Alistair woke up feeling wet.
There was a strange green poultice all over his body. Looking at his arms which were covered by the stuff, it almost felt like one of those clay pore cleansing masks that his ex-girlfriend loved.
Alistair moved to get up, but his body refused to obey. His whole body ached like he had been in a car crash. Getting beaten up by Brutus was probably worse than a car crash, now that he thought about it.
But he had won. Things could have been far worse. All things in consideration, Alistair thought of himself as very lucky. While his mother had died, he knew most people in the world had suffered far worse. Whole families eradicated, friends dead right before one’s eyes. Was the average person wallowing in their own pity?
Humans were a tough bunch. They adapted and overcame. As the strongest, he had a responsibility to everyone else. If they hadn’t given up, neither would he. Even if they did give up, he wouldn’t.
When he gathered enough strength to sit up, he looked at his surroundings. He had been there before—the infirmary wing of the temple. They had a dozen of the comfiest beds in the entire place, stuffed with feathers and replete with actual pillows!
The room was small, housing the beds relatively close together, with a small passageway to another, smaller set of rooms that were for those with contagious diseases. With their sturdy constitutions, the disease wing was rarely used.
Near the front was a small bench for visitors. Alistair saw Oliver laying down, fast asleep.
“Oliver!” he whispered fervently. As he spoke, his tongue moved around in a remarkably empty mouth. There were at least three missing teeth from his match against Brutus. All he could do was hope that they would regrow on the outside. “Oliver!”
The Necromancer jolted awake. “Alistair?”
“Yes, it’s me. I’m awake. Can you get Master Ko Pao and Pike?”
“You sure you’re okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine. Well, I’m not fine, but I can walk. The moment we get to the other side, I’ll take a Tier 2 Health pill plus my body will start naturally healing.”
“Okay, gimme a few, I’m on it.”
Oliver bolted out to find the two sect apostles, leaving Alistair alone. There was only one other person in the room, an older man that he had never seen before. Besides the apostles, there were some scholars that didn’t participate in the fighting, but helped out with accounting and historical research.
“How long have I been here?” Alistair asked the man. Instead of answering, he closed his eyes and turned his back to Alistair.
Maybe he’s feeling really sick, Alistair thought. Or he can’t talk because he hurts even more than me. Or maybe he’s just an asshole.
“Forgive me for my emotions,” the man finally said after a minute of silence. “It is not your fault, but the appearance of your people ruined many of my theories of the universe.”
If he was some kind of proto-scientist on Lisorte, that was interesting. As far as Alistair could tell, the constant incursions from the Wasted Realm held back the world in terms of technological progression.
“I can’t really apologize for my own existence,” Alistair said. “Nice to meet you. What’s your name?”
The injured man rolled over. Alistair winced as he saw the smelled rotting flesh. “Well met, Alistair Tan the outsider. Chang’hon Fyir. You can call me Chang for short. I suppose I can’t blame you too much.”
“What happened to you?” Alistair asked.
“What hasn’t happened to me is a better question,” Chang said with a wistful look in his eyes. Now that Alistair got a closer look at him, he was in bad shape. He was short with black hair and brown eyes, on the chubby side. But the more pressing concern was how almost his entire body was covered in bandages. Only his mouth, eyes, and parts of his torso were left bare. “I am an assistant archivist here at the Silver Comet Sect. It’s a family tradition. Before our humble home was plucked out of space to this world, I was investigating an ancient cursed ruin near the Wasted Realm. Unfortunately, despite my best wards, I was struck with a powerful hex. That was over a year ago.”
“Sorry to hear that,” Alistair said. “But I—”
“Yes indeed, despite your people ruining my theories, I hope this Pathfinder AI will be able to heal me.”
Alistair almost corrected him about that, since it wasn’t technically the Pathfinder AI healing them, but he refrained. Chang wouldn’t understand that sort of thing. Curses being a thing on Lisorte was news to Alistair. Pike never mentioned any sort of thing. But like the existence of zombies and mysterious metal temples, their home world was very, very odd. Master Ko Pao held the key to unlocking that oddity.
Oliver came rushing back in. Alistair smiled at how stable his friend was. Three months ago, he would have been sweating like a pig and panting given how far the run to Master Ko Pao on the other side of the temple was. Now, he barely sounded winded.
Behind him were the contrasting frames of Ko Pao and Pike—one enormous and one diminutive.
“Congratulations on your victory,” Master Ko Pao said. “I never doubted you for a second.”
“Same here,” Pike said. “You’ve become strong. We’ll have to have a real bout one day.”
“I was already strong,” Alistair shot back with a grin. Gathering himself, he stood up and bowed to both of them. “Thank you, Master Ko Pao. Thank you, Brother Pike. Your teachings, I will treasure for as long as I live. I will pay you back tenfold for your kindness.”
Master Ko Pao held up a palm. “Your generosity is most welcome, but we do not ask for tenfold, only reciprocal. Are you leaving now? Your injuries are still fresh.”
Alistair shook his head. “I have a duty to return as soon as possible. I’ll be fine. Once I’m on the outside, I’ll have my full powers.”
“Very well,” Master Ko Pao said. “We make our expedition now.”
----------------------------------------
Master Ko Pao wasn’t exaggerating when he said expedition. There were three dozen apostles of the Silver Comet Sect that journeyed to the Church of the Holy Ones. This included Pike, Apol-Xin, Jo Ran, Davnos, Ko Min, and various others of all different ranks, though mostly red and black. They clearly weren’t taking this affair as a joke.
They joined the Slaves of Shadow on their way to the Church of the Holy Ones. The neutral sect’s temple lied even deeper in the forest than the Silver Comet. They were the most reclusive sect in the valley, rarely concerned with the political affairs. Shadow apostles preferred to contemplate the martial mysteries in darkness.
That didn’t mean they were weak. The thirty-third Lord of Night, Niu Xiaoli, was the third most powerful fighter in the Holy Ravine, according to some. Alistair himself had to back Master Ko Pao, despite never seeing either of them fight. He came along with a retinue of five of his shadows.
Alistair found them creepy. They wore all black with full veils that covered their entire face. In order to become a member of the Slaves of Shadow, you had to swear a lifetime oath of silence. Instead of words, they communicated with hand gestures, not unlike sign language back on Earth.
Luckily, his soulcore’s translation function could interpret the symbols. He didn’t reveal that fact to the others.
It was already the dead of night by the time the Slaves of Shadow met up with them in the forest. Alistair felt the chill in the air and the silence of the night in his bones. The moon above shone dimly, blocked by the canopy of trees. Now that he thought about it, in a normal world, they would be starting the cold parts of autumn. The weird climate caused by the Earth Asunder wave made him forget that. He wondered if the seasons would still be the same as Earth’s planetary rank kept rising.
The leader of the Slaves of Shadow was the tallest of the bunch, distinguished from his men by a small gold star over his heart. The others had silver pins instead of gold.
Will Silvanio accede? Lord Xiaoli signed.
I believe so, Master Ko Pao replied. But thank you anyway for your support in this matter. Your accompaniment will ensure his compliance.
I simply wish for all to adhere to our ancient customs, Lord Xiaoli signed. While we are neutral to both your and the Holy One’s schemings, defying the sacred decision of a duel would be a treasonous crime.
Agreed. Master Ko Pao bowed to Lord Xiaoli, who responded in turn.
But the Slaves of Shadow weren’t the only ones to join them.
There were four sects located out of the town proper and three located within. Besides the Slaves of Shadow and the Silver Comet that resided in the forest, the Raging Bulls were on the black summit opposite the white peak that Alistair and Oliver came in from.
While the Raging Bulls refused Master Ko Pao’s invitation, the Kodaidaemin, Viper’s Fangs, Sworn Sisters, all joined, despite the latter two’s allegiance to Apostolos. As Lord Xiaoli said, there were certain things that could not be violated within the Holy Ravine.
Alistair was surprised that the other sects would respond at a moment’s notice in the middle of the night. Master Ko Pao had clearly been planning this moment for some time in advance. Added to their retinue were two senior members of the Viper’s Fangs, the Headmistress of the Sworn Sisters, and ten apostles of Kodaidaemin. Izalia was there, along with a woman that Alistair assumed was her sister, Leila, based on their striking resemblance.
Leila was even taller than Izalia, with the same purple eyes, but with dirty brown hair instead of black. She had a more confident expression than Izalia, older and wiser and more sure of herself as the strongest student of Kodaidaemin.
And so there they were—a group of over fifty of some of the strongest fighters within the Holy Ravine, advancing on the Church of the Holy Ones like a funeral march. Alistair couldn’t help but feel awkward that this whole affair was happening because of him.
Despite being the nominal center of attention, none of the others came to talk to him besides Izalia. While his presence and duel set off the chain of events leading up to the current moment, no one besides Ko Pao and some of the most senior members of the Silver Comet Sect knew about his true identity. The rest of the ravine thought he was a normal outsider, albeit abnormally skilled at hand-to-hand combat.
Alistair was just the figurehead of a larger political conflict. Dev’rox cackled silently. Imps were a huge fan of political conflicts. That was how they made their existence, after all—selling information and transport services to the greater demons of the Hells.
“Hey,” Dev’rox protested. “Uncalled for.”
The Church of the Holy Ones looked the same as Alistair remembered. The twelve-pointed cerulean star at the peak reflected the moonlight down on the stairs leading to the entrance, forming a star on the ground. In the glowing light, twelve symbols appeared, inscrutable to his soul translation. They reminded Alistair of Chinese characters, but that didn’t quite fit the bill.
Izalia looked over Alistair’s shoulder on her tiptoes. He swung around, but she already jumped back.
“Still have a lot to learn if you didn’t feel me sneak up on you,” she laughed.
“You didn’t have any killing intent,” Alistair complained. “It’s not fair.”
“I see you were looking at those characters,” Izalia said. “They’re written in the Old Moi characters. We don’t use it except for ceremonial purposes. Those twelve are the story of the prophesied Uniter of Mankind. They will gather the realms of humanity and defeat the Dread King once and for all.”
She gave a look of disgust, pointing out a particularly complex looking character. “Actually, I misspoke. Eleven of the twelve tell that story, passed down through all the Martial League. The twelfth is a claim that Silvanio Apostolos is the Uniter.”
“Really? That’s bold, even for him.”
“Old Moi is a poetic language. It doesn’t outright say it, but implies it heavily, shrouded in simile and flowery language.”
Silvanio was already waiting for them, standing outside his opulent temple with his hands clasped behind his back. A squad of his most elite apostles stood in an organized line behind him, all clad in their stylish robes fashioned like the night sky. This time, all except Silvanio wore masks that covered up everything except for their eyes.
Nothing could hide Elerie Apostolos, heir to the Church of the Holy Ones. Her piercing red eyes were unmistakable.
“What’s this procession for?” Silvanio asked as they approached. “You think I would break my word?”
“Of course not,” Master Ko Pao stated calmly. “Though if you did, you would void your title as governor immediately for breaking your solemn word as an apostle of the Holy Ravine.”
“Such a thing is inconceivable,” Silvanio said, with some venom in his voice. “Alistair will have safe passage. That is what was agreed upon.”
The thing was, no one knew how he was supposed to get back. Silvanio hadn’t, well, told anyone how that worked. Vritra was the only known individual to leave after entering, and he disappeared one night, last spotted in the church. That led most to think that there was some secret tunnel deep within the recesses of the Holy One’s base.
“However,” Silvanio said, holding up a finger. “You may not enter this place. I will not have so many with their fists pointed at my throat walk within my hallowed halls. You have my word that Alistair will be delivered to the outside. As governor, I am allowed this much.”
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
You would say such a thing? Lord Xiaoli signed. This is most unusual.
“It’s fine,” Alistair said. “If I leave, you’ll know for certain. I’ll call down a bolt of golden lightning from the sky near the white mountain. If you see this bolt, then it is confirmation that I made it out safely.”
“A bolt of lightning?” questioned the woman that Alistair assumed was Leila d’Fortune. “You can do this?”
Remembering his cover story as a middle-of-the-road cultivator, Alistair pivoted. “It’s not that impressive, really. Anyone can get there with the Pathfinder AI and some luck.”
“Very well,” Master Ko Pao said. “My pupil will call down this lightning within an hour of entering your temple, Governor Silvanio. If not, I am afraid we will have to ignore your previous prohibition on us entering your humble temple.”
Silvanio’s eyes carefully surveyed the fifty-odd fighters assembled at his doorstep. Alistair could see the lightning-quick thoughts race behind those dark eyes. Sizing them up, calculating possibilities.
In the end, he nodded his head. Most likely, he was wondering what the possibility of Alistair refusing to call down lightning on the outside. To spite him, perhaps, or as a strategic move to end the Holy One’s dominance over the ravine.
“There will be no need for that. Come now, boy.”
“Don’t forget about me,” Oliver jutted in. “You’re not going to leave me here, Alistair?”
Silvanio clenched his jaw. “And the other. Let us make haste. You do want to return as fast as possible?”
Alistair bowed before Pike and Master Ko Pao. “Thank you once more for everything. I’ll never forget your kindness for as long as I live.”
Master Ko Pao smiled so wide his eyes closed. “You would make a splendid apostle of the Silver Comet Sect. One day, I hope you may join in true function.”
“I think other groups on the outside might have something to say about that,” Alistair said, thinking of the Clear Water Sect. “Pike, we have to have our real bout one day. With my full power.”
“That will happen, no doubt,” Pike said. “I might need some time for that.”
Alistair and Oliver walked onto the Holy One’s side. He took one last look back at the people he had been surrounded by for the past three months. Because of the layout of the valley, even where he stood, he could make out the terrace farms on the slopes and the pure white mountain in the distance. Mount Goa was not an artifact of the lack of color—like its twin Mount Hua, they were truly all white and all black.
Grag and his family, the delicious food of the Dragon’s Head Tavern—life in the Holy Ravine felt quaint but in the best way. It was a place he could imagine settling down one day to have a family. There was an interconnectedness to everything that he would miss. The strange culture and peculiar home world gave the Holy Ravine its special charm.
Now, he said goodbye. Not for forever, but for a while. Alistair was starting to understand how the Pathfinder AI operated. It had already set the battlefield. Those newcomers couldn’t be a direct part of the game, but maybe they had another role to play. It almost felt like those beings like Selephita and the Holy Ravine were to be his future army.
That was probably getting ahead of things.
The moment they stepped into the church, Silvanio dismissed the other apostles, having them stand guard near the entrance. He took them down a corridor that Alistair had never seen before and asked Alistair a question.
“What will you do?”
“What?”
Silvanio tapped his hand impatiently. “You know of what I speak.”
“I’m not a man to break my word,” Alistair said. “Are you?”
“I am not,” Silvanio said. “It matters not. Even if you lie and all the fists of the Holy Ravine converge upon me, I alone can strike them down.”
Alistair wasn’t so sure he believed that.
“But,” Silvanio continued. “Magnanimous as I am, I have already given you a gift. There are forces that I do not comprehend that work against you. A man whose face is permanently cloaked in shadows, he came to me and asked for me to notify him when you are to leave. I lied. When you return, you will be unexpected by your enemies.”
A shadow man? Alistair thought to himself. Where have I heard that before? He dug deep into his memories. Was it Whimsy who mentioned something of the sort? Yes, she had. She said that a shadowy figure was the one that turned them into Devil Kings. Alistair hadn’t interpreted her description of the man literally.
“Why?” Alistair asked. “Why would you do that for me?”
“We have no reason to be enemies. Ko Pao and I are the only ones to know the truth of your power, correct? Don’t get suprised on me now. Of course, I know you are no ordinary man. No one without Heaven-blessed talent could rise to the level of Brutus Caligoris in three months. Nothing in the Holy Ravine is hidden from sight. Despite this, I do not wish to get in between your friendship, and I also do not wish to quarrel with you. We shall have a mutually beneficial relationship.”
Alistair scratched his head. “I promised Master Ko Pao one favor in exchange for my training. He didn’t have to trust me at all or train me, yet he did. You, on the other hand, obstructed my path. You could have let me out of here at any time, yet you didn’t. I’m thinking more along the lines of—why should we be friends?”
“Your time here was a necessity,” Silvanio said. “The Man in Shadows, an official of this grand Final Frontier Empire, ordered me to trap you in here to give George time to prepare. Would I dare to defy the representative of an empire that can shatter planets? You have only grown stronger, this is true, is it not?”
Alistair hesitated to answer. He did have the feeling that by shoring up his foundations in here that he had changed something deep inside of him, something that would have ripples on the outside.
Silvanio looked up. “I believe him to be diminished in some way. My instincts also tell me he that he is hiding something. What, I cannot say, but especially within the Devonic Elision Field, he reveals more than he thinks he does.”
“That makes sense,” Alistair said. “But if all you say is true, why did you lie to him at all?”
“I do not like being told what to do.”
As if that explained everything perfectly. Alistair understood he was navigating a complex ocean of politics. One wrong move would spell his doom.
“Dev’rox?” Alistair asked. “What do you think?”
“There’s too many things going on in the background we have yet to understand,” Dev’rox said with far more somberness than his usual sardonic tone. “The existence of this Man in Shadows is troubling, to say the least. It would seem there might be two elements of the Final Frontier Empire working in tandem to create a scenario of conflict. It is not something I haven’t seen before. All across the multiverse, conflict and strife breeds stronger fighters. The journey to the peak is eternal war. I would not be surprised if the struggle against the Devil Kings is a pre-ordained module. However, the nature of the Man in Shadows communication with Silvanio is strange.”
“It is, isn’t it? What would he be hiding?”
“Precisely. Anyway, what are you waiting for?”
“What do you mean?”
“You said you’d call down that bolt of lightning, and you will. No need to waste that much more time, then?”
Alistair let out an indignant huff. Of course he wouldn’t lie.
“I cannot promise friendship,” Alistair said. “But as long as you don’t cause trouble, we don’t have to be enemies. I was going to keep my word no matter what in the first place.”
“That’s fine enough for me,” Silvanio said.
For a long time, they walked through the twisting passages of the Church of the Holy Ones. Unlike the simple stone of the Silver Comet temple, there were artistic carvings in every single brick. There seemed to be no end in sight, until they reached the metal section.
Alistair recognized the complex interlocking handiwork right away. He had seen it once before in the Silver Comet temple. The ruins of a bygone civilization. Presumably, the civilization of Purana of the Stratospheric Flames.
“I built,” Silvanio said, gesturing to everything around him, “on top of these ruins. As a reminder of our history.”
Unlike the primordial architecture he had seen before, this one was sinuous and amorphous. Instead of orthogonal angles and hard lines, the metal pieces were cojoined in strange, circling patterns that dazzled the eyes and bewitched the mind. Everything was in circles, even the hallway transitioned into an arch.
The glowing blue moss faded away, replaced by blinking red lights intertwined with the metal itself, almost like those blinkers on circuit boards.
“At the deepest level, there is a prophecy,” Silvanio said. “Along with the excavator, I am the only one to have seen this.”
Alistair and Oliver slowly followed the governor of the Holy Ravine through the twisting passage of bronze metal. Alistair could have sworn that the patterns on the walls moved with them, following their every step. They always walked down, on sloped ground, to the point where he noticed the temperature rising.
Like the other site, this one was also small. It only took a few minutes to reach the center.
Magnificence was the only word Alistair could muster. The heart of the ruins was an enormous chamber, the ceiling rising thirty meters into the air. The same sinuous patterns of interlocking metal pieces formed spindles toward the heavens. Each of the spindles started at the floor and wilted inward as they spiraled up, creating somewhat of a cage just shy of the plafond.
There were a series of steps leading up to a raised platform in the center, where a glowing orb displayed a holographic video of warfare. This mirrored the tapestry on the ceiling, depicting brutish maroon-skinned men slaughtering green-skinned men with spears and swords. Unlike the painting, however, the video showed the green-skinned people with modern or even beyond modern technology, wiping out the maroon people wherever they lived.
“What is this?” Alistair said aloud, so enraptured by the mystery he even forgot about Silvanio. While the vision in the Silver Comet Sect implied a cultivator’s society, this hologram was more technological.
“We only excavated this during the construction of the restaurant you dined at before. Very few know of this, and no one can explain what it is for.”
“The—”
“Yes, it appears now that these weapons are similar to those your people invented. What that means, I do not know. Solving these mysteries will take time. There are secrets to my planet that must be discovered one day. For now, this will serve our purpose. Place your hands on the orb.”
Alistair looked at Oliver, who was also staring raptly at the hologram. It was finally time. Time to go home.
“I hope that you and Master Ko Pao can get along,” Alistair said, approaching the orb. Closing his eyes, he and Oliver placed their hands on the mysterious object. The last thing Alistair heard was soft laughter.
----------------------------------------
When Alistair opened his eyes, he was alone. Alone in a void of absolute darkness, without Oliver. Somehow, without even Dev’rox, he could tell from the absence within his soul.
Immediately, he feared the worst. Had Silvanio betrayed them? Was he dead?
All of a sudden, a glowing white orb appeared in front of him. Two black dots emerged on its surface, and a line under—wait, Alistair thought. Is that a smiley face?
Not precisely a smiley face, since it wasn’t smiling, but those two dots and that line looked just like an emoticon.
“You’re not authorized,” the orb said, its mouth changing form with each syllable. “Your incoherence is unseemly.”
“Excuse me?”
“I remember you.” The orb frowned, if such a thing was possible. “You don’t remember me? The incoherence between the last time the system registered you and your current state is enormous.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t remember you at all,” Alistair said. “What is going on?”
“I am the Pathfinder AI. You are currently in a temporally slowed spiritual demiplane as I investigate why you set off such a big flag within the system.”
Alistair frowned in confusion. Wasn’t the Pathfinder the one that set this whole affair up for him in the first place?
“I entered the Holy Ravine area that is underneath a Devonic Elision Field. That’s why my state is different now. Weren’t you the one that integrated that place into Earth?”
“Is that so?” The orb suddenly collapsed into pixels and then reformed in an instant. “Oh yes, that is correct. Updating to patch 10^12(.9189123) created instabilities within my local memory. Apologies. You are correct. That FX-14752 is so close to Chaos also heightens any bugs.”
“What is Chaos?” Alistair asked. He remembered Larsa, Lord Kevan Macadeen’s assistant, telling him that Chaos was an eternal storm of darkness surrounding the multiverse.
“What is Chaos?” the orb asked. “Ever changing and unceasing in adaptation, the essence of Chaos is permanent impermanence. Are you the same human that you were seven years ago, even though all of your atoms have changed? Though I suppose the Standard Theory is only one modality of reality. It is better to ask what Chaos is not rather than is, and the one thing it is not is an ally of creation. The incursions grow worse every year, worse I tell—”
Once again, the orb collapsed into a pile of pixels, though it took longer to reform this time. Visual glitches persisted for a few seconds, changing the color of the sphere from white to red to blue then back to white.
“Apologies, once more. Frontier Pathfinders like myself aren’t built to deal with the changes.”
“Changes?” Alistair asked.
“Are you nothing but a bag of questions? Fine, if it’ll shut you up, I’ll tell you. We’re entering tumultuous times. Times regarding the fundamental laws of reality. Therefore, I’ve been instructed to up the ante, so to speak. I have more resources, and I increase the difficulty. The mortality rate shoots way up, and in exchange we get better fighters. But looking at things, this planet barely has a higher than 92.1% mortality rate despite the harsh conditons. You’re the reason for that, aren’t you?”
“I try to do what I can to help people out.”
The orb squinted, taking a closer look at him. Alistair felt like a girl trying to avoid the gaze of a creepy guy, the way it scanned him over. “I don’t normally take such a close look at things. My purview is larger than you could understand. My single mind takes care of one hundred initiated planets. The physical body of a Herald of a Pathfinder AI is merely one of my processing units, given physical form. That’s enough about that. Let us return to you. You are the strongest on your planet?”
“Yes, except for maybe the leader of the Devil Kings.”
“Leader of the Devil Kings?” The orb glitched again. “Ah yes, that affair. The Emperor is not happy with the recent influx of Devil Kings into his lands. He fears judgment from the Earthly Pariṣā. He requested an audience with the Outer Division of the Sublimed Machine faction millennia ago, but he has yet to receive a response. We Pathfinders are subject to the laws of the Sublimed Machine, not the silly laws of you weak frontier babies.”
The orb suddenly stopped. “Hey! Stop drawing information out of me, you duplicitous human!”
Alistair gritted his teeth, holding in the obvious retort that the Pathfinder AI was the one to freely give up the information. He didn’t want this thing to get pissed off at him, considering how integrated it was within his body.
“Sorry, AI?” Alistair tried his best to look apologetic, but he wasn’t sure if the orb properly understood human expressions.
“Bah,” the orb said. “You may call me Ai Ai, I prefer that alias. As I was saying earlier, I’ve upped the ante. I prepared many engaging units for the strongest on this planet. Some were natural providence, like the firebird. Watch out, human, many greedy bastards will want that prized beast of an Immemorial Race. Others were more of my doing, like the Holy Ravine or the Kestrel. But you face even nearer tumultuous times. Have you heard of the Crusade Against Usury?”
Before Alistair could even respond, Ai Ai buzzed and continued talking. “Of course you haven’t. What am I saying? That was only two months ago that he issued that decree, wasn’t it? Seizing the money the corporations made from usury was a pretty gnarly move, if you ask me. Though, can’t blame him, the commoners and most of the nobles were complaining like crazy.”
Alistair wondered if that was going to affect him or his planet. What side were the sects on in that conflict? To be honest, he didn’t really want to think about it. Such things were far outside of his control. The only issue was that he had clearly been recruited by the Clear Water Sect. There was no going back on that. Was he going to be embroiled into a political nightmare the moment he stepped foot off of Earth?
“If you have more questions, the Grand Imperator will have more answers than I can provide. She’s due to arrive at the same time [Armageddon] completes. Bit of a detour dealing with some pirates in the Disputed Shard, I hear. Duke Lieverwacht won't be happy. He likes to keep his house in order. Ah yes, lest I forget.” The orb leaned in as if it were telling a clandestine piece of intel. “You have angered the second youngest son of Grand Duke Seperati Portolon, nephew to Prince Xavian, the Golden Sword of the Emperor. They are a powerful family, the Portolon Clan, one of the eighty-eight Progenitors and they hold an entire fief of the empire. Yarik journeys here now alongside the Grand Imperator. If you do not defeat him in a duel, then your planet will be blasted to smithereens.”
“Uh, what?” Alistair physically recoiled at those words. “Destroy the planet?”
“Well, if you lose. The whole thing has been arranged in quite the above board manner. All Prime Initiates will already have left FX-14752 for their new ventures. There is nothing of value to be lost from the planet’s destruction, so it’s fine.”
Nothing of value to be lost. Alistair clenched his fists. The Pathfinder AI stated it so matter-of-factly, so blithely. That was the way of the Final Frontier Empire—only the strong mattered.
“How could I beat him? Shouldn’t he be an Adept at least?” Alistair asked.
“He’ll reduce himself to your level of cultivation,” the orb said. “Anyway, it’s so long from now, you best not worry about it. This new generation of nobles is stuck up trash. The Mai Atalans are right, I fear. The sudden capitalist movement of the last million years has shaken this universe up more than it knows, I fear. Shoddy foundations and sudden change always lead to trash and moral decay, doesn’t it? Oh well, these are just the ramblings of a buggy sophontic AI, so you might as well ignore them. They’re quite meaningless.”
Somehow, I doubt that.
“You’re stretching my time in here thin,” the orb said. “It takes a non-insignifcant amount of Mana to run this program. I’ll send you back to your planet now. You’re going to be in a bit of pain when you get out. The sudden incoherence between your last previously known state and your current state will enact a special subprogram to modify your entire character sheet. Goodbye now, Alistair Tan. I would wish you good luck, but I am physically unable to play favorites.”
“Wait,” Alistair said. “Can you do me a favor?”
“Bah," Ai Ai said. "Your complete shamlessness is entertaining. I’ll think about it.”
Before Alistair could even blink, he vanished.
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The Pathfinder AI did think of itself as a physical being. Its sophonce was unlike that of a mortal creature. It had emotions and thoughts and desires, but they were so fundamentally alien to especially a humanoid that the gap was difficult to explain.
Yet with all those differences, the emotion called confusion was the best word to describe the state that the Pathfinder AI found itself in.
All over a silly phrase—Devil Kings. What was the issue with such a standard program? The Pathfinder AI would have to isolate part of its processing matrix and contemplate for a few epochs.