of fluff that had been thrown into a raging storm.

  “Lyon,” the girl nodded as if greeting an old acquaintance. “Haven’t you learned anything by now?”

  Anise swung her sword in a deceptively simple motion. She launched a crescent of sword energy no thicker than a woman’s hair from the blade of her Imperial artifact. When it collided with the avalanche of her enemy’s power, it should’ve cracked and shattered, according to all the laws of the universe, but instead, it cut through it, flew forward a few yards, and left a deep gash on Lyon’s left shoulder.

  “High Heavens!” Hadjar gasped.

  If someone had told him that they’d seen this happen, he would’ve never believed them. He just couldn’t comprehend how a simple twig could cut through a storm cloud.

  Watching Anise fight, Hadjar almost didn’t notice an axe swing aimed at his own temple. At the last second, Hadjar jerked his left hand. The cloak of black fog rose like a wide curtain. The enemy’s axe was now firmly embedded in it, and Hadjar needed nothing else to defeat him. Turning his left arm, he forced the young man who was clutching the formidable weapon to slightly pull it aside. That gave him enough distance to launch a rapid counterattack. The Black Blade, leaving a few wisps of fog behind in the air, split the boy in half from neck to groin. The two halves of the once whole body collapsed to the ground. With an effort of will, Hadjar forced the hem of his cloak to bend down and brush against the enemy’s token. No remorse. No pity. The fallen boy had chosen his own fate — he’d come for Hadjar’s life, so he must’ve been ready to part with his own.

  “Stop staring!”

  An ape clad in rainbow armor punched a fiery arrow that looked like a bird’s beak out of the air. Einen had come to his friend’s rescue. If it hadn’t been for him, Hadjar, who had barely survived his own sloppiness and the axe wielder’s attack, would’ve become the archer’s prey.

  “What is wrong with you, my friend?” The islander snapped.

  Twirling his spear-staff above his head, he rained down a hail of fierce and swift blows on the cultivators around them. The rainbow ape was punching out in all directions. The fast, piercing attacks ended the lives of all those who didn’t use defensive Techniques or dodge. In just a few moments, Einen had littered the ground with six bodies.

  Hadjar, meanwhile, was just standing there, staring at his bloodied hand clutching the Black Blade. Of course, he’d fought in wars where he had left mountains of corpses behind. He’d fought murderers, traitors, worthy opponents, enemies, but not... innocent teenagers.

  “Wake up, you damned barbarian!” Einen roared.

  He was fighting off seven cultivators at once. At the same time, he was also managing to deflect arrows raining down from the sky, all of them enveloped by a variety of deadly Techniques. His staff-spear moved with such speed that it seemed as if rainbow dust was falling from it to cover the bloodstained ground.

  Hadjar looked at the rivers of blood and saw his own reflection in them. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d looked at his reflection in a mirror or a stream. No, actually, he could. The last time had been when Primus’ hand had pierced his mother’s chest and torn out her still-beating heart. That’s when he’d looked at himself in the gleam of the polished blades.

  After each battle, soldiers sharpened and cleaned their weapons. Their instructors had taught them to do so, and their instructors had learned it from theirs, and so on. Some believed that it was done purely to take care of their weapons, while others believed it served to clear their minds and calm them after a brutal fight. However, their distant ancestors had known the true reason for why they’d constantly cleaned their weapons.

  When a blade cut…

  “Snap out of it, Hadjar!” Einen plunged his spear-staff into the ground, and hundreds of shadow copies of his weapon suddenly stretched out beneath their attackers. “River Serpent!”

  When a blade cut someone’s flesh, it took not only their blood, but also a part of their soul with it. Warriors cleaned their weapons so carefully in order to remove these remnants. They tried to forget about all those whose lives had been cut short, who would never embrace their parents again, hold their children in their arms, or caress their beloved. But was it the sword that took their lives? Did it water the land with rivers of blood, allowing farmers to harvest the rich bounty that came from someone’s death?

  No, it wasn’t the blade itself that the warriors cleaned. It wasn’t the blade they were trying to keep sharp and unbroken. Hadjar saw the Sword in everything around him: a drop of water in his hands could become sharper than the most skilfully forged steel; a tuft of grass could cut through armor; a gust of wind would be able to pierce someone’s heart. Those who reached this stage began to wash their hands. They cleaned their hands with such frenzied intensity that they flayed their skin and spilled their own blood. As if they wanted to scrub away-

  “We’re going to die!” Einen blocked one strike after another. While Hadjar stood in the center of the battlefield and the wind made his cloak of black fog billow out, Einen repelled the onslaught of the enemy cultivators. He covered the ground in dozens of bodies, but couldn’t stand alone against a hundred of them. “Boulder Storm! River Serpent!”

  ...Scrub away what was left of their enemies. However, no matter how many times a person scoured their skin to the bone, there was still blood on their hands. This blood, the
se deaths, all these fragments of other people’s souls, didn’t remain on their sword or hands. They were in a warrior’s heart. In their very soul. It wasn’t the sword that had taken someone’s life, and the hands that had held it weren’t to blame, either. The warrior’s heart had deprived people of their lives. That was where the intentions that moved the hands that held the sword came from. Everything around Hadjar was the Sword. Everything around him was his heart. That meant that the sword was stored inside his heart.

  ***

  Suddenly, everyone felt an incredible pressure. Not the pressure of pure power, but rather, of some primal fear caused by their ancestral memories of what it had been like to have a beast’s claws reach for your throat. Most of them broke out into a cold sweat. It seemed like the sharpened claw or blade had bypassed their throat entirely, resting instead against their soul and heart. It felt like they would die if they made a single wrong move.

  Anise, after piercing Lyon’s wounded left shoulder once more, dazed by the sudden pressure, turned in the direction of the feeling. She stared in surprise at the man wrapped in the black cloak of fog. A commoner from a distant land had been able to master the Sword's Heart? Impossible!

  An arrow fell from the sky and pierced the figure in the black cloak. Anise suddenly felt not just relief at the realization that the impossible hadn’t happened, but also a severe pain that shook her soul.

  Lyon, taking advantage of her hesitation, kicked her hard in the stomach. Her artifact armor softened the blow several times over, but even so, Anise flew several yards through the air.

  She came to her senses as she flew through the air, twisting around and slashing at a spearman standing behind her. She took off his head and, while still in the air, grabbed it by the hair and hurled it at Lyon. The cultivator had to shrug off the sudden projectile and, using this second of hesitation, Anise was able to hide in the press of battle raging all around her.

  “I’ll still get you, Anise Dinos!” A wild laugh, full of battle lust, rang out behind her.