Prologue: Broken Fealty, Reformed Unity
5 Years Later
Kadra
Kadra’s eyes opened, and the whirlwind of mana and chie that had surrounded him for what felt like years stilled in an instant. As quiet and still as stone buried in ice during the heart of winter. Still, silent, and at peace. A terrible peace.
In place of rage, Kadra felt conviction.
But his grief, ever his grief and the pain at his lost loved ones was with him. A fire, fueling his hatred. Hatred as cold as winter, and as deep as the eldest caverns of the earth.
After a few moments, someone approached. The footsteps were as soft as catpaws, and it was familiar. “Father.” The word was whispered, and filled with a mix of deep respect, and fear.
Kadra attempted to modulate his voice to match his sons. Knowing he hadn’t yet learned how to perfectly control the new power he possessed. And this son, a grandson really, but one he had personally raised after his mother, one of Kadra’s many daughters, had died in battle against a Voidling general.
“Speak.”
The world shivered at his command. He hadn’t meant it as such. With a twist of his will, his Authority changed it from a command, to permission. A visible weight seemed to shift off his grandson's shoulders that he had inadvertently placed there.
“Father,” the young Barron’s voice shivered as he spoke. “All preparations have been made. Your companions are down below, having undergone their own growth. The southern kingdom has declared for the Emperor, as you suspected they would. However they have not yet moved any forces in support. And it seems they themselves had undergone some kind of unrest over the decision.”
“Not unexpected.” He whispered the words, holding back his Authority, his power to shift and change the world as he saw fit, from his words.
“The North stands with you, fully united. The assassins have already struck several targets in retaliation for attacks from the imperial clan using mana and chie suppressing arts. The East is in disunity, as always. A few of the northern barrons have declared for us, while those further south along the golden road, and near the southern kingdom, have supported the Imperial Clan. Their King however, has yet to do so publicly. Though whispers suggest he will declare for one or the other soon. And the West has withdrawn entirely into their mountains and high peak fortresses. An unfortunate, but not unforeseen decision on their part.”
“What of the central province?” Kadra asked, but as soon as the thought hit him, images of the chaos there flooded his mind. Panic among all rungs of society, even some members of the imperial clan itself had fled. “Never mind. I see it now.”It came in flashes at first, but as he focused his mind he was able to force the images and events to obey and display itself for easy understanding. “Did the emperor reply to my challenge?”
“Yes.”
“And?” For some reason his new found sight could not reach that far. To see the intentions, even if only in passing, of someone of equal cultivation rank was always difficult. And this was, after all, a new power to him. But he saw it darkly. Shadows shifting around the Emperor and his will. Far more than he had ever been able to so much as glimpse as a King.
“A meeting is scheduled one month from now.”
“One month.” Kadra said the words, exploring them. Would there be enough time to get used to his new powers, and to learn to fight at this new level of existence? It’d have to be. He’d make it work. Vengeance was his patreon now, after all. He looked down into his lap and found the small bead of purple flame contained within pure glass he gripped in his palm. It represented his patron, the God that had chosen to guide him should he choose to ascend.
But in exchange, he’d have to give up the right to the kill. If the emperor wished to ascend during their duel as a way to escape justice, then Kadra had agreed to allow it. And he felt the chains there, binding his soul.
“Good enough.”
***
One Month Later
Kadra sat among the cold black vastness of the low heavens, and watched the Jade Empire bellow with a keen eye. The last month had been one of the most glorious, and pain staking exercises in patience and practice that Kadra had ever experienced.
But he had done it. And now, he had full control of himself.
The cold fire inside burned still. His rage. But it was contained. For now.
Far below, he watched as his sons, grand sons, and grand daughters, those that yet lived, met with emissaries from the Imperial Clan. His army, nearly three hundred thousand warriors, cultivators, mages, alchemists, and those who practiced even stranger arts walking the infinite paths of the Dao in all its diversity, stood ready to lay waste to the central district.
It was only half his forces. The other half remained in the north, ever watchful. Never forgetting their true purpose or cause. His people had always had the largest military force in any of the districts or kingdoms. Larger than any three of the other kingdoms combined. On top of that hsi people were by far the most battle hardened and ready for a fight.
But that experience, that will to fight, came with a deep seeded sense of purpose. One that his people would not abandon. Even for him. Not that he would have asked them too.
Eventually the meeting ended. A contract was signed, and it felt like the entire Jade Empire sighed a sigh of relief. The dual contract would forbid them from landing, or getting close enough to the empire itself to cause any real damage. The Kings of each of the kingdoms, and all those who were crownless, had come together and worked to protect the Empire from stray attacks.
Not that it would matter.
This fight would be over quickly, Kadra knew. Far quicker than anyone else suspected. He had spent the last several days spying into the Emperor's chambers, now capable of fully utilizing this new ability of his to see into the fates and realities of others. The Emperor had slept, in the dark, nearly the entire time. Only a few times waking enough to block Kadra’s intentional scrying.
The man hadn’t even been preparing.
A moment later, as Kadra’s vision shifted to the darkened chambers again, a tall, skinny, almost sickly looking man rolled himself off his massive bed and onto his feet.
“I suppose it is done then?” Emperor Dahow asked.
“It is.” Kadra whispered, and he was sure the Emperor heard every word.”
In a flash the man appeared in front of him in his human form. He has shifted himself through space, directly in front of Kadra. He was tall and sickly looking. But he had a King's face. “I am sorry it came to this Kadra.”
“Not as sorry as I am. I believed in you Dahow. I truly did. And you betrayed me, had my family killed, and I suspect, had a direct hand in many of the deaths of my children. And perhaps even my other wives. All in a foolish attempt to prevent my ascension.”
The emperor shook his head sadly. “You have let doubt water your roots for too long. That is preposterous. I have done no such thing. The only thing for which I am guilty, is perhaps leaving you to your grief for too long.”
“The dead dragon at the feet of my wife's corpse would beg to disagree.” Kadra reached down into his Authority, and did a very simple weaving. One that had been part of the contract. The duel would be sent through illusion magic to every kingdom's throne room, and would be on display publicly within the central district. His children, two Counts who were both on the verge of rising to Prince, and one Prince level cultivator, took over the control of the weaving as soon as he was finished with it.
“There. It is done. Now your shame will be seen by the entire Empire!”
The Emperor shook his head sadly. “Kadra, you are tired my brother. I know we have agreed to this dual, but it is folly. One of us will get hurt, or worse. Then the Empire loses one of its best servants, or even in the best of circumstances, is diminished. Will you not allow me at least a chance to speak to you before we begin?”
Kadra growled in annoyance, but nodded. He had to at least look in control of himself. The rumors the Imperial Clan had been spreading about his foundation being unstable, about his ascension happening before he was ready, and about how he might very well turn out insane or worse, had to be dispelled. And here was an opportunity.
“Fine. Speak, snake. And I will hear your poison words one last time. Before I pull your tongue from your mouth and strangle you with it.”
“Brother. I see the grief in your heart. You ascended with it as your foundation, as the glimpse into the Dao, the True Way, and it could be poisoning your mind and heart. Do not deny it Kadra, I have felt it since the very moment you learned of your third wife's tragic passing. And I have wished nothing more than to be by your side in your grief. To help sooth your ills, and give you what Grace I can in such times.” The Emperor shook his head sadly.
Kadra knew what he was doing. This snake was putting on a show for those below. Those watching. Using his image as a benevolent, if somewhat hands off ruler, to smear his name and the names of his family.
“But I felt you blamed me, and I did not wish to cause your grief to worsen by my presence. Though now I can see I chose wrong. It has festered. It has consumed you, and your cultivation path. But with my Grace, and the Gods guidance, we can place your feet on the path of enlightenment once more. If you will only let me help you. Then we can walk among the stars, or stride upon the earth and serve our people together. Please, call off this wasteful duel, and let us reason together as we always have.”
Kadra laughed, the absurdity of the Emperor's words hit him like a jester's punchline. In a flash, Kadra sent his memories through the illusion connections, and directly into the minds of the Kings below. They now knew. They saw. They felt his certainty, and understood the context and evidence he had of the Emperor's guilt.
“Shed no more grace on me, viper! Spare me your sympathy, Emperor.” He said the words as if they were poisonous, spitting them out with barely contained hatred. “For I see it for what it is, a hollow covenant. Mountains along the path of cultivation that you encourage us to climb, whose very peaks you have broken! The imperial path does not lead to the golden city, or its thrones. But to empty halls, filled with whispers of memory and tombstones of the brave whose sacrifice you glut yourself on.” He had spoken what so many for so many generations had only whispered. Very few followed the Imperial Path completely. Nearly every noble and royal family at least augmented the imperial teachings to be workable.
But the vast sea of peasants? Those who were stuck learning from imperial schools, rarely reached heights of power. Even the Imperial Clan itself did not walk the Imperial Road of the Dao. They took divergent paths, learning cultivation from ancient scrolls or texts that provided insight towards peaks with actual power and purpose. All while the masses who worked hard, were largely doomed to lives of mediocrity and slow progress.
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He had seen its effects on his own people. Reversing that trend, opening his kingdom's Sect Schools to peasants through scholarships for the most gifted before they wrecked their foundations along the Imperial Path, had been one of his first reforms. And it had, in Kadra’s estimation, laid the groundwork for this poisonous betrayal. As almost every other kingdom followed suit.
“No! Never again! I call you false, your promises turn to ash, your golden throne, and scales are dull to my sight now. For now, I see clearly. You are tarnished! And everyone else will see it too.”
Kadra felt the veneer that the emperor had cloaked himself in shiver slightly at his public revelation. The false beauty that the rest of the world saw, the illusion of grandeur that Kadra had suspected, but had never known for sure was there until he saw the emperor's sickly form upon his ascension. It wrapped around the Emperor like a dying man's favorite cloak. A comforting lie none but Kings had suspected until now.
Now, he knew. Kadra saw the snake for what it was, and the illusion for its purpose. It was a child's blanket made from Authority, one they were afraid to come out from under for fear of revealing their weakness, or perhaps a disfigurement.
Still, even Kadra couldn’t see the Emperor clearly. The sickly appearance was one that was still shrouded. Though far less so for Kadra then the rest of the world, who saw nothing but a golden figure who strode the world like a God.
If Kadra’s Authority over the world as a King had been like a deep mountain lake, now it was a world spanning ocean. With depths Kadra did not yet know. He pulled it together, infused his motion with his cleansing intent as cutting as winter's harshest ever-frozen darkness, and hurled it at the facade.
In a moment the illusion was ripped away. And what stood before him shocked even Kadra to his core.
The emperor was corrupted.
The golden scales in places shone as bright yellow as the sun at noon on a summer's day, while others were a dark sickly yellow, coated seemingly with a dark soot. But that alone was not enough to shake him. For Kadra had seen scale rot, and other disfigurements on dragons before. It was not an unheard of ailment.
A second dragon made of purist midnight shadow as dark as the void without starlight, moon, or sun, mirrored the emperor's form. Connected to the emperor only through thin tendrils of pitch black that leeched the color from his scales, feeding off the emperor, and in turn granting him greater power. It was the hallmark of a path so many other mortal cultivators had chosen, so many Kadra had personally killed due to their corruption.
The Emperor had made a pact with a voidling.
o, it was a Void Prince, the leaders of the other worldly armies that Kadra had fought so hard to destroy. The most powerful he had ever seen.
The Winter Lion in his soul space roared a challenge. It had an instinctual hatred for this, this thing the emperor had merged with. It pelted Kadra with its instinct to kill, to rend, and to leave the rotting corpse of the corrupted prey to rot.
The emperor had forged a contract with one of the world's greatest enemies, an enemy Kadra had been responsible for banishing from the world. If not forever, then at least for a time. Kadra had to call on the Heat of Winters Mountain, his oldest spirit companion to maintain his, and stop himself from giving into the wild beasts instincts.
“Faithless! Traitor!” Kadra wreathed himself in the Hearts fire, even as the embodiment of winter's coldest chill began to swirl around him. His spirit and beast companions come to life to guide, to protect, and to empower him.
Thank you friends, he said through his link to them, and he felt a wave of righteous fury nearly overwhelm him. How many sacrifices had they endured fighting these creatures? Only for the one who had ordered those sacrifices to embrace the very evil he fought?
Traitor indeed.
The Emperor stood shocked, his facade ripped away. “What have you done?” His voice was soft, almost sad. “Now, so many will have to die. All because of you.”
His form shifted then, turning into his true Dragon self. Kadra retreated higher, hoping to buy extra space for them to fight, and to mitigate any damage that he might do to those below. This was no mere honor duel anymore. This was a fight for the very survival of the Empire.
The corrupted emperor, now a twisted and hideous mochery of his once golden self rose to meet Kadra among the stars.
The emperor’s voice shifted. Reverberating in Kadra’s mind unnaturally, the emperor and his disgusting companion spoke in complete unison. “I am the Emperor! And if you will not obey, then you will suffer our wrath!”
The corrupted dragon lashed out with a bolt of white lighting as thick as a river. It was mirrored by another attack. This one as black as the void, greedily drinking in the light the emperor's attack produced as it trailed just behind.
One of the attacks would have been enough to create a breach through the center of The Wall even if its protectors were braced and ready. Two such attacks, he was sure would end him. No matter his new strength.
The Lion roared, and Kadra unleashed the beast's killing intent. Winter cut the Void attack down to nothing by sending its energy through Winter's semantic connection to the void's chilling nature, back to the empty realm the creature came from.
That was the secret of his people. And why kadra’s kingdom was so well equipped to face such deadly foes. His family in particular used Winter's chilly nature to weaken, or even banish voidlings. But even that advantage meant little, when the tides of enemies were endless, and ambitious cultivators shielded the enemy of creation from their wrath.
Kadra raised a shield made of molten rock, a gift from Heart, and intercepted the Emperor's attack. Deflecting it into the firmament as if it were a simple blade strike. With another roar, this one unheard but not unfelt by the Emperor as there was little air to transmit it, Kadra unleashed his companions primal aura. In a moment, his empty hand was filled with a sword made from purest white ice.
Inside the blade danced a small purple flame. A reminder of a covenant, little else.
“Come and face Winter's Wrath!” The words did not carry from Kadra’s mouth to the Emperor's ears. But his intent was clearly understood. The wretched Golden God of the Jade Empire, threw himself into Kadra’s waiting jaws.
***
The battle took days.
Lights flashed over the world, as the dualists moved, dodged, purried, and fought with all their might. Nights were bathed in golden and winter blue light overhead, days were marked by streaks of multi-colored aurora in places that had never seen such phenomena before.
Their attacks landed in several places. In the deepest deserts of Karaksa, to the far south, past the Toad Princes jungles one of Kadra’s ice blasts was broken on a shield raised by the Karaksa’s Tomb Kings working in concert. The ice shattered on that dome of force, and for the first time in recorded human history it rained over the Great Salt Lake.
It was not however, the first time the Tomb Kings had seen rain over the Salt Lake. As their Tombs were older then the eldest books in the oldest libraries of mankind.
Emperor Dahow had one of his lightning strikes deflected by kadra’s shield down into the middle of the Shadow Sea. The ocean was said to have boiled for over an hour, killing all living things for miles and miles around, and creating an off season typhoon that killed thousands in the cities along the Shining Shore boarding the Shadow Sea.
A Toad Prince gave his life to block a molten meteor that Kadra misfired, that would have ended his entire province in the eastern jungle of his people's homeland. Only through his sacrifice was that minor apocalypse averted. Instead the region suffered from sulfur poisoning, acid rain, molten rivers that spewed poisonous fumes, and jungle fires that burned for weeks. It wasn’t until the Toad Queen High-Priestess intervened to put an end to the disaster, that things finally began to settle.
Dozens more incidents were mitigated by local rulers, but none of them could be fully avoided. Tragedy struck the entire globe and millions died. Millions more would die, as the consequences of these tragedies, famine, disease, war, and worse unfolded in the years and decades to come.
Several times Kadra knew, knew in his bones he was going to die, only to find a new source of strength buried deep within himself. His survival, and eventual victory, was far from assured. But his hatred, fueled by his grief, drove him.
Finally, above the Jade Empire itself, after days of fighting the Emperor made a mistake. Trying to attack Kadra from multiple angles he and his shadow stretched their connection thin. It was a desperate move, but would have been effective. If Heart had not materialized, and taken the Golden Dragons blast on his great molten form, Kadra knew he would have died.
It took only a moment for Kadra to retaliate. Sending a winter sword strike directly at the Emperor and his voidling parasites connection. But at that moment, his eldest partner, a King cultivator himself now, was blasted into several dozen chunks. His hulking molten earth form floated in space, and cooled far faster than Kadra could save him.
Kadra’s own counter strike severed the connection and the Emperor and his parasite both screamed in agony. Kadra had seen the aftermath of such severings before. Even as his heart weeped for his oldest friend he watched as the Emperor withered, and the Void Prince he had sold his soul too was pulled back into the nothingness from which he came.
The Emperor, panicked and mortally wounded, bleeding chie as his core was ripped apart by the parasite's removal teleported away.
Kadra knew where.Back to his chambers. Back to the one place he had always felt safe, comfortable, and untouchable.
It was with no pitty that Kadra brought Winter's Wrath down on the Emperor's neck. The resulting explosion however, was not something he had expected. He watched as the Emperor's dragon form glowed a bright white, and the energy he had stored in every cell exploded outwards.
After a few moments, Kadra found himself standing in the middle of a crater where the Palace of Emperors had once been. Half the capital city was gone, turned into the vapor cloud that now hung over the remaining portions of the hopefully evacuated city.
He walked in a daze out of the crater, through the dust and rubble strewed city. He didn’t really know where he was going, or what he was searching for. This place had always been untouchable to his eyes. A city of progress, of power and authority unmatched by even the greatest capitals outside the central district. Floating palaces, illusionary gardens, and protections so powerful it was said that not even the Emperor Himself could damage the city.
Well, that turned out not to be true. The thought made him want to laugh, though he didn’t really find it funny. The stress of the last week of raw unrelenting aggression had left him sapped. Even his anger was quiet now. A wound numbed by exhaustion.
After a while he found himself walking among those fleeing the rubble. No one recognized him. Everyone and everything was covered in ash and dust from the explosion. Mothers clung to their children, fathers to their wives, as everyone remembered in this apocalypse, this end of all things that he had been a part of bringing about, what was most important to them.
It wasn’t until he was well outside the city limits when he finally found green grass again. He smiled and looked up at the golden sun. It was warm on his skin, and pleasant. The ball of hatred in his heart began, at that moment, just for a moment, to melt.
He watched as the sun moved around the world, just standing there in that empty field. People passed him, some tried to help him thinking he was injured. He ignored them, and eventually they moved on. It wasn’t until the sun rose the next day that people came in numbers. Portals from other parts of the empire opened all around him, and powerful men and women stepped through.
Most were Crownless. King level cultivators without territory or royal station. Some were Peak Princes, one was one of his own sons. He couldn’t quite remember which one at the moment, though he knew vaguely that he liked this one.
“Father. Father, are you alright?” His son asked him.
“He might be in shock. What he experienced, fighting a voidling like that for so long? It would exhaust even the Gods.” It was one of the other Kings, Kadra couldn’t recall and honestly, he didn’t really care all that much to try.
“Father. Something is falling to the earth, a remnant of your fight. We don’t know what to do about it, or if it's even all that important. But . . . but it could be. It's headed right here, for what's left of the central district.”
Kadra sighed, and silent tears fell. After a long moment of bracing himself, he forced himself to speak. Speaking now, might very well save him effort later.
“It's probably the body of Heart. He gave his life to save mine, and in so doing, allowed me to end the monster.”
His words were hollow. He had no authority left really. Not right now anyway. He would need to rest, let his mind and soul heal. His body was healthy, he was sure. But the second voice was right. He needed rest. It was . . . too much. Even for him.
“Alright, well. Father, it's falling this way. It will hit this very field. You have to follow us.”
“No.” Kadra said. “No, I will not leave. I’ll wait here for him. It's the least I can do to honor his sacrifice.” They tried to talk him out of it of course. But he simply refused. And none of them had the guts to try to force the matter. In his exhausted state he wouldn’t have had the will ot fight them if they had all worked together. And if he were being honest with himself, Kadra knew he wouldn’t have hald it against them. But they were far too afraid of angering the new Emperor.
So they left. Even his own son did, in the end. Too afraid of the dead corpse of his fathers eldest friend, to stay by his side.
The body hit, and again Kadra watched nearly unnaffected as an inferno incinerated nearly everything around him. He sighed, as he watched the flamed die, and the stones that had once been his friend and ally cool.
Where once the body was made of red and black magma rock, it was now covered in soot and ash. He walked to the largest piece of his old friend, and tried to brush the ash away. It didn’t leave. Frowning, he tried to use his authority to cleanse his friend's corpse, but again, despite the weaving having gone off successfully, it remained pitch black.
“What is going on?” He asked, and then suddenly the realization hit him. Before he could react, to incinerate the now corrupted corpse, the shadow disappeared. Kadra took off into the air and saw the shadow moving along the earth. “Flee fiend! I’ll send you back to your hell before I die!” He summoned Winter's Wrath, but just before he struck the shadow shattered.
A thousand shadows ran in a thousand directions.
The Voidling Prince had clung to his friend's corpse for survival. Or, at least a fraction of it had. And now that same voidling had just killed itself, birthing a thousand weaker children.
They would each take root somewhere in the world, and attempt to build enough power to open a rift.
He touched down back onto the now incinerated field he was once standing in, and felt the rage rekindle in his heart. He would scour the earth, burn everything he had to, freeze every inch of the world under unmeltable ice if it came to it, to banish this enemy.
Deep in the crater, at the heart of the city, within his very sight, one of those small fragments of the void prince found a place so infused with death and agony it was spiritually close to another aspect of that horrible realm, that the creature would be able to open a rift.
“Gods above damn it!”
He moved to close it. If he caught it early perhaps he could stop others from entering the world.
Then, on the far end of that same crater, another appeared. And then another. And another. As he watched six rifts were opened on the greatest sight of death the Jade Empire had ever seen.
The other fragments would go and find more places like this. Not that there were many in the world.
Except. . . hadn’t he and the Emperor just been causing such atrocities? All . . . over the world?
The horror of his own complicitness in his own greatest defeat, nearly caused his knees to buckle. Then his fingers touched the marble that held the purple flame, and he remembered. Vengeance. Vengeance would be his. If he only had the bravery and fortitude to seize it.
“Fine. I’ll do it myself.”
***
Hours later, Kadra stood in the heart of the crater again. The six rifts closed. He was bleeding, and had fought more fiercely then he had ever fought before, save his duel with the emperor. Blood ran freely from dozens of cuts on his arms, without his shield he was vulnerable to voidling attacks, though he was more resilient then he had ever been before.
Hundreds of Voidling Princes had been banished, their corpses burned, and their souls ripped apart, depending upon their nature. What remained of their corpses, those that left them, lay at his feet. He would burn them, just to be sure.
He let Winter's Wrath dissolve, and he felt the bone wery exhaustion from his remaining companions run through him. His knees shook, but he refused to fall.
Kadra turned, and walked back out of the crater. He couldn’t remember exactly how long it took him, but when he finally found himself, for the second time, back on green pastures with his back turned on a hellscape of destruction, he found he was not alone this time.
Dozens of men and women radiating power were with him. They were all covered in scratches and burn marks and other injuries stereotypical of fighting voidlings. There were the Kings of the Kingdoms, all four of them, and most of the Crownless. But more than that, there were dozens more he hadn’t noticed fighting alongside him.
These were just as injured, dirty, or covered in voidling viscera as the others, but they were of different stations. And all of them wore the same insignia. A Golden Dragon, rising into the sky.
The Imperial Clan had fought alongside him, had protected him, and from the look of things had taken many, many casualties as a result. The most powerful among them, a recently advanced Duke, stood, stepped forward and bowed slightly to him in a sign of respect.
“My name is Yal’da. I was a Count until halfway through that fight when I ascended to the Monarch realm as a Duke. Your son Ko’ja treated with me in the South where we tried to avoid this fighting. But we allowed our weaknesses both personal and political to get in the way. My clan, my family, did not know how deeply the rot went. We . . . we knew something was wrong, but we did not know it was . . . this. We did not know he . . . he was a traitor.”
Yal’da, the tall Duke, and now leader of the once Imperial Clan, slowly got on his knees, and bowed to the earth, pressing his forehead down into the dirt.
“We wish to atone for our error. In allowing this rot to fester. Please, Emperor. Allow me, allow us to serve.”
For the first time in recorded history, a dragon bowed to a man. Not in respect, not out of piety or kindness. In obedience.