As far as he could tell, it had happened a long time ago, and Derek didn’t really remember it.
“How did it happen?” Hadjar took out his pipe, filled it with tobacco, and lit it.
Derek looked up at the black sky. His gaze was empty, focused on something inside himself.
“I barely remember it,” he almost whispered. “I was three years old. My parents took me with them to one of the forts on the border of the Barony. We were intercepted by Darnassian scouts on our way there.”
Hadjar exhaled a cloud of smoke. He knew the rest; Derek didn’t need to continue his story. It was easy enough to imagine what the scouts had done. The most sensible thing would’ve been to take the child hostage and blackmail the Baron, forcing him to follow their instructions. Well, that’s what he, as the Mad General, would’ve done. Such a thing could hardly be considered honorable, but... In war, one has to sacrifice honor to save the lives of their people. There are always difficult decisions that have to be made, but even then…
“There was a battle,” Derek continued. “My father fought with dignity, but he was never a good fighter... In the end, my mother was captured. And she, to avoid being used as leverage for blackmail, cut… cut…” Derek swallowed and wiped something from his eyes. “Cut her own throat,” he said in a firmer voice. “Right in front of my father, who was holding me in his arms. I sometimes dream about it.”
Hadjar finally understood why Derek rarely mentioned his father. He blamed him for not protecting them.
Hadjar sighed and offered the pipe to Derek, but he refused. Probably for the best. Everyone had their own poison they used to numb the pain. What helped one person could possibly hurt another.
“My parents were also killed because of the Darnassians,” Hadjar said, surprising both himself and Derek.
“How?”
“It’s a long story,” Hadjar said wearily. “I just wanted to say that hate isn’t the way to go. Trust me, I would know…”
“Did you get your revenge?”
Hadjar nodded.
“What did you feel?”
The memory of the wounded Primus falling from the balcony of the Royal Palace flashed before Hadjar’s eyes.
Elaine…
“Nothing,” Hadjar answered honestly. “We all hope that revenge will bring those that have been taken from us back, but that’s not what happens.”
They were silent for a moment.
“Maybe I’ll understand what you mean one day.” Derek rose, drew his daggers, and started toward the log, gaze full of determination and steel.
At that moment, Hadjar realized that if both of them survived this adventure, they’d one day face each other as enemies. And he also knew that neither of them would hesitate when that day came.
Chapter 580
“Why didn’t you tell him?”
Hadjar twitched and almost fell off the mast. It was a good thing he hadn’t choked on the nails he was holding between his teeth. There was only one hole left to be repaired. He’d also instinctively summoned the Black Blade and prepared to strike.
“Damn it, giant!” Hadjar cursed, dispelling the Black Blade.
Steppe Fang stood on the upper deck. He was a little grimy, with an empty bucket and brush in his hands, and he smelled like tar and burning wood.
“Why didn’t you tell him?” The orc repeated.
“Tell him what?”
“That you’re from Dar-”
Hadjar hit the nail rather loudly, driving it into the wood and drowning out the orc’s words.
“Damn it,” Hadjar whispered. “How did you find out?”
Steppe Fang bared his fangs, taking Hadjar, who still hadn’t gotten used to seeing him smile, by surprise. Had the orc not had human eyes, Hadjar might’ve started to think of him and his kind as animals.
“My tribe lives on the borderlands,” he said. “I’ve seen humans from both Empires. I’ve fought them and I’ve… hunted them.”
“So?”
“All prey has its own smell, little hunter. You don’t smell like prey from Lascan.”
“You know, giant, maybe that’s why the orcs don’t get along with humans. We don’t like being called prey, you see.”
“I already know that humans don’t like calling a spade a spade.” Steppe Fang bared his fangs again.
Is he joking? By the High Heavens, a sarcastic orc? I can understand them about as well as I can understand women. Maybe women are orcs?
Hadjar looked at the chattering sisters. No one else in the squad could do the delicate job of repairing the sails. They were adorned with a pattern woven out of the finest threads of power, despite being plain canvas sails otherwise. Not everyone could repair them, but Alea could. She, like any healer, was skilled in handling delicate things. Irma, although less skilled than her sister, was still far more qualified than any of them to help Alea.
“What do you want?”
Hadjar hammered in another nail and was about to start working on the next board when Steppe Fang stepped on it. Leaning over the side, he held out his huge hand to Hadjar.
“Come with me, little hunter. We’re going to train.”
Hadjar looked at him. There was no smile in his eyes anymore, and his lip now hid both of his fangs. He was being dead serious. Accepting the proffered hand, Hadjar climbed onto the deck.
They moved behind the collapsed foremast, which hid them from view. They were going to fix it last, as they’d need all five of them to do it properly.
As before, Steppe Fang sat down and crossed his legs.
“Your Spirit is weak,” he began.
Hadjar sat there for a while, silently waiting for the orc to get to the point, but Steppe Fang remained silent.
“I know,” Hadjar finally said.
When the orc shaman had thrown a lock of his hair into the fire, the flame had formed the silhouette of the Quetzal bird ― a simple animal Spirit. In the hierarchy of Spirit Knight Spirits, these were the lowest level Spirits, able to only slightly enhance their wielder’s abilities.
“No.” Steppe Fang took a root out of his bag. “You don’t.”
He scraped the dirt and rind off the root with his nail. As soon as the scent of the plant began to dance in the air, Hadjar realized that the orc was holding the root of a thousand-year-old fern. During their festival, the orcs had used its leaves, which weren’t as valuable as the root. Hadjar needed far more than one root to advance along the ‘Path through the Clouds’ meditation Technique. A glimmer of greed flickered in and then faded from Hadjar’s eyes.
“There are no weak or strong Spirits,” Steppe Fang continued. “There are only those that we accept, and those that we do not.”
The orc was suddenly enveloped in a nimbus of bright, gray energy, and then the silhouette of a wolf cub formed behind him. Chasing a speck of dust, it plopped down on the floor, and disappeared into the haze of energy a second later. According to the human path of cultivation, this meant that Steppe Fang’s power was equivalent to a Spirit Knight’s.
“Do you remember my story about the Spirits, little hunter?” The orc continued to skillfully peel the root.
Hadjar nodded.
“Good.” Once he was finished peeling the root, Steppe Fang placed it between him and Hadjar on the deck. “If you weren’t ready for the next step of training, you would’ve forgotten it.”
Hadjar didn’t understand how that was possible, but he didn’t argue. Perhaps those words had a slightly different meaning to the orc, one that only his kind could truly comprehend.
“I still don’t get it, giant,” Hadjar said and shook his head.
“You don’t accept your Spirit, little hunter.” Steppe Fang lifted his gaze and stared at him. “You don’t feel it. You don’t see it. You don’t hear it. You don’t understand its essence anymore. Therefore, you don’t understand yourself.”
Hadjar frowned. He was pretty sure he’d lost the thread of this conversation.
“You humans consid
er Spirits something alien. Our ancestors knew that Spirits don’t exist apart from us, but are inside all of us. Spirits are life itself. They’re the ones that make the trees grow. They’re the ones that allow the water to make its way to the sky. They’re the ones that allow a baby to cry when it enters this world. They’re the ones that help a little cub survive in this frighteningly enormous world. Such a power can’t be separated from us. Without it, we can’t even be born.”
Hadjar couldn’t grasp what Steppe Fang was trying to say.
“You speak like a philosopher.”
“That may be so, little hunter,” Steppe Fang answered, lifting his upper lip slightly in approval. “You’ve been in the dark for too long, and it’s time for you to come out into the light. The path will be difficult. Are you ready to walk it?”
Hadjar looked at the orc. If it made him even a little stronger, he’d walk it no matter how difficult and dangerous it was.
“I am.”
“Then let’s begin.” Steppe Fang handed him the herb. “This is the root of a fern gathered under a ten-thousand-year-old moon.”
Hadjar choked on air. Ten thousand years! A new battleship with five masts, fully stocked holds, and an expert crew cost less than this root!
“How did you get this?” Hadjar was so shocked he barely managed to speak.
“You’re one of us now.” The orc touched the feather in Hadjar’s hair. “So I’ll tell you the secret without fear ― the power of the orcs is in the ground. In life itself. We give our lives not to fire, as humans do, but to the earth. The earth responds in kind. This fern, like many others, grew on the grave of our great leader. One day, Bear’s Rage will also become food for the plants. From the ground we’re born, and to the ground we shall return,” he said and looked at the fern in Hadjar’s hands. “Now eat it.”
“What?”
Chapter 581
Hadjar recoiled slightly. Without proper processing, such powerful alchemical ingredients were deadly. They had to be gradually drained of energy first, like he’d done with the Primordial Water and Dream Grass. And they most definitely could not be ingested. The burst of energy that would follow would burn through the energy body of even an advanced-stage Spirit Knight.
“Don’t be afraid, little hunter. The Spirit of our great leader lives in this root. It’ll guide you through the Spirit World.”
Hadjar sighed, calming his racing heart. And although he had no idea what would happen, he still accepted the root.
“Keep in mind that the Spirit World is a dangerous place. Especially for someone who has a piece of the Black Spirit inside them.”
Hadjar shuddered.
“You knew?”
“This isn’t the time for words,” Steppe Fang replied sternly. “Listen carefully. This root will help your mind travel to the Spirit World. Your body will remain here, but if your energy body is harmed in that dimension, the damage will be reflected on your physical one.”
“Great,” Hadjar muttered.
“You have until sunset,” the orc continued. “Even Bear’s Rage wouldn’t survive a night there.”
“Have I mentioned how great this is?”
Hadjar looked at the root in his hand. He had no idea if he could use it for his meditation Technique if he swallowed it instead of drawing the energy out of it. However, the chance to follow his ancestors’ path was too precious to pass up.
“Damn it!”
Hadjar swallowed the root and winced. It felt as if he’d swallowed a lump of hot iron. Then it was like he’d just ingested huge, searing globs of plasma. And once they were inside his body, they began to explode. The amount of heat that was released during the explosions incinerated him. It turned every cell, every atom of his flesh to ash. It burned his energy, burned his thoughts, his memories, feelings, and even consciousness, leaving only an ocean of pain behind. The distant shores of his agony promised him the sweet release of death.
“Hold on!”
Red fingers topped with yellow claws reached out for Hadjar and grabbed his hand, yanking him out of the agony and into the cool darkness of calm.
Gradually, his mind was restored, and the ashes of the terrible pain were washed away. Once he was able to look around, he couldn’t help but gasp in admiration. He stood in the middle of an ocean of stars. His feet, ankle-deep in clear water, seemed to be suspended in the cosmos itself. He stood in its very center, surrounded by the bright and colorful light of infinite stars. Back on Earth, their light had seemed detached and haughty, but here ― it was loving and even familiar, like a breeze during a dry summer. It didn’t take away life, but nourished it instead.
“Is this the Spirit World?” Hadjar asked the void.
“Only a gateway to it,” a voice replied.
Hadjar turned around. He couldn’t see the great orc leader who’d saved him from the ocean of pain. Only a vague, shrouded figure.
“Come on, little hunter,” the figure floated by, “we don’t have much time. If you don’t find your Spirit soon, your ancestors’ path will remain out of your reach forever.”
“Who comes up with these rules?” Hadjar grumbled and hurried after the figure.
He ran through the stars. He couldn’t help but admire their celestial beauty. Never before had he seen something as delightful and majestic as this.
Hadjar wished he could capture every piece of this magnificent reality in his memory. He didn’t doubt for a second that it was all real, either.
“We’ll reach the Guardian soon. Be respectful.”
“The Guardian?”
Up ahead, in the ocean of twinkling lights, the river of stardust crossed a plateau suspended in space, and upon that plateau stood a majestic white lion with red eyes. The huge beast was calmly observing something inside the universe. Its fur, adorned by myriads of stars, fluttered in the wind of time itself.
“Is that the Guardian?” Hadjar asked.
“No,” the figure’s voice thundered. “It’s a loyal friend of mine.”
Hadjar saw something, or someone, standing between the white lion’s forelegs. He doubted that it was a human, although it had assumed the form of a woman with long, brown hair. She stood with her back to Hadjar and the shadow of the great orc leader. An azure crescent adorned her shoulders, and her emerald robes, like the lion’s mane, fluttered in the wind, but in the opposite direction.
“Greetings, honorable Guardian.” A red hand appeared from beneath the shroud obscuring the great orc, making the traditional orc gesture: first it touched his chest, then his forehead, and then sent something to the sky.
“This is the end of your path, Shadow. You’ll wait for your companion where you first met him.”
The surrounding stars flashed with a bright light and a wild gust of wind threw the Shadow back in the direction he’d come from, leaving the Guardian and Hadjar alone.
“You’re-” he said, realizing something terrifying.
“Yes,” she said. “But don’t call me a ‘goddess’, North Wind. In the Spirit World, they don’t care for those who’ve gone astray.”
Hadjar remembered Steppe Fang’s stories about gods, demons, and Spirits. The creature before him was on the same level of power as the gods that he was so eager to find and confront. He was scared because he couldn’t sense the limits of its power. It was as if he was staring into infinity, into a void that could erase his presence from time and space itself if it so pleased.
“Why have you come here, North Wind? It’s too early for the Mountain of Skulls to fall. The potter’s time hasn’t come yet. The fire is still in the coals. The bugle hasn’t sounded. The ancient walls haven’t collapsed. The chains haven’t been broken. The Last King hasn’t awakened. So why have you come?”
Hadjar failed to grasp the meaning behind the woman’s words, but he understood her question. Knowing that lying would only bring him misfortune, he decided to be honest.
“For power, Guardian. I’ve come for power.”
“Why do y
ou need power, North Wind?”
“To alter my destiny.”
The Guardian smiled a little sadly.
“Even I can’t do that, Darkhan. No one can. Everything and everyone around us are chained to their fate and, whatever they do, they’ll always reach the end that was intended for them.”
“I refuse to believe that,” Hadjar growled. “If what you say is true, I’ll find the one who writes our fates and make them rewrite mine!”
The Guardian smiled sadly again.
“I’m afraid that they, whoever they are, are also trapped by the shackles that imprison each of us.”
“Then I’ll destroy them!”
There was silence for a while. Then the Guardian raised her hand. A miniature star flashed on it. Its rays drew a circle that turned into a tree.
“Come in, North Wind.”
Hadjar wanted to ask her something, but he suddenly realized that the circle was drawing him in. Before he fell into it, he heard:
“Maybe you’ll change my fate as well, little hunter.”
And so he found himself in the Spirit World.
Chapter 582
Hadjar stood up and looked around. The mesmerizing view took his breath away. Never before had he seen grass that was so smooth and bright. It looked like someone had carefully painted every blade of it in a rich green color. The wind that pushed the bizarrely shaped white clouds across the sky wasn’t cold, but refreshing. The azure sky was forever frozen in a single moment — an hour after dawn, when the scarlet-gold blush had already disappeared from the waking sky, but the infinite blue hadn’t come into its full power yet.
It took a moment for Hadjar to realize that he, too, looked different: his hair now came down to just below his shoulder blades, and he was dressed in black robes and a long cloak.
“Big man! Big man!” Someone laughed.
Looking around, but finding no one nearby, Hadjar was about to move on when he heard something again. The sound was akin to the tinkling of bells. Strange melodies filled the meadow.
Dragon Heart: Land of Demons. LitRPG Wuxia Series: Book 7 Page 19