It was, maybe the Heaven playing games with Ru Feng, so as to ruin his day and leave him without his desired spar, that the cataclysmic storm came to an end on that morning. On the other hand, Atlas felt thankful, that he at least did not have to contend with Ru Feng’s pride and need for recognition through strength for a whole day. Instead he could finally fulfill his most relaxing of duties. Being a Taxi driver for little Argea, and getting some water from the overblown river.

He fashioned the excited little girl tightly on his back and jumped. No one resisted him, even though they saw him clear as the sun, which they savored like fresh grass. He went carefully from one branch to another flying through the canopy, each step carrying him further, faster, with more precision. {WOO~~~~!} The squeal of the girl, too excited for her own good woke up the wet and muddy forest, and all its inhabitants grumbled loudly, still tired from surviving the end of their world. A fog clung tightly to their clothes as they went, the humid air thickly, and slowly responding to Atlas’ passing. The Smell of wet bark and leaves, of dirt and moss with a hint of smoke, burning coals and broiling soups, with just a hint of meat. The new smells of the forest, they had almost blended together into one over the last few days.

Atlas knelt on the river bed as he put both buckets inside and filled them to the brim with water. “Something wrong?!” He asked when he felt her shift on his back. “Gotten bigger? You don’t fit in the small crate anymore?” He turned around, made to prop her off and check to see if she had scuffed her legs. Yet all he could do was hold onto the pole that nearly fell from his shoulders, and to hold his jaw from touching the wet ground. Because a familiar face, much cleaner now, was staring right back at him in shock and alarm. After the shock came and went, Atlas chuckled and smiled.

“It seems it’s our fate to meet on this spot. It is preordained by the Peach Dragon himself that this riverbed be the place of meetings. I shall hereby rename this river the River of Meetings. And tomorrow I shall give tribute to the River God, The Peach Dragon. For he has lead me to reuniting with my one true lover. How romantic, from foes to lovers.” Atlas couldn’t help himself, the young man was like a deer in headlights. Eyes wide, unresponsive, shocked still, brain frozen.

“Damn. It works. But I don’t want this kid to be your love line. I have another girl in mind, so please ignore these signs for now?” Argea spoke seriously, her head cannon of how Atlas’ life should go not quite matching up with the current events.

“Oh~ You’re so young and are already playing match maker. What am I gonna do with you?” Atlas drew a lo~ng sigh. Until he noticed none of this was making the ice dunked Edward wake up. “Yeah I Should stop joking around. Hey there, good morning. I see you’ve managed to clean yourself up since we last saw you. It’s better your sister doesn’t think of you as some brute that likes to be filthy.”

“Of course I cleaned myself up! Do you think I’d let Jess see me like that?” Edward switched on, jumping up in anger at that statement, his pride as a big brother hurt. He was a step too late to stop himself, now beat red with his hands over his mouth, he crouched back down with a grumble.

“Oh it’s fine if she sees you once or twice. There’s no shame in a man doing his work. You have to get bread somehow. You should be proud of what you do,” Atlas consoled. “at least that’s how it’s supposed to go.” And then whispered.

“We lost him again.” Argea rolled her eyes. “Stop being a stupid sis-con fanatic and speak like a person when other are speaking to you. Where are your manners young man!?” She scolded. Her little hands flicking an imaginary stick on his palms, as a reprimand.

“I… You should be angry at me. I am the one that provided the information on your existence, not to mention the fact that your are Cultivators. And that is enough reason for me to hate you as well. I’ve know this, the Spring Sage has told me so personally. Yet I just can’t.”

“Really? After all those awful jokes?” Atlas brought a hand to his chest, shocked. “But to be more serious” He coughed, now his eyes shone in the shadow of the forest. “It was my fault for divulging all that information. According to clan code I should have disposed of you the moment you saw me. But I couldn’t do that, I broke rules, spoken and not, and have kept doing so every day since.

“I noticed. I mean, I know it’s you that has been poisoning our food and water, and spreading rumors, about the storm, that was a massive problem, I’ll tell you. You come and go as you please. Killing the Spring Sage or at least his best men should bring you no trouble. Yet you don’t do it.”

“I can’t bring myself to kill.” Atlas smile wryly, a crumbling smile. Much like the cityscape of Borsi, gray and old and destitute. Hard lines etched his cheekbones, and his eyes. As if he wasn’t just an eighteen year old boy.

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Suddenly, from atop the hill, from the compound, the booming of thunder in a clear day rattled Atlas’ bones. Shouts and screams came with a slap of wet wind, knocking him back, a secondary reaction of an explosion.

With no thought in his head, Atlas dropped what he was doing and rushed back. He hurled himself over clumps of destroyed bushes, and lunged over half torn trees, in seconds he was up in the canopy, dancing furiously through and in between the thickness. He hurled himself over the wall and landed on the wet slush that was the no man’s land. The noise was in the southern wall. He saw things he dare not believe flying through the skies and rushed even more. “Argea, you should get to safety.”

He jumped up the wall and on short wooden battlements built into the brick and tiles. He rushed past the western gate and dropped Argea off, he kicked of at even faster speeds, as shouts and screams washed over him, the walls shook under his feet.

From a distance catapults rolled and creaked in their own rhythm, from the skies boulders the size of men screeched as they descended like Heavenly tribulation upon the compound. Houses crumbled, people run and rushed, children cried, alone in the streets.

Men with bloodshot eyes and a single purpose tore their throat in their screams. They charged valiantly at the compound, with weapons raised and blood on their minds. Their feet pushed them over no man’s land to the brake in the wall. Wooden battlements, brick and concrete, and clay and blood, men whined under the rubble, and more lay in pieces over it. White paint, brick, stone, and black clay mixed together with the wet blood of his clansmen, a stew of terrifying meaning. The worst case had happened.

Atlas lunged into action. He dove over the wall, and stood tall in front of the charging soldiers. Clad in their dirty armor, he roared like a young lion defending its pride from a pack of hyenas. He grabbed a sword sticking out of the ground and swung. Flesh came undone like silk and fabric at the hands of a master tailor. Blood danced in the humid air as Atlas burst into action in the middle of tens of armed and armored men. Yet he did not kill even as cuts and nicks accumulated in his uniform, black like the night it was and stuck out in the clear day amidst the reflective armor of his adversaries. Even as his own blood mixed with that of his foes and even as they stood back up despite being kicked and disarmed and punched and concussed.

Atlas was the storm itself as he smartly used his Cultivation, controlled, he could continue this for as long as he had to. It was with a gigantic thump and a titanic shout that the thunder arrived to aid the storm. Tens of men were pushed into the air, dolls at the hands of Ru Feng who like Hercules dove in to intervene. His muscles crackling with power, his joints popping louder than the stones falling from the skies.

“Atlas! I got this! You get people to safety.” He bellowed, not looking back as he charged down, ready to maul and brawl.

Atlas nodded and whisked off. He rushed to the debris, the crumbled wall and went to rummaging through, pulling and pushing large blocks of broken stone and history out of the way in search of anyone still alive. Faces planted on the ground, limbs torn apart and smashed to paste, he ignored all of it as he took apart the rubble with his silver Qi moving to aid him. He allowed his back to be vulnerable with Ru Feng at the helm as he moved unconscious or dead behind the wall, as he called to people and directed efforts to make sure no one was left behind as they evacuated the border area of the Compound. Their own home.

He allowed his this vulnerability, especially after Ru Shi and a squad of archers showed up under her lead. They released expert marksman shot all the way over the wooden walls of the enemy with mastery trained through the years, and honed to glimmering perfection over the past week. Not even paying attention to Ru Feng’s fight, they targeted the men working the catapults kilometers away, and hidden from sight.

“RETREAT!” The bellow sounded through the battlefield. The pummeled soldiers, armor crumbling away as they carried their injuries comrades away from Ru Feng. He stood menacingly still. His breath calm as ever, steaming hot out of his mouth. His monstrous muscles burning, pumped with blood, tinted red as well from the blood of his enemies. He had not shown Atlas’ remorse. Bodies lay broken and torn around him. Yet with no unnecessary violence. Every shot was a kill. Ru Feng’s judgment was clean, masterful in its overpowering brutality.

There were five or seven men dead on the Laertis Side. It was hard to tell with how horrid the state of the bodies was. The wall had been busted open right near The Southern Gate. If they had been on target there would have been no stopping them. They had nearly cracked them open with but a single move. Now the ball was up in the air, the Patriarchs were on their way, Atlas could see them from afar marching through the tightly packed cobble streets with an entourage of armed men behind them. Faces of steel, their auras, honed from years of leadership, billowed outwards, like great pillars, stabilizing the shaking foundations of the people amidst the panic.

Yet Atlas felt like he saw death and carnage. Pyres of bodies clouding the skies once more with the grim death they carried and the stink of burning flesh and rotting bodies and the cries of children and women filled the air. The pants of old men and women struggling to keep up as they ran away from their forever home. As with their every breath their desire to keep moving forward diminished.

And on the other side happy chants and dancing were sang and looted food and mead was passed along as praised were sung to a God that wasn’t and armor shone from the fire of the innocent as soldiers flattered their leader and his ingenuity, and bolstered about their achievements, hope of promotions and rewards to be bestowed by their sick despot.

As Atlas stood in between the two sides. He saw a scene only he could experience. And he didn’t like it one bit.