The watchers are an ancient order that had existed for thousands of years. The westerner clans, which can be traced directly to the first nephilim, have been laboring in secret throughout the worlds history. Eliminating threats, and protecting humanity from the predations of chaos. They and their associates often sit at odds with the office of the primus, but it is true that their existence is necessary for the betterment of all mankind. These are the hunters, not the book burners of the inquisition. They contain, protect, and their warriors are rarely ever separated from the events that would come to define the history of Hjemland.
Their current objective in the modern era is to halt the spread of black books and prevent the spread of forbidden knowledge. Including but not limited to the elimination of cults, covens, and cabals of creatures who have fallen to chaos. Daito and Goroshi are but two members of this vast and secretive order with connections around the known world.
***
Daito had had the good sense in him to obscure the view from the street level just as Tyr's blow had landed. With enough force to cause his arm to explode into shattered bone and the ropy remnants of torn muscle, eliciting a crack loud enough to wake the dead. If not for the protection and reinforcement provided by the implants, Tiber would've most certainly been killed instantly. Even so, it wasn't looking good, his rib cage was pulverized and the organs beneath weren't doing much better, hanging on by a thread in that old body of his.
“Save him!” Tyr demanded, over and over again until Daito relented – though he remained unsure if he should have or not. Even after all those years, he found himself in situations he was not prepared for. He did not like using his abilities in that way. When they did, his people that is, there were sometimes consequences. They used the powers of the world and there was a cost to them – but Tyr was still very much a child, even after growing beyond the point where an excuse like that could fly. Unwilling or unable to cope with the fact that his actions had consequences.
The decision being to save the man, or force Tyr to confront his demons. Broken kid, a half thing with a frail sense of self. But none of them were interested to see what Tyr did if the man died, not yet. It was far too early to tempt him into opening up to the realization of his own foulness.
Daito, joined by Goroshi, dragged him out of the medical ward and slammed him into a chair. A dim room in the basement designed for less savory interrogations than the one they were about to conduct. Hopefully. It depended on the boys reaction.
“You did a bad thing.” Daito grimaced, caught in his own decision of whether or not he should eliminate Signe's only spawn here and now. “I've seen many empaths throughout my travels, but never a Kaneohe. Not a human, at least, or any mortal race – that is the domain of monsters.”
“What's going to happen?” Tyr asked, he had been frantic ever since his 'coming to', seeing what his hands had wrought. His power, something Daito didn't yet understand, was wholly unexpected. He was in the process of awakening, might've already found it. “What about--”
“The man will survive, after a days rest he'll feel better than he ever was before. As for you, I do not know. Truth be told, I should kill you, Tyr.” Daito frowned, but he wasn't sure if he could. He loved Signe, they had been companions for so long. Though their love was not romantic, Tyr felt like a surrogate son or nephew to him. An expression of their bond, and that was why he'd approached the boy in the first place, to see if any of her existed in any part of him. Tyr had a lot of his mother in him, in all the worst ways, that was the problem.
“Kill him?” Goroshi asked in surprise, glaring at his father. “It is not his fault, clearly he was born with this dao. As foul as it is, I do not see why you'd say such a thing. He is my friend, I will not allow you to do this, whatever the case.”
“You are still too young to remember the yaomo. As am I, but I know of them – have felt their influence. Those of a union between monster and man. Unnatural, predatory, and truly monstrous – possessive of the intellect of the sapient and the thirst of the abomination.” Daito said. “They possess abilities beyond that, things that should not exist – lest the others come, so we killed them all. This is why the primus' do not bear children with inhuman races. Or at least, they aren't supposed to.”
“And you think he is one of these beings?”
“No.” Daito shook his head, but that was a lie, Tyr was not wholly human and he had realized this some time ago. But how? Was Jartor truly not his father? He sincerely doubted that, which lead him to the conclusion that Signe... No. She would never lie to him, not ever. “But he is very similar in nature to them. His mother is most assuredly human – and she is most assuredly his mother. But that does not change the fact, living things should not have that dao.”
“I'm right here, you know?” Tyr frowned, Goroshi was so incredibly strong that he could barely shake the mans one-handed grip with the use of his entire body. Ceasing after a vain attempt to free himself, no shackles were necessary to keep him in place. “I don't know what any of this yao shit is, but if you're going to punish me for hurting Tiber – get it over with. But before that, what the fuck is a dao?”
Daito raised an eyebrow, looking at Tyr in curiosity, ignoring his question for the time being. “What are you?”
“Tyr. I don't know how else to reply to that question. A human? Primus? I have no idea what I am. A god, based on what I've been told, just a fractured and exceptionally worthless one. I'm sure that sounds strange but--”
“It doesn't.” Daito said. “All nephilim are gods, each and every one of us. Yes, us. Unlike most races, humankind have much more intimate access to the dao, aspects as you know of them. From birth to death, you are a celestial being – or at least part of one – existing inside a frail mortal shell. You are not special, but that doesn't explain what just happened either. What do you remember? Answer truthfully, and live. I will kill you, Tyr. I don't want to – but this is the most sacred of all duties upheld by the clan. The only one I've ever cared about.”
“I don't know what you're talking about.” Tyr replied, lying. Daito hit him so hard across the head that he began to believe his claim. Goroshi glared at his father again but said nothing. If Tyr really was a demon, there was only one way to find out. Sympathetic or not, friend or not.
Tyr groaned, leaking blood from every orifice, but Daito kept him cognizant and aware through no apparent use of magic. “I was upset. Not mad, exactly.” Tyr answered reluctantly. “It was like I was hungry. I felt all of the cheering and confidence in my victory and when it went away, I wanted it back so bad I couldn't think about anything but that. I felt so alive! So... Real! Like nothing I've ever felt before.”
“Did you want to kill that man?”
“I'm not sure, but I don't think so.” Tyr refuted the question ambiguously, though almost angry at the insinuation. “I'd never hurt Tiber, I'd never... Want to hurt him. I love him like an uncle, even a father. If I wanted to hurt him, or kill him, I think he'd be dead.”
Daito offered a sage nod, pondering for but a moment before taking out a long knife and slashing a bloody weal across his own forearm. “Drink.” He said.
Tyr stared at him in disgust. “I'm not doing that, what the hell is wrong with you! Drink your blood!? That's unsanitary...”
“That is vile, father.” Goroshi added, scowling at his sire.
“Well...” Daito sighed, the cut disappearing as fast as it had appeared. “That's good, in a way. I'm not sure if you're a heyokan, but you most assuredly are exerting your emotions on others – and feeding on theirs in turn. Regardless, this is bad. It is forbidden magic born of yin, emotional gluttony, things even the primus' can only do to the barest extent.”
“What does that even mean?” Tyr asked.
“Maybe it's your aspect, I don't know. You felt them, they felt you – and so did I. A primus can reflect their will onto others, to give a compulsion, but they cannot override the concept of free will. I've never seen anything natural and living that could, but you did. You managed to communicate a thought with no perceivable use of an aura. It's not good – either. Think of the implications of your dao, right? You could, hypothetically, enslave the entire populace to an idea or conviction if you learned to control it. It's too dangerous, I'm supposed to kill you...” Daito said with finality, and Tyr understood exactly what he was talking about. The concept of thinking an idea so hard that other people were bound to become slaves to it. “But it's curious. Instead of slaving emotion as the yao might, you feed and take on burdens in equal measure, lifting their burdens... Empathy and extro empathy all at the same time, I don't understand it, so...”
“Help me understand, you must have some idea what this all means?” Tyr didn't like the sounds of this either.
“The yao...” Daito groaned tiredly, sinking into his chair and rubbing at his eyes. “Yao in our tongue means something like monster, but the definition is for more literal for us. Demon, things born of mana that act in the way they were designed to. Yaomo or black nim are the descendants of awakened monsters and humans, and while they aren't all necessarily evil, they are wrong in a way that would be impossible to articulate into words. My entire clan is sworn to kill them on sight, and not just in the way of a simple promise – refusing to do so when I make real contact with one will alert the clan and I'll be killed for it. Allowing their tainted line to exist would doom us all, there are prophecies about this sort of thing, about a child born of the yao and man that would devour the world. I don't know if that's true, but for a moment I feared you might be this child.”
“That's ridiculous, you're saying there's an anti-Christ?” Tyr frowned, and Daito nodded in consideration of the fact that it might be, though the former had very little consideration of what that word even meant. It had just come to his lips, some ripple in his psyche... Tyr was not nearly strong enough to be yaomo, their kind were insanely powerful from birth, but there were times where his use of spira was questionable. “What happens now?”
“I suppose I'll let you live. I must consult the elders about this – and in the meantime – you'll remain in open communication and nearby. I don't want to kill you – Tyr, I really don't. 'Kill', I say, but what I mean is destroy and remove you from the world. This is an extremely dangerous dao, even if I don't know what it is. Don't use it, under any circumstances, do you understand me?” Daito asked, and Tyr nodded. All the while Goroshi pinned him up against the wall and glared on, confused. “I will try to teach you to contain it, I'll instruct you on the dao and attempt to help you contain it. But if you don't, our hands will be forced.”
Leaving only Tyr, alone in that basement, wondering how he could stop such a natural occurrence from happening.
–
“Get off your knees, boy.” Tiber wheezed. “It's inappropriate.”
“I am so sorry.” Tyr said. “I didn't mean to--”
“To win?” Tiber asked. “Don't get me wrong, that was quite the shock, but I see no reason for this kind of groveling out of you. We are knights, and things like this happen. It was my pride that put you in such a position, not yours – and therefore it is my fault. You offered me a great gift and I feel regret for scorning it. I am sorry to have caused such a thing to occur.”
“I don't think that's true.” Tyr felt awkward. It happened, he'd nearly killed Tiber – and nobody seemed concerned except for Daito. Things happened during a duel and both men participating were fairly veteran combatants. Tyr was old enough, well into his manhood, and it was the 'old mans' fault for challenging a younger opponent to begin with. All's well that ends well, essentially. Nobody looked at him differently, or feared him, barely any consequences at all. He didn't know what to say, quite a few of them had even congratulated him on the result.
“Yes, you did lose restraint and that is not a good thing.” Tiber chided. He wheezed on every second breath, still recovering – albeit quickly. It'd be some days before he was back up to full capacity, no major or permanent injuries after Daito's intervention. “I'd love to lecture you on all the things you did wrong, but I don't know what you did wrong. You've got power inside of you, given to you by the union of your mother and father, power that I do not understand. At this point, you're beyond me – even if we disregard your other more easily observed capabilities.”
“You are much more skilled with the sword than I am.” Was Tyr's rebuttal. Tiber was essentially 'knighting' him, giving him a pass to move on. Granted, Tiber hadn't been his yard master for years now – but it still felt like a separation, one Tyr wasn't ready for. “I have much to learn.”
“It's in the focus, and the eyes.” Tiber said. “You watched my shoulders, acted according to the movements of my feet, and remained efficient with your own movement until the end. I've been training for three decades, it's all muscle memory to me. I'm better than you, mechanically, but only because I've been at it longer – and the panther is no longer suited for you. It is a shackle that is holding you back, I can no longer claim to be your master.”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“...That can't be true.” Tyr tilted his head. He always fought in the panther style, predominately. He knew the lightning style and various Krieg styles from their respective skillbooks, but they weren't ingrained in his body. “You've been teaching me that since I was a child. I haven't found any other style more suitable for me. Because it's a form of constant motion, I can more easily incorporate the blade song into it...”
Tiber nodded slowly, coughing into a handkerchief, he had begun to feel his true age these last few seasons, but he still had vitality in him yet. “Mechanics are all well and good, but do you remember the purpose of the panther school? Why we use it?”
Tyr pondered this question before opting to quote Tiber directly from memory. “The panther school will allow a lesser fighter to use superior movement and feints to draw in and defeat a better opponent. It can also be used to fight many opponents at the same time, designed for efficiency and independence, centered around maiming a target to bleed them out. Fast, efficient, lethal.”
Chuckling, Tiber nodded at that as well. “That's right, so let me ask you this. Contextually, when is the last time you met a stronger opponent than you? The panther is a school for fighting monsters and wearing down an opponent with a sturdy defense. We of the Sicario used it because it excels against mages, as it does provides a moving target.”
“So you're saying that it's no longer suitable for me because I am too strong, physically?” Tyr asked.
“Strong, fast, enduring. I wouldn't say durable, per se, but healing from any wound is arguably better than having a thick shell, yes?”
“Then what should I use?” Tyr asked, perplexed. He'd never had a girlfriend before, and now he felt that he was being forced to leave one behind, that style of swordsmanship. Jura couldn't count, seeing as how they went straight from 'friends' to 'married' in the oddest way – courtesy of her boot and customary boldness.
“I have no answer for that, my boy. An elven style, maybe, but I doubt you'll get a chance to learn something like that any time soon. With a sword, given your particular skillset and habits, I know of very few. At this stage in your training, I would advise you to start taking what you know from multiple schools and making your own. I know eight blade styles most intimately and can use all of them independently, and I've truly mastered three. I can not see you using any of them but the panther style, unless you opt to wield a blunted weapon.” Tiber smiled before continuing on in a mocking tone, joking. “But that's not aesthetic enough.”
Tyr frowned. “So I should just make a mash of different strokes from separate forms?”
“No. Follow principle, not the move sets. I was never very impressed with the Lyran blademasters, and that is one of the reasons. They operate almost exclusively off hard coded movements, and while they aren't weak – it is a weakness. You have good instincts and fast reflexes. Better to rely on those than scripture telling you when and where to strike, your body will always know before your mind does. There is art in killing, but if you're the one the art is getting killed, it's not much use – is it?”
–
“Is there a point to all this?” Tyr winced in discomfort. He was fairly accustomed to the cold and the chill, but the feeling of icy water pouring over his head was not pleasant. Sitting under a small waterfall outside the city of Leygein with Daito perched on a rock nearby. Notably, and irritatingly, his mentor was comfy and dry – as opposed to the student.
“I don't know what your dao is. People have dao, or aspects – lots of them, it is more common than you might think. I have three dao, and you have awakened at least one so far.” Daito answered. Leaving out the fact that he could feel dozens of gates within Tyr and they were all occupied, something that shouldn't be possible. While it might sound nice, it was a massive disadvantage to split the spirit in so many directions. “This is an exercise to find your mirror and get a grasp on it. Otherwise, there's not a chance I allow you to enter that tournament. It could kill you, all those emotions at once being converted into chi. Ki. Spira. Whatever, now close your eyes and stop getting pedantic. My culture is different, and we have a different language – you have no idea how aggravating it is to see you about to correct some use of the term for world energy.”
“...I wasn't.” Tyr murmured in protest. He was, though.
“As you know, the physical planes are like... An anvil. Mana and spira clash against them throughout the ages to create things. Everything natural has both to some degree, and your spira is the construct that binds the self within you. Elders in my culture, truly old men even compared to me, refer to these as the twin cores. They go on and on all day about refinement and cultivation, but I've never gave much face to these terms under the dao.” Daito said. “I've brought you here in this water rich environment because it is the opposite of your prime element, that being fire. Mine is wind, for example, so I would do something like this in a cave or somewhere deep below the earth.”
“What is an aspect, exactly?” Tyr said. “You call them dao?”
“They are like... Universal concepts, I guess. There is a dao for practically everything, large and small, and they are like gods – except they aren't concerned with lording over us. A dao just exists, and we interact with it – rarely the other way around. Believe me when I say that nobody, no matter what they claim, truly understands them... I don't think it's possible to know them, but you can feel them.” Daito shook his head in disappointment, as if in recollection of some memory.
He sighed before continuing. “They said that mountains and seas exist because the dao said they should. Forests, grass, life, everything that has ever existed anywhere has a dao – but they usually aren't so specific. There's not a dao of wheat, for example, but there is a dao of grasses, farming, life, trees, and they would define the dao of wheat. Any human, should they develop a relationship with a dao, can host a great many of them in their lesser form. A wisp or perhaps a spark, they are the illusory power by which our lives are defined.”
Daito continued in his long winded monologue, and Tyr kept listening. It was nice to get a straight answer, for once.
“In this respect, primus' are different. They only relate to one dao, ever, in their entire lifespan – running opposite the natural law. No matter how hard they try, they'll never get a second because the heavens have determined them fit for only one. More often than not, dao are predicated on the doing of something and not necessarily the fact that it exists. A dao of mountains does not exist because mountains do. Mountains exist because the dao of earth says they should. Or... Something like that. Like I said, we are too small to grasp at their true nature, these are the fundamental building blocks of reality itself, the greatest power. Something that runs far above the standard of etheric energies, the most powerful force in the universe as far as we know. Even stronger than gods, because gods are defined of dao, but the universe doesn't care about strength, these things simply exist because without them there would be no existence.”
“If primus' can only get one...” Tyr pondered. “Does that mean a normal person can become stronger than a primus?”
“There is nothing to say that they couldn't, and on other world there are people who might be their superior.” Daito shrugged. “There is no law that exists to declare the primus' as the strongest of all living things. And they aren't – technically. But they are gifted with an inborn understanding of one dao so perfect and innate that it is very unlikely. Your fathers dao may be of strength, or some earth or fire derivative, maybe even something as simple a crushing or breaking – but I can confidently say that nobody sans his own kin has ever possessed a dao equal to his. I felt it myself, standing near him, and it was a living thing about as close to an actual god existing inside of him as you can get. There are tolerances that cannot be eclipsed in a living thing, or they will be unmade. This is why the elders in my culture focus so much on refinement and strengthening their mana and spira respectively over centuries of effort. Achieving a hundred dao wouldn't help them, they could never match the perfection of the one above all. The worlds will is in these things and it is immutable, eternal.”
“How do they relate to gods?” Tyr asked.
“Nobody knows, least of all me.” Daito said. “Some say that achieving a specific threshold in a dao will make you a god of that thing. I'm not so convinced, I think it's more likely that gods are the personification of one or more dao to a point beyond human comprehension. But like I said, this is like asking me how the sun works. Nobody can know, and nobody will ever know, staring too closely at it will only blind you.”
“It's a process of near constant combustion between reactive gases operating around an extremely dense core with the mass necessary to hold it all in place.” Tyr replied flatly. “Most of it is hydrogen, which is also in air and water.”
Daito looked at him with abject skepticism. “Gas? The sun is the aspect and origin of life and fire. Your explanation has got to be the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, who told you that?”
Tyr shrugged. “Dunno, I just know things. Like bits and pieces, it's a long story but I suppose your people are big on reincarnation theory so we could leave it at that. I have lived a million lives and little parts of them come to me in my dreams.”
Nodding, Daito played with the stubble on his chin. “It's possible, but I doubt very seriously that the sun is a ball of gas. In any case, do you understand what I mean?”
“Yes.” Tyr understood. “There are things no living being can understand. Even if we could, that information would be stolen from us if it violated the dao of knowledge and our access to it. They are the law above all laws, even the gods are forced to obey them.”
“...”
“What?”
“That was oddly astute, and respectful to the ways of my people. Leading me to believe that you're purposely being obtuse at times just to get under my skin.” Daito frowned, but something about his eyes indicated that he was near the point of laughing. Perhaps even a little proud. That might be appropriate, Daito was a trickster of sorts, by default. Something about him irked Tyr inherently, like that was what defined him, not lies, but mischief. The fox god would like someone like him, Laki, with his infinite schemes and dalliances.
“Sometimes it feels like I'm quoting someone else, even when I don't understand it. Like... I could describe to you what dying feels like. And you could quote that to another person as readily as I could – but you couldn't actually know how it feels. Does that make sense?”
“Sure. That's a reasonable euphemism. Perhaps you have touched upon the dao of death which gives you this familiarity with the concept.”
“So do you think gods are just... Balls of dao?” Tyr asked. “Like a bunch of very powerful aspects all bundled up into a form given intelligence?”
“Some say that, roughly similar to how you described it I suppose. But I don't know, man. I've never been willing to throw my life away meditating on the greater mysteries of the universe. I have traveled, a lot. I've met an incredibly diverse set of characters in my life and they all have their own ideas regarding the concept of divinity and all manner of related things. Personally, I think it'd be more accurate to say that they do not define the dao – but unlike the physical world – they are not wholly defined by the dao either, sort of like we are, there is no dao of humanity. Whether they have access to the dao is irrelevant, don't you think? Astarte is a big giant of fire, I don't think it matters what kind of dao, or pillar as you might call it, he has access to. All we know is that gods themselves are not dao, because the dao is universal and gods are not. Dao cannot think, it simply is, but the gods can think and act and have personalities of their own. I came here from a world where we had fairly similar concepts, but people had long stopped believing in gods. Religion was dead and the world kept moving on, no gods to smite us, we did that to ourselves.”
“What was that like?” Tyr asked. “Do you miss it?”
Daito cackled. “Miss it!? No. Not in the slightest. I was almost twenty years old when I came to this world, and I traveled for a time before I was adopted by my father. I was reborn as a child, and only later in my life did I recover some of my memories. Some, but not all, I do not remember my parents, siblings, or friends.”
“That sounds... Derivative?”
As usual, Daito ignored him. “As you might have guessed, Varinn is not my biological sire. He too came from another world, in a similar fashion, and was adopted into the clan the same way I was. Paying it forward, he said, and that should answer plenty of your questions, if nothing else. In any case, no – I do not miss it. Being brought to this world has had its ups and downs, but it has been a gift. On my world, the planet I live on is either choking to death on the fumes of industry – or they've already killed it. Society has devolved to the point of pure degeneracy, and every day some catastrophe is happening. You know, oddly enough...”
Daito chuckled, it started as a low giggling before he began laughing a bit too hard to call it normal.
“When I was seventeen years of age... On my world, that was just a boy still in primary education. My actual father had me removed from the household because of my attraction to men. I'd not taken action on it, not at all. I was a good lad, or so I'd thought, having girlfriends and seeing to it that my predilection for the flesh of the same sex was not revealed. But eventually... Well, he saw something that he shouldn't have – beat me to within an inch of my life – and cast me out into the street. I think I might have been dying... Maybe even dead, when I woke up on this world, a child again, and I was a woman, which felt so... Wrong, I'm not sure how to describe it, but back then I had very little memory of who I was. I was born a man in the last world, and I've made myself a man again. For all our civilization, we managed to be quite cruel. And we didn't have religion or some great purpose to serve as an excuse, either. My biological father, the godless man he was, was a monster.”
“Worse things happen here every day.” Tyr said, attempting to breathe evenly under the spout of frigid water, so cold and the fact that it was night certainly didn't help things.
Daito nodded at that, no longer smiling. “Yeah. I suppose they do, we are only as tragic as we consider ourselves. Your world of magic and mysteries and wonders uncountable, how unlucky you were to have been born in such a perfect world where a mans right and future is defined by him and him alone. In any case, I would not tarry overlong. Once day breaks, we will need to wait another before the fire is thin enough in the world to look into your mirror. Are you ready?”
Tyr gave a shivering nod in response, he was about as ready as he'd ever be.