Birth of the Sun Maiden

The wilderness between territories is a harsh place for any mortal, regardless of advancement. Though, there are those that call this place home and despite all common sense, they are happiest here. The people that live in the cities and villages call them ‘Wilder People’ to show their wild nature. This wasn’t too far from the truth, and many of these people chose to call themselves this to show their freedom and connection to nature. But, they also tended to live close to Shou tribes on account of their nomadic lifestyles. It’s not known for certain how they came across the term, maybe a ‘Wilder Person’ introduced themselves as such, but the tribes had begun to refer to them as ‘Wilderson’. Many more prefer to use this title, because much like how some felt a closeness to nature with the title ‘Wilder People’ this title gave many the sense of being a child of the wilderness. For some this instilled a deeper connection and they took on the role as protectors of the natural world itself. Much like Sundarata of the Red Desert, she proudly protected her home from those who would wish to rape the land of natural treasures.

From a young age, the endless greed of cultivators was taught to her along with a method of training that had been developed from generations of respect and trade with the Shou. Her particular techniques were developed by observing one of the elders of a nearby tribe, a ‘Midnight Jackal’. Part of her training even included the consumption of pills made with the elder’s blood, exchanged for gifts of alcohol and sweet fruits of course. But, it was believed that since Shou gain their power from their bloodline more than anything else, then by consuming that blood it could strengthen the cultivator and ease their advancement.

Sundarata was already close to breaking through to the soul realm by the time she was twenty summers old. She had become the pride of her tribe and was granted command over her own squad of warriors. And over the next few years her advancement had slowed a small amount as she took the time to grow as a leader and train a team that’s cooperation would even make wolves jealous. She would find the opportunity to advance during her twenty-fifth spring. But the night of her advancement would not be a joyous occasion like it was for most. Instead she would remember the tragedy as the night of her biggest failure.

It would start out like any normal patrol of the dunes, but her master tracker would be unlucky enough to catch wind of strange tracks. “Ma’am!” They’d call out. “You should see this. It doesn’t look like a Shou that would be native to this territory.”

She would come to find that the tracks belonged to a ‘Crystal Beetle’. They weren’t rare to the desert, but they were violently territorial and primarily inhabited oases. “Fan out, and remain vigilant. The only reason they would stray this far from a water source is if they’ve caught the scent of something more valuable.” She commanded.

Her team of twelve highly trained warriors knew exactly what was needed of each of them. They should have, she had trained up each and everyone of them directly. She did not finish their education until each of them was able to successfully lead their own team in capturing one of the most dangerous creatures in the ‘Red Desert’. Herself.

The warriors followed the tracks in a wide crescent, keeping in mind their own positions as much as each other’s. When the tracks came to an end her tracker carefully examined the sand for any signs of burrowing. The beetle was far more likely to take to the air than underground, but it was still a possibility they had to be wary of. Four of the warriors watched the sky, while four more watched the surrounding sands, and the rest including herself kept a close eye on the sand beneath their feet. After several excruciatingly long and hot minutes, her tracker had completed their survey and concluded that whatever had been there was now long gone.

The warm wind rapidly began to pick up; signs of a coming storm, causing one of the nearby dunes to shift into a sandfall. Sundarata watched as a dull emerald exoskeleton was revealed. “This is good.” She announced. “It’s molted, which can only mean that it consumed something with enough heavenly energy to push it’s growth. We have to quickly get back to the elders and warn them that there’s an unknown Shou that could possibly become hostile.” With her words, the entire team bursted into a comfortable sprint. They had a long way to go before they would return, and they couldn’t afford to wait.

The sun had finally set as they crested the last dune before their settlement would come into view. It was normally a beautiful sight of warm light from torches and communal fires, painting the cold night sky in layers of orange and red. They only witnessed a starry sky, painting shadows over the tents and simple huts so that they couldn’t see what had laid below. Approaching the silent camp, she came to the thought that something must have happened and the people evacuated before they could pack up the settlement. Sundarata motioned for her warriors to spread out between the structures and look for any stragglers, perhaps someone else had reported the ‘Crystal Beetle’ and warned the tribe to evacuate. 

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They went tent by tent, finding no signs of life or any struggle. Thankfully. And just as it seemed like everyone had gotten away safely and they were getting ready to track where they had gone, they heard a low crunching sound. The team instinctually snapped into formation as they surrounded the source of the noise. It was coming from the open air baths, of course it would find the nearest source of water. Sundarata readied her warriors before peaking around the sandy curtain, and what she saw confirmed her worries. It was a ‘Crystal Beetle’ it’s emerald chitin far more lustrous than the molt they found earlier and nearly twice the size. “Tsk.” she clicked her tongue, the Shou had grown too powerful and would prove suicide to fight without at least two soul realm practioners. She was about to motion for them to retreat and regroup with the rest of the tribe before the giant creature turned and she saw it’s meal.

Hanging out of its beak was a small tanned hand, her little brother’s bracelet wrapped around the wrist. The world went blank.

When she finally regained her awareness, she was breathing heavily and propping herself up with one of it’s antennae. She must have torn it away at some point. She quickly analyzed her surroundings as her training conditioned her to, nine bodies laid around the baths. More than half of her warriors were already dead, torn to pieces and thrown with abandon. The sound of steel against something hard shook her from her grief, she had living warriors to worry about. First they would escape and then they could mourn their comrades.

She was already too late though, the sound she heard was her tracker stabbing their blade into the beetle’s face. They were trying to force its beak open and free one of their only remaining team members, the soul already extinguished from their eyes. Sundarata looked around for the last warrior, maybe they could sneak up on the Shou and stun it. The tracker flew across the bath before crashing through the woven curtains. She looked back at the beetle and finally saw them, seated against a miniature stone mountain bleeding out.

“Ma’am!” The tracker labored. “Why did you suddenly attack it? We could have retreated.” They eagerly looked on for an answer, silence nonexistent under the crunching of bone.

She didn’t know what to say, it was her fault all of her warriors were now dead. “I-I-I…” she began to stammer.

“You killed us, ma’am.” They declared.

Sundarata was cold with sweat, her mind racing through hundreds of thoughts in an instant while her feet were frozen in place. The world went sideways. There was a sharp pain covering her entire right side as she flew through the air. Blood began to leak from a new gash underneath her fiery red hair, and she sat there content to let this monster eat her.

“It’s what I deserve.” She thought.

“You killed us, ma’am.” Her subordinates' last words echoed in her head.

She had no will, no sense of survival, she might as well already be dead, her soul trapped in a worthless vessel.

“Aaaagghhh!” The shrill scream of a young girl pierced the cold air.

Her body reacted before she even realized she was falling through the air and about to bring a waist thick pillar down on the beetle. A scared girl with red eyes and white hair cowered in a corner just on the other side of the Shou, she couldn’t have been more than four summers. Sundarata slammed the pillar into the crease that separated it’s head from its body. A metallic sound rang out, followed by the other worldly scream of a giant insect. While it was disoriented, she ran over to the girl and threw her shroud around her before scooping her up in the same motion and sprinting at full speed away from the settlement.

She didn’t stop until they were well outside the border of the camp. She hid the little girl underneath a rock ledge and warned her, “Stay here no matter what, until I come and get you.” What was she saying? Was she really going to go back and face that monster?

The little girl offered the shroud back to her, “Cold?” She asked.

It was only now did she realize how much of her thick and muscular frame was exposed, she smiled gently and leant down to pat the child on the head. “I’m okay, you keep it and you can give it back to me when I come back for you, okay?” She felt guilty lying to the child, there was almost no chance that she would come back. But the little girl nodded eagerly regardless.

She quickly made her way back to the camp, making sure to stop at the training grounds and grabbing several pike’s. It wasn’t hard to find the beetle again, memorizing the layout of their settlement was always the first thing she did after they migrated. And it helped that the creature stayed in the same place, finishing it’s meals. Her blood boiled up and she catapulted one of the pikes into its side, a second one was already whistling through the air before the first had stuck. Her arm coiled as one after another she bombarded it with the glorified sharpened sticks, not giving it room to react. By the time the last one had left her hands, she was already sprinting towards the green pin cushion. It frantically flailed around while trying to knock off the annoying weapons. 

Sundarata slid under an incoming swing from the beetle’s front leg and kicked up at the center of its abdomen. With the help of the solid stone beneath her, she was able to launch it several meters into the air and on the other side of the baths. The entire camp shook as it crashed back into the ground, several of its legs broken under its own weight. Now with it immobile, Sundarata roared with excitement. She didn’t have to finish this fight, she could wait for it to starve to death. Her excited roars transformed into howls as a heat slowly rose up within her core, a bright flash exploding outwards in every direction.

She had advanced.

Instead of stabilizing her advancement, like was often encouraged, she used the residual power from her breakthrough to bring a stone slab down on the beetle’s head. Finally defeating it before collapsing.

By the time the sun rose, Sundarata had woken up enough to feel something poking her face. When she opened her eyes, wide red one’s were staring back. “I thought I told you to stay put?” She laughed before groaning in pain.

“Your hair is pretty.” The little girl said.

She looked down to see that not only had it grown past her shoulders, but instead of the bright red she was always used to, it was now a deep black with hints of a dark blue. Just like the ‘Midnight Jackal’ elder.