Chiron sat on a soft cushion in his room, a floor below Faust and Leona’s. His breathing flowed rhythmically and his mind was focused on perceiving his surroundings. Over the years his practice had evolved and no longer encompassed only his own body, but he took in his surroundings as well. Every smell, every sound, the feeling of his legs touching the ground, he had become a good observer of things.
Due to this practice, his awareness of his surroundings and perception, especially towards mana had skyrocketed. It was something many of his brothers experienced. They called it Anatta. The state, when someone feels one with the world.
To him, despite being an Arahant, this meant mainly, that during meditation, he would forget about himself, immersing himself in the sensations of his surroundings. While his senses were heightened to an incredible degree in this state, only little of it carried over to everyday life.
Only slowly, as the months and years passed, did his normal perception approach the level of sensitivity, he experienced during meditation. It was a constant feeling of progress.
Anatta, as his grandmaster Arkar, who founded the order, called it, was the state of complete selflessness. And Anatta was the state Chiron accessed in his meditation. Over long years of practice, he had become wise.
His goal was to never leave the state of Anatta. To make progress towards that goal, he would have to continue his practice, like his master and grandmaster had. Arkar had a profound revelation 60 years ago, where he realized, that no true self existed, that surpassed a moment. An energy they called mana made up everything. The entire world. Living beings or not, everything was composed of this fundamental energy.
One would change every moment and be different from who they had been before. Arkar’s conclusion was, that if one did not have a self, there would be no self to suffer from the world's evils and thus, his philosophy offered a path out of suffering, that needed to be taught to the world.
This was the core philosophy of the Golden Order, that Chiron had practiced all his life, and that had become a very part of him. He had attained mastery in this philosophy, yet they discovered, that there was something else to what he had uncovered. Their very minds changed and they gained superhuman capabilities after gaining insight into Anatta, the pinnacle of Arkanism, named after the Order’s founder.
Slowly but surely Chiron had been able to unlock a secret power that dwelled within his body. In the beginning, he had been unable to sense it, yet after being instructed by his master, he managed to discover his mana core and feel the energy within the world. It was within every living being. Cats, dogs, and man alike.
His sense was so profound, that he could even feel Faust’s vibrant and active mana. It was late already, but Chiron had years ago stopped to require sleep. Instead, he focused wholeheartedly on his practice.
He could hear the wood creak occasionally and some noise through the open window, yet after an hour or so Chiron was jolted to his feet. He had moved so fast, that a normal human would have been unable to see it.
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‘What is this mana? It feels so… wrong. So distorted!’ Chiron gasped and grabbed his staff, his face showing an expression of focus and wariness. He closed his eyes and focused on the feeling.
‘It is in Faust’s room. But…’ A shiver ran down Chiron’s neck and his head started to buzz. Then, without warning, he felt mana, so intense, he could practically taste it on his tongue. He nearly threw up from the shock.
‘It reeks of murder, no… much worse. I can feel the suffering of thousands of souls.’ His jaw clenched and for the first time in long years, he seethed.
‘What a vile energy! I need to take a look at it.’ Chiron shot through the door and up the stairs, disregarding the walls and doors, crashing through Faust’s door and straight at the energy source he had sensed using the Anatta state.
This all happened at full speed. He could sense a man through the walls and wildly tackled the source of evil mana right out of the room, and through the walls, out into the city.
‘A cultivator! How can such an evil mana even exist?’ the screams and wails, that assaulted Chiron’s sensible perception, threatened to overwhelm him. Only then did Chiron receive a heavy blow to the head before he crashed into another building with this unknown devil. Chiron lost hold of his opponent and landed on the floor nimbly, seeing his opponent slowly standing up a few meters from him.
They were in another courtyard, as they had shot through several buildings. It seemed like the perfect place to fight. Chiron’s brows furrowed as he calmed his mind and returned it to the calmness of Anatta. The man, clad in black, started to laugh. It sounded as if the man had lost all goodwill and a part of his sanity. All the while, Chiron focused on the mana flowing out of the man.
‘His body is not much stronger than me.’ Chiron concluded from their short battle. The two men stood there, looking at one another. Then Chiron chose to speak up.
“You. You are… a monstrosity.” He said as if stating a fact. This caused the man to chuckle after finally calming down from his fit of laughter.
“How wonderful, a Cultivator… even someone at the very peak of Stage One. How intriguing.” He licked his red lips, which showed under the shadow his hood threw over his face.
“That means… you will make for a nourishing meal, that will greatly speed up my recovery and conquest of this continent…” he cackled, and his hands began to shine with red light. It looked almost like mist, that started to whirl around his hands.
Using Anatta, Chiron could sense the mana on the man’s hands, and it was of the exact property, he had felt earlier. The suffering he sensed, could only be procured from torture and worse. It was so thick and bloody, that Chiron had trouble to even believe it. He knew, that killing could change a person’s mana, but to this extent?
‘Did he murder an entire continent?’ he couldn’t think of a way for someone to become this way. He had to put an end to this farce. The red light on the man’s hands threw a bright light into the darkness around them, lighting it up eerily.
Chiron could finally see the man’s face. He even appeared younger than himself, which surprised him further. Eyes, lighting up with red mana stared at Chiron intensely.
The monk, stood still before the Venerable, standing his ground. He was not afraid. He had long since discarded any attachment to life, a sense of self of fear of death. He would defeat this demon, to end the suffering of so many.
“DEMON!” he spoke with a loud, commanding tone, that resounded several hundred meters wide. “BY THE POWER OF THE GOLDEN ORDER, FOR THE SAKE OF ALL LIVING BEINGS…” he took a small breath, before charging forwards violently, with a roar that shook the ground around them.
“I SENTENCE YOU TO DEATH!”