by Aaron Oster
The door was already open when he arrived, and Hermit pushed, putting just a bit of effort into it. While the doors may have appeared normal to the outside observer, they were well over two tons in weight. Made of a special dense stone and reinforced with a script, this door was all but impossible for anyone short of a Supreme to even open – yet another security measure that had been added since his departure from the clan.
“Good, you came,” Ikaria said, not rising from her seated position on the far side of the room.
“We did have a deal,” Hermit said, shoving the door closed behind him. “Unlike you, I keep my promises.”
“Don’t tell me you’re still sore about that,” Ikari said with a roll of her eyes. “Come on, Kai, it’s been-”
“Hermit.”
“What?”
“That name is no longer mine,” Hermit said as he moved across the room. “My name is now Hermit.”
Ikari gave him an odd look at that.
“Why would you change your name? Did living out in the woods for so long as a hermit make you want to call yourself one?”
“No. The name was given to me by Roy, the boy who used Qi and nearly killed himself. The name resonated with me and I have chosen to adopt it as my own.”
“But…You’re not just some hermit,” Ikari said. “I mean, look at your Belt. You’re one of only nine Sovereigns on the entire continent. You are a man whose name still strikes fear into the hearts of our enemies, despite their belief that you perished long ago. You’re Hakai, the Sage – or should I say, Sovereign – of Ruin!”
Hermit frowned at that, a very clear downturn of his mouth that showed great displeasure.
“Time moves on, and change comes along with it. My Core is no longer tainted with the blood of innocents. My soul is scrubbed clean of their deaths. I am a new man with a new Ideal. Death and destruction no longer call to me, and so, Itachi Hakai is dead. Only Hermit remains.”
“Fi-i-ine,” Ikari said, with a long sigh. “You always were the philosophical type, so I guess I’m not surprised you went all soft in your old age.”
“Please. Let’s not pretend that age holds any sway over either of us. Barring someone outright killing us, we won’t die, and seeing as the Scions are the only ones with that sort of power, and that our clan is the only one with two Sovereigns, I think we’ll be fine.”
Though Ikari had said there were nine Sovereigns, Hermit already knew that one of them, the Sovereign of Cloying Darkness, wasn’t affiliated with any clan. Rather, he preferred to wander, allowing the winds to take him where they would. His younger brother, Geki, hadn’t yet joined their ranks, it seemed.
Ikari’s shoulders tightened at that, and a look of worry creased her otherwise smooth features.
“That’s one of the things I wanted to talk to you about.”
“One of?” Hermit asked. “No time for family reunions, I see.”
“Not now, I’m afraid,” Ikari said. “We’ve gotten word that the Sovereign of the Herald clan is close to a breakthrough.”
“How close?” Hermit asked, all thoughts of idle chatter driven cleanly from his mind.
“We don’t know exactly, as our spies haven’t gotten too close, but we know that it’s going to happen, and sooner than we might think.”
“Another Scion,” Hermit whispered. “How long has it been since the last?”
“Nearly seven-hundred years,” Ikari said, though Hermit already knew the answer.
The Scion of Tales had reached her lofty position nearly two hundred years before he’d been born. Ever since then, a new Scion had not appeared, though one of them had perished in a battle against a Cavern Beast.
The fact that the head of one of the Seven Great Clans was close to such a lofty rank could only mean bad things. The whole power dynamic would shift overnight, with the Heralds being able to subjugate the others to their rule. There would be no battles, no resistance. None of the Sovereigns would have the strength to stand up to him, and therefore, would already have lost.
Worse, there was no way he was going to allow them to live. If a single Sovereign from a rival clan managed to advance, it would pose a serious threat to his rule. Therefore, all of the clans would be expecting a visit from the newly minted Scion to consolidate his power.
“Do you have any ideas on how to prevent this?” Hermit asked, wondering if it wasn’t too late to just go back to living in the forest.
“Unless we join with at least two other clans and attack him all at once, I don’t see how we can beat him. He’s already at the 11th Dan, which means he’s stronger than any one Sovereign already. The only reason he doesn’t make his move is because there’s still a chance of stopping him now.”
“How convinced are you that he’ll attack, and not simply leave as the other Scions did when they reached their new advancement ranks?”
“Come on. You know Herald Lionel as well as I do. Do you really think he’s the type to just sit back and do nothing, especially with all that new power?”
“No,” Hermit admitted, letting out a sigh.
Lionel wasn’t at all the type to sit back. He’d been the least compliant of the clan heads, and it had taken no less than the combined threat of the other six clans to make him fall into line. In retrospect, Hermit now wished that he hadn’t, as he now posed a significant threat to them all.
“Have you reached out to the others?”
“I have, but that brings us to our second, and much more current problem. I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that our younger brother and almost every other powerful Artist in the main family is gone.”
“I assume there’s trouble that demands their presence elsewhere,” Hermit said with a shrug.
It wasn’t like it hadn’t happened before. In fact, he remembered several instances where multiple powerful Martial Artists had been sent out to deal with a threat.
“Yes, and don’t think that this is some inconsequential problem that can be easily resolved,” Ikari said grimly. “A Cavern Beast was spotted near our eastern border nearly a week ago, and from his last report, Geki was having some serious trouble putting it down.”
Hermit sucked in a long breath between his teeth, his mind beginning to whirl at that piece of troubling news.
“So that was what we’ve been sensing,” the Core said.
He tended to listen in to conversations but didn’t often speak when others were around. News of a Cavern Beast was definitely enough to warrant a reaction, though.
“Do you have any details?”
“As of two days ago, it was hovering near Brown. However, when it was discovered, it was only halfway through Gold. The Beast seems to have some sort of power over time, space, or a combination of the two. Geki has been unable to even slow it down, and no matter how hard they hit it, they can’t seem to cause any significant damage.”
“That is how Cavern Beasts tend to work,” Hermit replied, rubbing at his chin. “How much time until it hits a village or town?”
“It already has,” Ikari said grimly. “Four of them, in fact. Luckily for its residents, we managed to clear them out in time, but I’m sure you can guess where this Beast is heading.”
“I would assume it was coming here,” Hermit sighed.
The Cavern Beast would be attracted by the massive gathering of power this city offered. It would be like a magnet to the hungry Beast, a target that could not be resisted. They might have tall walls, but it would do little to stop a Beast gaining that much power so fast.
“There are over six million people here on any given day,” Ikari said grimly. “If that Beast manages to breach the city walls, the death toll will be immeasurable. And that’s not to mention the surge of power it would receive from killing that many people.”
“What I don’t understand is how it keeps growing stronger at such an exponential rate,” Hermit said. “I’m assuming Geki is keeping it isolated from other people, and the ambient Essence can’t be enough to sustain it, so where is
it all coming from?”
“We don’t know,” Ikari said, her lips flattening into a tight line. “The area has become an Essence Void, and nothing works. Geki, while strong, never quite managed to match up to either of us. Right now, he’s only at Base Brown, and I don’t think he’ll ever be getting any stronger.”
“So, I’m guessing that you’re going to want me to go join him in killing this Cavern Beast,” Hermit said.
“Are you saying no?”
“Oh, no, I’m definitely going to go,” Hermit said, already rising to his feet. “If there’s a Cavern Beast growing that fast, then even the Scions will be in danger soon. I’m actually surprised that none of them have come to fight this thing.”
“You know how they are,” Ikari said, seeming to relax now that she knew he’d be going after the Beast. “They won’t get involved until they believe they’re needed.”
“Yeah, well, if we’re not the only clan dealing with a Cavern Beast, then I see them being needed very soon,” Hermit said, tightening his Belt. “I’ll need some assurances before I go.”
Ikari raised an eyebrow at that.
“Oh?”
“Yes,” Hermit said flatly. “I brought three visitors along with me, and two of them are my students, brought here for training. I was supposed to start with them tomorrow, but seeing as I’ll be gone, that responsibility will fall on you.”
“But I don’t have that kind of-”
“You’ll make the time,” Hermit said, his tone hardening. “The boy needs to be pushed to reach Green-Belt, and the girl needs to learn proper Qi control. They both have tremendous potential, something that our clan still values if I’m not mistaken.”
“And just why should I care about two Artists at their level?” Ikari asked. “We don’t even look at those beneath Blue, and in order to receive personal training from a Sovereign, they’d both need to be at Purple, and Grandmasters, to boot!”
“Because honor demands it,” Hermit said simply. “Your wild dogs nearly killed them near the border of the Crater. One of them was cast out to die, and the other was kept captive for a month, enduring torture every day before being told of her execution by Core destruction.”
For the first time that night, Hermit saw Ikari wince. No one, not even the lowest of the low, would stoop so far as to shatter someone’s Core as a means of killing them. It was the ultimate humiliation, one that would ensure the total death of the Martial Artist in question, both in body and spirit.
If word were to get out that someone in their clan almost did so to a random outsider for no real reason, it would reflect very badly on her personally. Even though Ikari had had nothing to do with it, she was still the leader, and so, the blame would fall on her.
“Fine,” Ikari said stiffly. “Make sure they’re here by seven sharp.”
“Already have,” Hermit said, turning to leave.
Ikari was never one to allow someone else to have the last word, and even as Hermit slipped out the door, she called after him.
“You’d better beat that thing!”
Hermit only smiled grimly to himself. A Cavern Beast was the ultimate challenge for any Martial Artist. These were Beasts of pure chaos and destruction that drank Essence like sponges and could never be filled. The fact that there were multiple Cavern Beasts attacking various clans at once wasn’t a good omen. The last Cavern Beast sighting had been several hundred years ago and had resulted in the death of one of the Scions.
It had been defeated in the end, but only because that Scion had been joined by one other, and even then, it had been a close thing. From what rumors he’d heard, the Scion of Quaking Skies had never been quite the same since, and still carried injuries from that battle to this very day.
“I don’t think this is a very wise course of action,” the Core said as he headed out of the castle. “A Cavern Beast may be too much, even for you.”
“And yet I have to go,” Hermit replied. “Honor demands it.”
18
Roy rose from his bed at half-past six in the morning after extricating himself from Ferry’s tangle of limbs. It hadn’t been an easy process either, as she’d clung to him tightly until he’d scratched the sweet spot behind her ears to make her loosen up. His legs felt somewhat shaky when he first stood, but after a few minutes of walking around the room, he began to feel his strength returning.
“I still feel as though I’ve been run over by a charging bull,” Roy complained, clutching at the tight spot in his chest.
“That’s unsurprising,” Geon replied. “You did almost die, after all.”
“Thanks for reminding me,” Roy grumbled.
It had been an entire twenty minutes since Geon had last reminded him of his screw-up, and he’d been beginning to hope that he might finally have let it go.
“Glad to help,” Geon replied, still as oblivious to sarcasm as ever. “Can’t have that squishy brain of yours forget what you almost did to me.”
Roy simply rolled his eyes, then began to undo his robes. He froze halfway through removing his shirt, remembering that he wasn’t alone in the room. Turning back, he saw that Ferry was still fast asleep, now lying across the entire bed with her feet hanging off the end. Beds weren’t really made with someone of her height in mind.
He knew she was still technically a Beast, but with her new appearance, it felt strange getting undressed with her in the room. So instead, he snatched up his robes and moved to change behind one of the partitions. Roy didn’t know where they’d be meeting the Sovereign of this clan, but Aika had said she’d be coming to get him soon. He would have simply stayed in his robes from the previous day, but they were wrinkled and a bit dirty, and he didn’t think greeting someone of a Sovereign’s power would be proper with dirty and wrinkled robes.
A light knock came at the door just as he was tying his Belt, and Aika walked in, looking much better than she had the night before. She was wearing a fresh set of Itachi robes with her 2nd Dan Green-Belt tied around her waist.
“You ready to go?” she asked in a quiet voice, eyeing Ferry’s sleeping form.
Roy nodded, and together, the two of them headed out into the corridor. Ferry wasn’t technically training under Hermit, so she’d be left to her own devices. That was fine with Roy, as Ferry had her own way of growing, one that had less to do with training, and more to do with accumulating power.
“How are you feeling today?” Aika asked once they were out in the corridor.
“Better,” Roy admitted, “though my chest is still a bit tight, and whenever I try to use Essence, it still burns a bit.”
“What about your Core?” Aika asked, a note of worry in her voice.
“It’s whole and undamaged, as far as I can tell,” Roy replied, being quick to assure her. “If anything, it seems to be holding even more Essence than before.”
That was something he’d taken note of in the night. From what he’d heard, he’d completely emptied his Core before passing out. He’d been forcefully injected with Essence to keep him going, but he’d have thought that the amount would be negligible. Instead, his Core now held nearly a tenth more than it previously could and was giving him a very interesting feeling. He would equate it to having overeaten at a big meal.
“Yeah, Hermit said that your use of Qi would have expanded your Core exponentially, even if you almost killed yourself doing it. Your channels should be able to handle more, too, which means you can inject more power into your techniques.”
“I still wish I could remember how I did it, though,” Roy muttered.
It would have made Green-Belt so much easier to attain, especially seeing as he now knew that to advance, Hermit would demand he already have Qi in his Core.
“I’m sure your memory will fill in the gaps soon enough,” Aika said. “You should…” she faltered as they turned a corner and came face to face with a man and woman heading down the corridor.
One was wearing a 7th Dan Purple-Belt and appeared to be no older than the tw
o of them. The other person was a man who appeared to be in his mid-fifties, sporting a Gold-Belt containing four slashes of brown. Aika quickly bowed at the waist, and after several seconds of staring, Roy remembered to do the same.
The two Martial Artists acted as though they didn’t even see them, walking past and continuing their hushed conversation. Roy sincerely wished he could have overheard it, but there seemed to be some sort of strange distortion hovering about them, and he had to assume that one of them was keeping their conversation from being overheard. They remained as they were, their heads bowed and waiting until the two of them walked out of sight.
“Who were those people?” Roy asked, watching the corner around which they’d disappeared.
“I don’t know the man’s name,” Aika said, also in a low voice. “But the woman’s name is Violet, and she’s only eighteen.”
“What?” Roy hissed. “She’s that young?!”
“Yeah,” Aika said, starting to walk down the corridor once more. “She’s already the head of her family, and supposedly, they’ve been talking about trying to marry her off to Hermit.”
“Really?” Roy asked, his face twisting up a bit. “Aren’t they closely related? I mean, people in the Shah clan married all the time, but the relation was so distant that it didn’t really matter. Also, how do you know all of this?”
“I might have overheard a conversation while I was making my way back to my room last night. And they’re not as closely related as you might think. Apparently, Hermit and his two siblings are at the head of the family. All the rest are either first or second cousins, and those were their parent’s or grandparent’s appointments when the clan first came into power. Violet is Hermit’s fourth cousin, two-times-removed.”
“Well, when you put it that way…” Roy said.
A fourth cousin was barely a relation at all, as far as blood was concerned, but still.
“Isn’t he like five-hundred years older than her?”
Aika shrugged once again.
“I’m only telling you what I overheard. It’s not like I’m going to be making any decisions for them. They were all pretty shocked that he was still alive, though. Apparently, most people had never even met him, though he seems to be some kind of living legend.”