It started with the earth shaking.
Tantra’s been in plenty of earthquakes, living on the coast will do that, but right now they're still in the kingdom of Yormakar, on the north eastern edge of the empire’s holdings. She doesn’t know why but she knows that earthquakes don’t happen so far from the coast, it just doesn’t. So she knows, for a fact, that something is wrong.
She isn’t the only one as a bell tolls violently in the centre of the village, signaling some sort of attack. Instantly she gets up and grabs her kanabō, she isn’t the only one as Kisrin grabs his own spear and Yorin rushes down the stairs with his guandoa.
“Well kids,” Rakan says, “this is gonna be a real fun month.”
-
Jorin fights and he fights,
forgetting the world,
forgetting himself,
all there is are his fists and things malformed and strange coming to bite and claw. He is no longer in possession of proper skin or proper robes, torn away by the horde of nightmares.
A centipede with a human mask wails at him as he digs through it’s thorax.
A gorilla of seven feet with obsidian bone sprouting from every joint to make a thing of razors slashes multiple lines across his chest as he grabs it’s upper jaw and rips off that half of its head.
An opossum the size of a dog generates lighting on its fur and strikes him with the boom of thunder.
He crushes it under foot, organs popping as it squeals in pain.
He is not a thing of mercy, nor is he a thing of pain.
He is the TITAN, and none of these things of tainted origins can stop him from his purpose.
Right now his purpose is to kill.
-
Arrows flew through the night sky.
There were quite a few villagers posted on watch in case this exact scenario happened, and other than rushing to report the tide, they pellet the beasts with arrows. It’s mostly mongrels, hundreds and hundreds of mongrels. There are spirit beasts as well, running and trampling over their lessers, but they number in the much more manageable range of a few dozen.
The arrows kill quite a few mongrels, three hundred archers raining a constant barrage, but the spirit beasts don’t seem to care, running forward despite being made into pincushions of pain. Behind them hundreds more rush towards the village in a frantic frenzy.
Tantra looks on, absolutely horrified.
“Don’t worry about it,” Rakan says, “most of them will just pass by the village, the rest’ll attack, in their state of mindless panic, but they won’t be difficult to deal with so long as we’re strategic about it”
“How do any villages survive…this?”
“Easily, you just have to be prepared. Always keep that in mind kid, get enough mortals to grind and you can take on just about anything, except for Godbeasts, but you get the point.”
Tantra just stares at the cloud of dust and the things making it, there’s no sense of organization, no sense of order. They look like a stampede from the hells. Hooves, paws, and claws overturning clumps of dirt as they get closer and closer to the stakes.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
And consequently to them.
Then.
The first is impaled, and then a hundred more, much of the tide simply circles around the village, and a primal part of her fears for the fact that beasts could appear behind them, where they are undefended.
She pushes it down deep into her soul and focuses on the violence as mongrels and beasts make it past the barrier and start to charge the line of spearmen.
She boosts her legs and joins the fray.
-
Soma is meditating.
It’s the only thing he can do in this hell of steel walls. That and exercise, but he prefers meditation, it makes time pass quicker, and distracts him from his thoughts. He never wants to confront his thoughts in this place, that way leads to madness, he knows this intimately. He doesn’t know how long he’s been here, the measure of time being counted in the number of meals he’s been served rather than anything concrete.
Forty-seven, if you were wondering.
You must have been wondering, afterall, you’re the only one to keep him company in this place. Only thing to keep him sane.
“Oh sweetheart,” says his mother, “you should just listen to your father, then he doesn’t need to do this to you.”
And what would be the point of that? To escape the pain? Cultivators do not run from pain, mental or physical. They take it, and they grow from it, such is the way. He won’t surrender because of pain, he will outlast father and make him see.
“See what? That you refuse sound advice, that you’d rather risk yourself than be safe?”
What is the point in safety? The world is a harsh place, not fit for weaklings. Will he cower, like a mongrel to a beast? No, Soma will walk the path of strength, no matter what tribulations he must face.
“And if your mind breaks?” She asks, “if you become nothing more than a raving madman? What then?”
That won’t happen, sure, it takes a while to recover from this place, but he will recover. His mind will heal and he will be ready.
There is a sigh that echoes through the whole room “fine.”
And then you are gone.
Alone again with his thoughts.
Alone again with the walls.
Alone again with the illusions.
He’s seen beaches, in this place, never out in the world, they’re too far from the coast. He drinks from its waters and cleanses himself from the blood that dribbles down the walls. The sand is textureless, he’s even tasted it to try.
Tasted like nothing.
But that’s okay, he gets to eat some of the best food the sect can offer, it’s too bad all the screaming tends to ruin his appetite. Honestly, what are they putting in the meat buns?
Hmmm.
He’s thinking too much, that’s not good, that’ll only make things worse.
Maybe you should go to sleep.
No, we’ve slept too much, the body won’t tolerate more.
What are we to do then, talk to ourselves?
Am I such bad company?
No, it just gets old after a while.
Well, we need to talk to someone, or else the madness will take us.
Who’s to say we haven’t already gone mad?
I am.
You’re not reliable.
Of course I am, I can still string thoughts, can’t I?
You know that’s not what madness is.
I know, I know.
-
There are so many.
Tantra’s beginning to see why it’s called a tide, all she has to do is swing her club and she’ll hit something. No skill, no practice, just pure brutality. That’s all the tide asks of her, and so she delivers. The mongrels aren’t much of a challenge, not anymore, not with boosting. She’s pulped more than a few heads, crushing skulls and dispensing brain matter. The problem with there being as many as there are however, is the wounds she’s accumulating. Most of the beasts don’t actually attack, either running around the village, like it was a stone splitting a ravine, or going straight through with little care for the three thousand or so spearmen. They let the smaller mongrels pass, but they can’t risk anything else.
Tantra, bludgeons three mongrels at once, feeling the crunching of bone as she goes to swing again. She has to hit multiple at once, if only to keep up with the tide. Her and Rakan have their own spots in the formation, little clearings where they can fight without worry of hitting the villagers, she imagines that Rakan is doing much better than her.
She’s barely holding her own.
It hasn’t even been an hour.
They’re supposed to do this for a month?
She grits her teeth and keeps swinging.