Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 178. Brazen Challenge.
“Got it,” Laien agreed easily. This much sounded reasonable considering the possible emergency situations. They were already asking for a lot by having Casimir and everyone else come with them, so he wasn’t about to ask them to fight to the last man just for their sake. “The biggest problem is that we don’t really know what we need to do to pass those two crazed Trials,” he mused bitterly. Had those Trials been more normal, then he wouldn’t have worried too much. However, they had been going on for months and they were yet to pass them in spite of everything they had accomplished. Looking at it from this perspective, was their choice to head north even a correct one? What did those examiners expect from them anyway? The more he thought about it, the less of a concrete idea in regards to what they ought to do he had.
“I think he’s hiding something,” Yin mentioned with a little louder thought once he noticed that Laien’s pondering wasn’t going anywhere. Once he had Laien’s attention, he added, “Casimir is hiding something. I don’t think he has bad intentions, but his feelings just… were weird when he was telling us all about those horn signals. They fluctuated even more after he finished speaking.” Having said so, Yin sighed internally. He used to rely on reading people’s hearts more in the first months after leaving the Forbidden Lands, but after meeting Laien he came to rely on this ability of his less and less and by now, he wasn’t paying all that much attention to it in their daily interactions.
It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with it though, he did use it almost instinctively every time he interacted with people. The thing was that he had realized some time ago that people’s feelings were often inconsistent with their thoughts and their plans. Some people appeared to be capable of keeping their emotions under control so well that he couldn’t tell what they were truly feeling, too. In this sense, this ability of his didn’t yet deserve to be called ‘reading people’s hearts’ as in that case, no matter how well one hid his feelings, he would be able to learn a lot about that person.
“Hiding something?” Laien’s eyebrows furrowed ever so slightly at Yin’s warning. He didn’t think that Casimir was a bad person and he was quite sure that he wouldn’t act against them without a very good reason. If he were to give Casimir a benefit of the doubt and consider that Casimir was acting with their well-being in mind, then what could he have hidden? It would be something related to the horn, but if so then it also needed to have a connection to their Shadow Trials. Was Casimir planning to get so far away that they would need to give their all just to catch up in time?
“No,” Laien discarded the possibility. Seeing as he and Yin were the only two with elite mounts in their entire group, this idea wasn’t realistic unless their horses somehow got killed. But then, what else could be related to the Shadow Trials, blowing of the horn, and their benefit. He couldn’t quite figure it out on the run, but he felt as if he had an inkling, just was unable to grasp it. “If I was him, what would be the first thing I thought about after what I told him?” he asked himself and a second later, his eyes widened and a smile appeared on his face as the realization hit him.
“Interesting,” Laien said wryly, sending his voice only towards Yin, Casimir, and Anna. “You realized that scattered fighting would slow us down. Then you instantly thought that they would very likely try to surround us again using this opportunity. Even if Yimar Maar won’t understand why we are doing what we are, he will be extremely unlikely to give up on capturing Arslan. Thus, you created a precaution that would rely on your judgment of the situation… but you didn’t tell us about it so that we can give our all at fighting so we are more likely to pass the Trials, instead of having us worry about if it’s time to retreat yet or not?” he asked almost playfully, only having figured out the last part on the run, while speaking. This plan would push the two of them to the limits in both battle and the subsequent escape, but the same was true for Casimir and his experts. Knowing this much, he simply couldn’t get angry with Casimir and to the contrary, he was very thankful to him.
As for the possibility of his speculation being false, well. He could tell that he had hit the nail on the head from Casimir’s expression alone.
“Hah.” Once he collected himself, Casimir chuckled and shook his head helplessly. “With some training and studying, you’d make a great commander,” he said with a smile and gave Laien an impressed look. Be it the way Laien was able to keep calm under pressure and make good situational judgments, be it his strength to lead from the front or his ability to take beneficial risks when necessary, all of those were qualities of a superb Great General capable of leading his troops from the frontlines. Truth to be told, after what he had seen he would love to have both Laien and Yin stay in the Holy Union for a period of time just to use them to motivate their younger generations. Those ideas, however, were best left for after they escaped with their lives and after the Shadow Trials of those two were over, or so he reminded himself in order to not get too distracted.
Having heard Casimir’s praise, Laien laughed but didn’t comment on it. He had been too focused on the matter of the Shadow Trials so without Yin, he wouldn’t have noticed Casimir’s slight bluff and he wouldn’t have figured anything out either. Even the seemingly simple possibility of getting surrounded again, it would have most likely escaped his mind given how both he and Yin had different things to worry about. Be it as it may, this was the first large-scale battle in which he was in. To suddenly be able to recognize all variables under pressure wasn’t something he was capable of.
“Gahar,” Laien send his voice backward, seeing as they still had some time before they would clash with the deploying Yimar Maar’s army. Apparently, they would have a surprisingly easy time getting into the forest since Yimar Maar hadn’t expected them to ride north and had spread his forces out and only now was he reorganizing them. The man had likely thought they would either keep running east or a few of them would secretly split off with Arslan, but he hadn’t expected all of them to move north. After all, why would they? As a result, Yimar Maar was left with himself and the elite core of his five to six thousand men too far towards the east to catch them in time.
“Any advice on the Trials of Heart and Will?” Laien asked casually. Gahar was a retired Shadow, so while he surely didn’t know as much as a Shade would, Laien hoped that he would be able to offer them a tip or two. At the same time, he was regretful that he hadn’t asked this question sooner, but he told himself that there was no point crying over spilled milk, at least not at this time.
“…” In the back lines, a few horses away from Arslan, Gahar let out a sigh. It wasn’t like information about the Shadow Trials was completely secret in the world; those powerful and well-connected would often have heard of them. However, members of the Guild of Shadows weren’t supposed to spread this kind of information. Additionally, telling those two more was more likely to reduce their chances of passing than to help them in any way. Not to mention that with the intervention of someone powerful enough to hold Mustafa, Arakar, and their respective armies in place, he was pretty much certain that the Guild Master himself was overseeing the exams of those two.
He had never met the man personally, but he had heard stories of him. Least to be said, if that crazed old man was listening and if he heard him give precise advice to those two, then the already crazed Trials were sure to become even more impossible to pass. So, he didn’t answer Laien’s question carelessly and weighed his words before speaking out.
“Just follow your hearts. If you are deemed worthy, you will naturally pass.”
Having said so, he lowered his head and revealed a slight, bitter smile. While the Trial of Strength was the most straightforward of the three Shadow Trials, the remaining two were completely up to the discretion of the examiner or examiners. The Trial of Heart, to have strong convictions and follow them consistently. The Trial of Will, to be willing to take on dangers and risks in order to follow through with your personal beliefs. Shadows weren’t required to be a specific type of a person, they didn’t need to be righteous or evil nor straightforward or deceitful. What mattered to the Guild was the strength of the character as established by the Guild Master many, many centuries ago.
“Eh,” Gahar let out a soundless sigh. “Had the Guild Master not taken interest in them, they would have already passed. Now it’s all up to whether they will be able to satisfy that madman or not,” he thought with a hint of anger. He had finally found someone he was willing to follow, but he couldn’t do much to help those two boys pass the Shadow Trials. All he could do was hope for the Guild Master not to toy with them until the two died… or until everyone around them ended up as corpses.
“Thanks.” Unaware of Gahar’s internal struggle, Laien thanked him cheerfully. If it was following his heart, if it was about showing the will to follow his heart, then he had been doing that for a long time! Ever since leaving the Sarkcente Kingdom he had been acting on the principle of following what he thought to be right more and more consciously. He had also never strayed from danger, though he did always stop to consider if the risk wasn’t too great thanks to the influence Yin had on him. “They may be unreasonably hard, but I refuse to believe we won’t be able to pass them!” he thought eagerly, his spirits quickly growing back to their usual level. If they were to die, then they would die! He wasn’t going to worry about it when nothing could be done, he would face all obstacles head-on!
“Oi, whoever you are!” Led by a sudden impulse, he yelled. He infused his voice with both Qi and spiritual energy, thus sending it far and wide. “If you want to see what we can do, then sit tight and watch closely! Heart and Will were they?! We’ll show you enough of them to amaze you, so keep your eyes peeled and finish this damned game already!” he shouted shamelessly, causing many if not all of the riders in their seven-hundred-man-strong group to grow flabbergasted. Even Julien and Abdain who were regularly exchanging blows a few hundred meters behind them were startled.
On the other hand, more than a thousand meters high in the sky, unbeknownst to Laien, a black-masked old man hidden by many strands of shadows smiled cheerfully.
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“Good, very good!” he said alongside a pleased laugh, though his words quickly got lost in the strong winds as he didn’t care to infuse them with Qi. “Show me then, both of you! Prove to me that a destiny greater than that of any of my Shades rests upon your shoulders! Fight! Struggle! Bleed! Show me a miracle or die trying!” he shouted happily, by this point having completely forgotten about Maian’s grumbling. He wanted to see it, he needed to see it! The same destiny which halted his path, he wanted to see if those two boys had what it took to shake the heavens! To confirm it, he would push them from behind as many times as it took, all too see if their vessels were big enough!
“Create a miracle and live,” the old man said in a far more calm tone. Yet, the mysterious glimmer in his eyes didn’t lessen one bit. “Fail and die. One time at the border, the second time in the mountains, the third time here. Amaze me the third time and you shall pass my trials!” he said quietly, without using any of his Qi. And yet, somehow, his words alone were enough to cause an ethereal, unnoticeable ripple of fate to spread throughout the sky and soon wash over the entire lands of Eulene, to then spread out further in all directions and rouse the entire Starlight Realm.
“Hrm?” As the ripple passed, deep underground, in the middle of the Forbidden Lands, a motionless figure of an ancient-looking old man slowly opened his eyes. “For someone to excite him so much, curious, curious,” the ancient man murmured, then closed his eyes and sank back into meditation. Whatever was going on with that man, it was nothing of his concern.
“So embarrassing.” Meanwhile, Yin commented with an amused laugh, causing Laien’s cheeks to grow a little red. This challenge to their examiner, it really was Laien-like to do it, but what if the man didn’t hear it at all? It would be Laien shouting to no-one while having so many people listen. Really, if he was in Laien’s place, he wouldn’t have been able to do something so brazen.
The next moment, once Laien laughed quietly and scratched the back of his head in an awkward way, many of the nearby riders started laughing. Anna couldn’t help herself too and chuckled while Casimir smiled helplessly. It would be a stretch to say that everyone relaxed as a result of Laien’s unexpected display, but the front of their group definitely lightened up. As for those who hadn’t heard Yin’s comment nor seen Laien’s reaction, they were still feeling less on edge than before.
“You two get back,” Casimir said with a smile. “Wedge formation!” he instructed loudly right afterward. Be it Laien and Yin or his and Anna’s subordinates, he trusted that both parties were familiar enough with each other to shift their positions on the run.
“Casimir.” As Laien and Yin were moving behind in ranks, Reian moved to the front on foot, easily passing between the horses. “Shift a little to the left at last moment. I’ll handle the right side,” he said and jumped in front of Casimir and Anna, using his insights into the Profound Mystery of Heavenly Tempest to a great effect. Had it not been for them, he wouldn’t have had such an easy time overtaking this wedge of horses that was riding at over four hundred kilometers per hour.
Casimir’s eyes narrowed as he looked towards the eastern part of the enemy lines. Compared to the western part of the middle part, there were most enemies to the east. More of them were pouring in with each second, too, and if given too much time, then Yimar Maar would arrive with his elites, too. By then they wouldn’t be facing a thousand and a half of physically exhausted and mostly horseless experts but a very dangerous and relatively fresh army of over five thousand.
“Fine.” Despite that, Casimir agreed to Reian’s suggestion. The two of them had fought side-by-side against Abdain’s elites and he had seen what Reian was capable of from close-up. It wouldn’t be possible for Reian to annihilate the right side of the area they intended to plow through, but with his strength, he should be able to negate all the martial techniques and spells that were bound to come their way once they got within the distance of around two hundred meters.
“Huu,” Casimir breathed out once they crossed the mark of two last kilometers before the clash. At the same time, he started circulating his wind-element Qi and surrounded himself with it, creating something akin to a white-blue armor. Then, after he confirmed that everyone around him started adjusting to the technique and releasing their own wind-element Qi, he added his earth-element Qi into his formless armor, thus changing its glitter into a metallic one.
In the span of a few seconds, with Casimir at the forefront and Anna riding just a step behind him, to his left, a huge cone of the wind formed in front of their wedge and started growing in strength and momentum with every meter they passed. At the same time, visible wings of wind started forming behind the stronger of the Tempest Riders while the weaker ones displayed a mirage of them. Consequently, the identical suffocating aura as during their charge earlier in the day spread out, making one feel as if their group was one beast-like entity instead of a simple group of separate riders. Once again, in just a dozen more seconds, a group of the most renowned cavalry in the world was about to charge into the enemy lines!
“If only we had ten more years,” Casimir muttered in his heart while gathering more and more momentum onto the tip of his lance. “We can pull off the trademark of our Tempest Riders, but compared to father and his Royal Guard can do, we are like little children playing war with sticks.” The thought passed through his mind in a half-conscious manner. It wasn’t like him to be regretful about things he couldn’t change, but just recalling the might of those four hundred people with his father at the lead caused him to shiver from awe and excitement.
As for this time, his own Royal Guard was still too immature. They had great potential to grow, but their average strength and skill weren’t good enough to reveal the true potential of their martial art. Though, to be fair he wouldn’t have been able to handle the burden either as only those lieutenants of his father who were old monsters at the sixth Realm of Heroes were able to bear with it safely. “I’ve never been as reckless as when I agreed to help those two. I’ve never been as reckless as now, either. I truly hope that my choice is the correct one,” he mused, knowing what was about to come.
“Stop them! Stop them at all cost!”
Yimar Maar’s yell resounded throughout the area, but none of the Tempest Riders heard it and barely any of Yimar Maar’s own men heard it either. The density of Qi in the air caused by the charge of the Tempest Riders, by Reian preparing to attack and by well over a thousand martial and spiritual masters readying their own attacks was too much for any energy-enhanced sound to spread.
“I can’t make it as big as before,” Reian thought to himself while preparing to swing his sword. He had recovered a little bit in the past minutes, but not much. He had less than half of his fire-element Qi left and just about half of the wind-element Qi left. Yet, he was about to face a concentrated attack by around nine hundred people, perhaps more, perhaps less, depending on how many of them would flood in time from the east and how many of them had suitable affinities to attack at once. He wanted to hold back and save some energy, but that could endanger those behind him.
“Ah damn,” Reian cursed silently and chose not to go all-out. Thus, he used about thirty percent of his fire-element Qi and just a little over twenty percent of his remaining wind-element Qi to form the martial technique. He was yet to name it as he had only used it once, with this time being the second, but he didn’t even feel like trying to come up with a name for it. “Heh, everything is always so slow just before the attack,” the thought passed through his mind and then, he slashed.
The avalanche of fire and the wind blade hidden inside it promptly spread out, cascading towards the portion of Yimar Maar’s men that stood to the right. Inevitably, it was met with a massive response of fire and wind-element martial techniques and spells and inevitably, the lack of knowledge about Reian’s strengths ended up costing Yimar Maar’s side one more time. Be it wind-element martial techniques or spells, all of them grew drastically weaker with most of them collapsing out-right.
The shock of Yimar Maar who was watching from five kilometers away was immense, maybe greater than of those very men who had their attacks extinguished in an incomprehensible way. However, this time, there were still over five hundred fire-element marital techniques and spells instead of a few dozen of them. While weaker on the individual basis, they more than made up for their weakness through their overwhelming numbers and a split-second later, they crashed into Reian’s martial art.
The following explosion was large enough to cause the earth itself to tremble. The fire Reian released crumbled in an instant and even his wind-element blade dissipated in the blink of an eye. Coincidentally enough, the hundreds of attacks met the same fate as the chain reaction prompted by the initial struggle couldn’t be stopped. The very majority of the force behind Reian’s martial art and the hundreds of attacks of Yimar Maar’s men was wasted in the explosion, but the resulting shockwave was powerful enough to send Reian flying dozens of meters backward and almost crash into the wind cone behind him despite him having lowered his stance and braced for the impact.
Since Reian was affected to this degree, it needed not to be said that those men who were mostly between first and third Realm of Heroes suffered much more. Almost a thousand of them lost their footing and was thrown into the air by the shockwave, many of them crashing against one another and adding to the collateral damage. While such bruising was negligible for the martial masters amongst them, the spiritual masters had their blood drawn and often, bones broken.
As for Casimir, Anna, and their Tempest Riders, they didn’t suffer nearly as much. The cone of wind in front of their formation absorbed most of the force and by the time it was broken, the gust of wind turned into more of a huge annoyance than any real danger. All it did was push them to the left without inflicting any damage, what was quite helpful in itself considering how they were already turning leftwards under Casimir’s lead just like Reian requested them to.
“Here they come,” Casimir mused and braced himself for the impact. Some of the attacks from the left were caught up in that explosion from a second ago, but over four hundred of them were still flying both at him and at the left portion of their wedge. A few blinks of an eye later, the fire and wind-element offensive crashed into the unstable remnants of the cone and crushed it to bits. Subsequently, all those martial techniques and spells landed on him, Anna, and their Tempest Riders.
One might have asked why didn’t they send out their own martial techniques in order to defend. Surely that would have been a better idea, and indeed it would have, had they been a normal group of riders. The moment the fire and wind crashed against their front lines, it started a series of smaller explosions due to the former element and dull bangs caused by two wind-element forces meeting. The wedge formation was momentarily thrown into chaos, groans of the wounded could be heard and neighing of the horses only added to the scare of the dust-covered scene.
However, half a second later, those same Tempest Riders rode out of the cloud of smoke and dust, the cone of wind once again taking an indistinct shape in front of them. Many of those in the front rows were leaking blood from all over their bodies, some of them had even died and fallen along with their horses, but if one looked closely, the casualties didn’t exceed ten people. Furthermore, the white-blue armor of the wind was quickly reforming over the bodies of those wounded Tempest Riders. If one paid close attention, he would be able to spot that a lot of wind-element Qi was flowing to the front rows from the lines further in the back. All that energy was gathering over the bodies of those wounded and it was reforming their broken armors and even recreating the cone at the head of their formation.
This unity was one of the greatest strengths of the Tempest Riders and one of the things which made them so fearsome. Individually, and much less as wind-element practitioners, they would have never been able to take dozens of enemy attacks at this level and survive. However, the martial art they cultivated allowed them to achieve what should have been impossible and go further beyond that.