As Atlas stood in between the two sides. At that moment, he saw a scene none else could. The Patriarchs on one side. The Spring Sage and his overbearing Palanquin on the other. Carried by his faithful slaves, his dirty accomplishes, the balding, oily, weasel moved over No man’s land, a smile played about his features. It was hard to tell as folds of lard and sweat hemmed it inside his pudgy face.
“Here me! Heir of the Clans, Hear me men and women of the Clans. I have come offering negotiations!” The Spring Sage ordained the ears of everyone in this side of the hill to hear his voice. It carried arrogance and demand, yet it also carried a flair to it that it had never held before. A hint as to how much his character, his dreams, and goals had been underestimated.
“Negotiate? What about!? What would be the terms?” Atlas asked, straightening his back to face this slimy foe standing tall. The Spring Sage’s words were clear. He was offering negotiations. As if they were a thing he could offer. In the fat bastard’s mind, he had already won.
“About your surrender, of course. Ah~ Before you become enraged and curse me and my next twenty generations to eternal damnation. Let us be clear about one thing. We have breached your walls, and destroyed your homes without requiring any actual effort from us. Unless you destroy the catapults, and keep doing so forever, even with all the protection we will give them, then your compound will be pelted with projectiles every day, until there is not a single plank of wood or brick left undamaged and whole.”
Atlas went to respond but noticed that they had arrived quicker than he had expected. Without looking back he stepped aside and made way for the two Patriarchs.
“You should watch yourself carefully Spring Sage. We have methods you wouldn’t understand, or know the first thing about. We, humans here on earth, have had our own fair share of time to scheme and innovate, with Qi on our side we can do as we please.”
“You speak as if you know more than you should, yet I would not dare give you such high credit. You are but a simpleton living in the woods. One that has never seen the might of Hearth like I have. You have underestimated us too much.”
“We may have. But that was a choice for which the burden shall be rightfully handed out.” Atlas noticed that as his father spoke his hands moved into different seals behind his back. It was an order in a secret sign language. It was direct and simple, even though he only caught the back end of it. “Him.” Only a word was missing. ‘Kill’. Of that Atlas was certain. A stone sunk to the depths of his mind. Chains rattled on his ankles and wrists, they writhed and slithered around his body as they grew and latched onto his gut and his heart and his mind and dragged him down to the abyss.
He moved his leg, half a step, slow and agonizing. Yet a soft hand pulled him back. His father turned to him, a questioning glare boring into his being. He tapped his foot to the ground, urgency burning hot on his heels.
“You were a just leader, that much I can tell. What is your name, Patriarch of the Clans?” The Spring Sage giggled to himself, at a joke meant only for himself.
“I never got yours either, but I am not asking. I have no need for the name of a man who threw it away for a fake religion, a fake god, and a fake sainthood. We leave in modern times Sir, I would respectfully suggest you go visit a psychiatrist when you can.” Archeseus did not even bother looking back to the Spring Sage. His eyes were muddled, wet. His eyes were torn off Atlas and onto an illusory figure behind him. What he saw he did not know yet his gut sunk further. He ignored it.
“Archeseus, is everything okay?” Ru Wai, delegated to a secondary position, for reasons unknown yet not jealous about it, asked with concern as he saw his fellow Patriarch breathing hard, his eyes wide, lost from reality.
“Atlas. Your mother gave birth to a weakling.” He said, his hand snapped back, Atlas did not even think to dodge. Xanthip grabbed onto the arm, she held it in a vice crib that would have trumped any python.
“Archeseus, please, reorganize your thoughts, and your words.”
“Where is Ru Feng? Have him charge. We need to kill him. Why are we still playing games? With that fat bastard? Ru Shi! Shoot him!” Archeseus looked around him, frantic, stern. Yet the rest only looked on with concern. They didn’t seem to understand. Everything would be over if they could just kill that sorry excuse for a human being. Smiling away in his self made tab of lard.
“Why are you so lost? What are you staring at? THIS IS WHAT WE STAND FOR! THIS IS WHAT WE TRAIN FOR!” He pushed Xanthip with all his might, she stumbled and tumbled off the wall. People yelped in shock. From the distance a particular cry, of a young girl, made Atlas jolt. His eyes snapped to her. Yet before he could process anything a hand grabbed onto his face and pulled it straight. Archeseus was just an inch away from his. Eyes blazing black, hatred and hell.
“DO. AS. ORDERED!” Archeseus grabbed Atlas by the collar and pushed him forward. The boy stumbled till the edge of the wall, the end of the battlements, with eyes glassed over, misty and dull, he stretched his hands out.
From his breath a serpent of distorted silver grew and slithered. It coiled around itself, moving in the air, hissing at its enemy with black beady eyes. It grew and grew as Atlas fed it his Qi. The Circulation of the technique, the mindset, the shaping of will. It all came as it was supposed to in theory. Yet with it came the blood curdling pain of something going wrong. His veins popped, Atlas turned blue and purple all over his body in sudden bursts. His eyes turned bloodshot, he trembled as he pushed himself in two directions at the same time. Two opposites in the same body.
The serpent exploded forward in silence, uncoiling and with a bolt it was in front of the Spring Sage. The air caving in on itself after it disappeared, did with Atlas as it pleased, as if he was a leaf that would just fly away. The Serpents maw opened and the splendid silver made way for absolute darkness. Black Fangs and a black pit oozing with killing intent.
It clamped down, ready to bite into the juicy fat of the Spring Sage and swallow him whole. Yet a Hero created his legend at that moment. He jumped in, pushed the Sage away and took his place. A young man by the name of Edward of golden hair and bright blue eyes full of spirit flopped to the ground as the Serpent bit into his body and flowed inside of him in a second. He spasmed and frothed as he tumbled to the grass below the palanquin. The men carrying said wooden structure turned around stepping away, dashing madly away, from the writhing, frothing, dying Hero. The Spring Sage screamed in fear, he wiped away at his chest and belly, where Edward had pushed him, as the child lost his breath, and as all the veins in his body moved to the surface of his skin.
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The world slowed and a primal understanding born with the human race told him what he had just done. He looked down at his hand and there clenched in his fist, broken and bloody was the decapitated head of a young teen with a little sister. It screamed without sound, its gums stretching till they tore from the inside, holes pockmarking the cheeks. He had taken a life.
A Blood red pulse boomed through his senses. It startled him. The pulse redoubled, stronger, like an engine picking up steam. And then Atlas looked to his left, he saw the dirt under the ground being broken apart. First came an illusory shine, something out of this world, it was when auburn locks came burrowing out of the ground that Atlas realized what he was seeing.
“RUN!” He screamed, moving towards Xerxes.
“Run to where?!” The Spring Sage mocked, he pulled his arm down and the sound of twanging bands struck the clans-people. Gears turned and wood cracked. From all around, not just the South, rocks rocketed into the sky, and tens of them crashed and tumbled and destroyed everything in their path. Horns were blown and men charged out. Desperate, Angry, Valiant.
Atlas crossed the distance, he was upon Xerxes in seconds. He was too late. The engine pulse, the explosive that had blinded him so was not in his hands anymore. Strapped to a helmet flying to the Southern Gate. He pushed Xerxes to the ground and pummeled his face. Warm blood filled his knuckles, pouring through the gaps of his fingers. He could feel his life, it trembled under his might, he could snuff it out with but a single use of real force. Real strength! Was in his hands! He was GO-!
Xerxes croaked. “Come on then! Kill me like that little boy scout!”
Atlas stopped in the midst of his next attack. He stood up, away, terrified. Behind him an explosion sundered the world. Rubble, rocks and stones flew up in the air as if a volcano had come to life and the red light of the explosion painted Atlas’ back, his shadow cast itself onto Xerxes, coughing out his own blood, his face broken.
Atlas could not even glare at Xerxes anymore. He sighed heavily and turned around, flames rocked him as he walked to the empty gate, burning. Behind him the charge continued, the enemies approached him. They were going to invade the clan. Everything was lost. All of it.
Arrows flew overhead, puncturing unprotected flesh. Yet the sheer amount of bodies the enemy had to throw at them was not to be thwarted so easily, this was their final assault. No more half measures. Atlas rushed to the rabble as he saw an arm digging around from below large pieces of fallen rock.
He reached for that hand and pulled out Archeseus. Covered in dust, clothes ruined, hurt. Yet not on the body. A cancer had made itself apparent in him, covering him from scalp to toes, the man was dying in a way much different to his fellows.
Atlas pulled his father away from the coming charge. They were just about to reach them now. They would charge over the rubble and in moments everything would be over.
On top of the wall still remaining. At the edge over the gap created by the catapults earlier. Profanities spoken from the mouth of a little girl were the only warning the rabble crossing over the rubble had before heavy stones cracked their skulls and destabilized their footing.
“Stop! Scum! Bunch of crazed fanatics! Do not enter our home!” She chided, she hoped. Little Argea was stranded on that wall, she had never gotten down as Atlas had assumed, in his haze he had forgotten she was not in her wheelchair. She did her best but there were too many, too war crazed to care. They reached all the way up to the wall that Argea was on. “YOU’LL never get away with this! The Laertis Clan will have its vengeance!” She screamed. Defiantly as they towered over her. They closed around her and with righteous furry at being shown up by a cripple, they attacked her.
She cried in pain as a punch landed on her face, she tumbled back, legs flailing useless as she pushed her body straight one more, lip cut open, cheekbone already swollen. Her brain was rattled, she could do nothing else than present as strong a self as she could. Yet her shouts had finally reached the only person they should.
“Don’t You dare!” Atlas raged. White hot Qi exploded from within. The World bent to his will as he appeared the next moment right in front of Argea. He swiped her up in his hug. All his Qi expended in a moment. The Wall below him groaned as white dust bloomed from it. All men nearby were tossed with such vigor Atlas could not know if he killed them or not. He jumped down the wall and rushed to his father’s side. Tiny hands clenched onto his arms. Choked cries wet his chest.
Fires once more started up. Rocks fell from the sky, sending ancient houses tumbling to the ground, Children and parents rushed to the many hidden entrances to the underground as per the signal Xanthip was sounding out in the Central building. Their own little hell had started.
“DOn’t rUN! FiGhT!” Archeseus croaked shouts as he was pulled along by Atlas. The Young man simply ignored him, and kept rushing forth. Arriving at the central building he pulled Xanthip out of the way at the last moment from the collapsing roof. As a large boulder tore through the flooring of the upper floors. The group tumbled to the ground, Atlas too tired to move them all away.
Xanthip was up first, finding the strength that the others couldn’t usher forth. She grabbed Little Argea and lifted her brother, she stretched a hand for Atlas who took it blindly. He cast a long look to the side as he moved. A whispered promise to the Core of Qi waiting for him, his destiny awaited him there.
They rolled the large stones over the entrance and collapsed the mechanism. Total darkness overtook them, became the only thing they knew as they traveled silently down the many stairs to the underground. It crept inside their minds as the world above them burned, a sickly dark blue darkness, fowl, rotten, like puss it oozed into Atlas. It drowned his heart in its viscous hatred.
Slowly but surely they entered the gymnasium where people gathered. Panic overrun the growing crowd in waves. Children cried, whispered, feared. Counting was done, the lost, the trapped, the dead were numbered, they were even named. The clans pushed forward under Xanthip’s and Ru Wai’s lead. They treaded the rarely used paths underground due west, marching in line, three people thick for nearly an hour at a turtles pace until they reached the exit and filed out slowly. Fanning out under the treetops, some took rest, others looked up at the sky. Black smoke rose for tens of kilometers. It would cover the forest with ash, the world would cry as the laughter of the Sage and Xerxes sounded out over the crackling of the fire. They could even hear it right now, rolling merrily over the hills.
Cries broke out amongst the crowd. Archeseus knelt to the ground, his nails biting into his cheeks. His eyes bulged out of their sockets as tiny blood vessels broke apart inside them. Dark droplets of blood rolled down his face past his straight nose and over his lips. “Ah… grn…” Incoherent sounds shattered his silence, heavy like mountains, words that he could not utter were hidden under his gibberish. Atlas looked on in silence at the sky turning orange, purple, and red. The Bright white sun hidden behind the cloud that was his home. In that cloud he saw eyes like the moon staring at him. Sad, knowing, inescapable.