Quiet slumber encompasses my entire existence as I lay adrift in a sea of warmth and comfort, but the sweet serenity of peaceful oblivion is denied me for reasons unknown.

Perhaps it’s my anxiety and paranoia keeping my mind churning in nervous activity instead of idle and resting, parsing through memories of the last few days in a desperate bid to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that the events I experienced were real rather than more illusions implanted by my insidious foe. More likely is that this is the price I must pay for overexerting myself, the aftereffects of Healing Dad’s ruptured heart after a steel bolt passed clean through it. A price I’d gladly pay a thousand times over for any one of my friends, family, or loved ones, but that doesn’t mean I can’t complain about it. Then again, this whole fugue state could also be a figment of my imagination, my semi-conscious and almost waking mind making me think I’ve been stuck in this purgatory for what feels like forever when in fact only seconds have passed, a slow start after a long rest like a car warming up in the winter.

Whatever the reason, the soothing nothingness I so desperately desire is denied me as my restless thoughts flit about that unsatisfying midpoint between sleep and waking, a dream of nothingness in which I only wish for existence or oblivion instead of this unhappy medium.

It’s like me before my morning coffee, or at least how I used to be when coffee was still a thing. Despite not remembering how it tastes, I miss that morning pick-me-up with all my heart, but even with the considerable manpower and resources at my disposal as Legate of the Outer Provinces, I have yet to find that elusive bean to grind into a powder and insert directly into my veins. A joke, just to be clear, because that’s not what you do with coffee, a fact I feel obligated to clarify in case my conscious self is paying heed to these subconscious ramblings. Then again, I doubt I could ever forget the wonder that is coffee, a love that has persisted from my last life to cross over into this one, despite having forgotten the faces of my parents and the name of my dog. Weird how the brain works, especially my brain, or so I would assume considering I’ve never experienced how another person’s brain behaves. Well, not entirely true, as I did take up the mindset of a different person to become someone else, the brave and courageous Baledagh who resembles the person I should have been, if I’d been born into this world naturally at least.

That’s the part of me I most love and hate, the memories of my past life. Though they’ve made me who I am today and are largely responsible for all my achievements, I wholeheartedly believe I would be so much happier without them, because then I’d be Baledagh in truth, a person who grew up in this world of trials and tribulations without the ponderous baggage of a past life to compare everything to. Much as I love the life I’ve made here, there are so many things I wish were different. I miss being able to sit down and turn off my brain as I watch stupid shows in the comfort of my own home, but more than that, I hate knowing I once could do exactly that, and instead I am left to languish in this technologically lacking world. The worst part is I don’t know enough about anything to directly drive progress along, as I am not a craftsman or artificer or even a proper researcher, but instead just a guy with a head full of vague concepts to pass along to others. I’m an idea man, and as anyone who’s done anything of note would know, ideas are almost always worthless. Sure, there are always stories about how one person took an idea and turned it into a multi-billion dollar company, but you never hear about the millions of people who had a brilliant idea and either did absolutely nothing about it or failed in execution. Survivorship bias is what it’s called, the fallacy of only paying attention to the people who made it big and forgetting the thousands of casualties along the way.

I suppose I’m not only musing about ideas anymore, as my thoughts have wandered into military territory now. They say that behind every Great General lies a mountain of corpses, but what most people forget is that many of those corpses might well have been potential Great Generals themselves. Let’s take my personal mountain for example, and think back on all the people I killed with my own hands. Like the bandits I killed after they attacked our caravan during the dead of night. Though I was years off from forming my Natal Palace, the memories of that fateful encounter are still fresh in my mind, for I’ve relived them time and time again. We’d already been attacked once that day, a failed ambush from an overconfident idiot wearing a wolf-pelt who had no business leading bandits, and my brief nap was rife with fresh nightmares of people I may or may not have killed with my bow from afar. This was way back when my mountain was merely a corpse pile of one, namely Gortan who I hated with all my heart and still feared despite having splattered his brains across the dirt several years ago.

And so, when it came my turn for nightly sentry duty, I started Demonstrating the Forms in a forlorn hope of tiring myself out enough to avoid a second round of inevitable nightmares once I laid my head down to rest again.

A rustle in the grass attracts my attention, my eyes drawn towards the sound even as I ready my bow and arrow. Metal scrapes on stone and I signal to alert the camp, while an unseen sentry looses an arrow at a bandit who I now know was closer than I thought at the time, within striking distance in fact. Someone was looking out for me, or more specifically, supervising me as I went about my life wholly ignorant of their existence, playing the part of guardian and warden both. It was years before I picked up on that fact, overlooked in the heat of the moment and all the nightmares which followed, but I am now a hundred percent certain I wasn’t saved by an idle sentry as I initially believed, and only kinda suspect that it could’ve been Naaran who pulled my ass out of the fire. Dad was out on patrol duty at the time, while Mom, Alsantset, and Charok wouldn’t have stayed hidden for the entire trip, not after what I went through in Shen Huo. It could have been Akanai or Husolt, or really anyone else, but somehow, I just have this inkling that it was Naaran. There’s a strange familiarity about him that I never really noticed until I stopped to think about him, a sort of unspoken understanding between us which I have no idea how it developed.

When I first became aware of his presence, I always kept an eye out for him, partially because I didn’t like having someone lingering about, but also because if I did have to have someone watching me from the shadows, I would rather it be him. That’s why I always nodded at him without meaning to, greeting him in a quiet manner like you would an acquaintance you pass on the street, to the point where the surly old man had to lecture me about giving away his presence and position. From then on, I still looked for him, albeit in a less obvious manner, not only to prove to myself that I could find him but also to reassure myself with the knowledge that he was there, and he never said anything about it again. Just like that, he’d become a sturdy pillar in my life, one shouldering the weight of the Heavens to keep it from crashing down on me, and I’ve since come to rely on him in so many ways.

And yet, despite spending so many hours of my life with him at my side, I’ve never actually sat down and talked to Naaran. I can sum up everything I know about him in two simple statements; he’s Dad’s old friend and rides a Spiritual Quin named Kharuul, who is a heckin’ big chonker with a sweet tooth to match Lin-Lin’s, and loves floating around in the shallows so the pups have a safe place to go back to when they’re still learning how to swim. Shit, I know more about his quin’s personality than the man himself, which just seems kinda rude and all. Does he have a wife, kids, and grandkids waiting for him back at the village, or is he an aged widower who volunteered for babysitting duty just to have something to do? What about siblings and nieces and nephews? Siblings... probably not, as there aren’t many amber eyed People still running about, though considering he’s Dad’s age, it’s possible any non-Warrior siblings would have already passed away due to old age. What about interests? What does he do when he’s not pulling double duty as nanny and bodyguard? Does he enjoy the opera, or is he as bored of it as I am? Does he play chess? Mahjong? Does he drink often like Husolt, or only on special occasions like Dad?

The big takeaway from all this is that I should get to know Naaran more, even though I feel like our relationship has developed like this because he prefers things this way. Maybe he’s as anti-social as I am and doesn’t want to be best buds, or maybe he thinks I’m an idiot and is only here out of pity for his old friend. Regardless of his reasons, I should at the very least invite the old man out for a meal or something, a gesture to show my appreciation for all that he’s done for me. Geez, now I’m nervous about having dinner with Naaran of all people, not sure how to bring the matter up. What’s wrong with me? Why do I so desperately want him to like me all of a sudden? Because it just occurred to me that he might not like me, and I would just hate that. It’s one thing to be a burden to my family, because they love me and suffer gladly for it, but being a burden to a stranger is another thing altogether. I mean, he’s been guarding me all this time and I don’t even know if he’s being paid for it, though I suppose he probably draws a salary as a Sentinel, right?

...

......

What was I thinking about again?

...

Right, the mountain behind me and the path I took to get here.

After Naaran saved my ass, I started firing blindly at sounds in the darkness, a move I now look back on with shame and regret. Thankfully I was on guard duty and thus supposedly standing on at the edge of the camp, which meant there shouldn’t have been any allies in my line of fire, but I never even considered that in the moment. What’s more, as this was a training mission comprised mostly of raw recruits, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Akanai had a team of hidden protectors helping her watch over her gaggle of noobs. Mother knows if some Peak Expert came close to taking an arrow in the heart, and I would never have been able to live with the regret, but I like to think I’ve come a long way since, though I still have a tendency to shoot first and ask questions later when it comes to taking action in the heat of the moment.

As I did back then, firing blindly into the darkness before drawing spear and shield to fight off my assailants, mundane weapons with which I had no bond to help guide my efforts, but my deadly training takes over. My shield slams into the first form I see, the distinctive crack of bone and gurgle of pierced lung telling the more experienced me that my foe was not only a commoner, he was also as good as dead from the first hit, but the younger, amateur me of memory didn’t pick up on the clues and wasted time stabbing a dying man without even finishing him off and sparing him the pain. The mistake leaves me open to three more assailants who charge in without fear, and my memories blur as I panic and fight for my life without ever being in any real danger. Luckily, even though one of the three is an actual Martial Warrior, he’s a bottom of the barrel chump whose only saving grace is being a little stronger than your average man, which is still a significant advantage over the spindly, malnourished fifteen year old me. Sixteen? I can remember the event clearly, but not how old I supposedly was, on account of having lived more years than I can remember.

Silly of me not to cherish this second chance at youth, but in my defence, I was still scrambling to learn how to survive and stand on my own two feet in this world of trials and tribulations.

The fight is messy and hard to watch when viewed through my recreated third person perspective, amateur hour all around. I luck out as my opponents run out of steam and step back for a breather, giving me the time and space needed to hurl my spear clean through the closest bandit, though in hindsight, I should’ve aimed for the Martial Warrior with the big two handed sword. A mundane one, thank the Mother, which I then proceed to smash out of his hands, but even unarmed he comes dangerously close to killing me as he tackles and slams me to the ground. A second slam threatens to knock me out cold, but then his friend fucks everything up by warning him to stay down. This tells me an attack is coming for my head, so I lift the tackling bandit into the arc of his friend’s sword and am rewarded with a cry of pain, though both bandits still yet live. With the Martial Warrior wounded and out of the equation for a few seconds, I scramble to my feet and face the last bandit, but fail to react in time and lose my shield and a chunk out of my shoulder for the trouble.

With only one arm and an arrow to fight with, I capitalize on my opponent’s lacking battle sense and dodge as he charges into my range, jabbing him in the side, then the throat, only to continue stabbing as I watch the life drain out of his eyes with a twisted smile etched across my face. Fear and adrenaline, or my darker nature taking hold? No, I know myself better than that, because even though combat has me shaking in fear, the act of taking a life fills me with concerning glee. Unlike Fung, I have always and forever been in love with death and violence, for it represents a freedom I never expressed in my previous life. I was no soldier or warrior, just a mundane man in a world of technological marvels who only ever had to leave home to walk the dog and restock the fridge. I could have stopped after stabbing my foe the first time and given him a chance to surrender, or after the second and waited for him to bleed out, but instead, I kept stabbing his neck, chest, and abdomen until his blood covered my hands and he stopped moving, which was long after he was dead.

That is who I am. There is no denying it. Much as I love peace and tranquility, I yearn for conflict and bloodshed all the same.

A heady rush surges through me as I relish my kill, and I loom over the unconscious Martial Warrior who likely passed out from shock rather than his light injuries. For long seconds, I consider taking his life as he lays helpless before me, imagined it time and time again to try and sate my darker urges. Still lost in the surge of bloodlust, I move to retrieve my weapons with only a single working arm, and even after so many years have passed, I’m still not sure what I intended to do next, because I never had the chance to do anything before Mila appeared and stopped me from doing anything I would regret. Hell, I didn’t even think to start Healing until her scolding brought me back from the brink, as I was too busy staring at the other man, the one I’d killed. A young guy, early twenties and as ordinary as could be, with no physical markings to prove he was evil to the core, just a guy who turned to banditry to fill his belly. Was he a good man? Probably not. Does that mean he deserved to die? Debatable considering he attacked our camp in the dead of night, a camp filled with commoners and fresh-faced Sentinel recruits who were barely old enough to grow beards and boobs. Had he come across a weaker, less guarded caravan, the man I killed might well have raped and murdered to his dark heart’s content, but I don’t know that for certain. Maybe he only turned bandit because he’d been unable to find enough work to fill his belly, or maybe he’d been born into the life and saw it as his only chance for survival. All I know is that he could have run and left his Martial Warrior friend to die, but he didn’t. He, a mere commoner, stayed and fought, and for that, he died, while his friend lived and was brought to Shen Huo to serve out his sentence.

How is that surviving bandit doing now? Did he accept a deal and turn soldier to fight for the Empire in lieu of toiling away in a prisoner work camp? If so, it’s possible he’s a part of my army even now, burning with fervent desire to retake the West and throw back the Enemy from our lands. His friend, however, is dead and gone, with no chance of redemption in store for him, because I couldn’t control my fear and stabbed him sixteen times at point blank range and found it oh so exhilarating. That’s what haunts me most, not his dead face haunting my nightmares, but those accusatory eyes reminding me of the joy I felt in his moment of death, and the fact that I never even bothered to look at the first bandit I killed. I’ve always had a darker side, one I’ve tried to deny, but even Mila saw through my bloodthirst back then. I could have let that second bandit live, but I didn’t, and while I wasn’t exactly wrong to kill in that situation, I still wonder if I could have done things differently there, and what might have come of it if I did.

After that night, I had two more bodies heaped onto my mountain, but more would join them there soon enough.

I didn’t kill Dugu Tian Yi and his two horrific sons, but I was the one who brought about their downfall. Husolt killed DuGu Ang for daring to threaten Mila, but he only did so because of my conflict with his brother, Ren. Their father, Tian Yi, was already firmly aligned against Magistrate Tong Da Hai, but he might have won his match if I wasn’t sent out to infuriate him beyond reason. I’ve gone over every aspect of that duel countless times now, and Tian Yi was so unhinged he barely had control over his Chi, which was the only reason I managed to put up any sort of fight. Add in the fact that both duellists were forbidden to kill, and it’s no surprise he lost his temper when faced with the man responsible for his son’s death. As for Ren, even though I ran my sword across his throat, that was a mercy compared to what had been done to him already, three lives taken and a famed household ruined all because I was pushed aside in a crowd and couldn’t keep my drunk mouth shut.

Was their response to my disrespect justified? Of course not, or at least I don’t believe so, but I could’ve just accepted the shove and went on with my life, and maybe, just maybe, I’d have DuGu Tian Yi and his two talented sons here at my side to help me retake the West. DuGu Tian Sha was the pinnacle expert of his time, a Living Legend of yesteryear whom the Living Legends of today looked up to, and who’s to say his son Tian Yi wouldn’t have reached those same soaring heights? Alas, we’ll never know, because the DuGu family line came to an early end all because they had the misfortune to cross Falling Rain’s path. Three more bodies in the mountain, with so many more to come.

My merry band of cripples, sixty-seven strong at the start and reduced to a mere eight within a year of entering my service. At the time, I thought I was doing them a favour, but they probably would have survived longer on the streets of Shen Huo as cripples. Rustram, Bulat, Ravil, Silva, Pran, Saluk, Viyan, and Birca are all still with me, but the list of those I left behind is too long to go through in its entirety, and while time has eased the pain of their loss many still feature prominently in my nightmares. Cham most of all, a man who was a drunk and a ruffian, yet spent all his free time making toys to donate to the orphanage, because he remembered his childhood and how devoid of fun and games it’d been. He bled out in my arms and I couldn’t do a thing about it except watch the light fade out of his eyes. I couldn’t even offer him any comfort in his dying moments, as Bulat had to be the one to step in, and that failure hurts almost as much as losing the man himself.

Then there’s the bandits I captured and claimed for my own retinue, the former Mother’s Militia turned soldiers. I learned my lesson from my first group of cripples and tried not to get too close to them, but I still find myself looking for familiar faces who have long since died in battle. Like Awdar who I helped overcome his Spectres and addictions, or Jinoe, whose filthy mind came up with the dirtiest jokes which never failed to put a smile on my face, both of whom met their ends on the fields of JiangHu. I only found out weeks after the fact, two more names among so many that I added to my mountain without even realizing. Dastan’s retinue hasn’t fared any better, going from fifty talented elites to less than ten since they were forced to swear slave Oaths in Sanshu, all their lives lost in my name yet the survivors still see me as their benefactor.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Since Sanshu, my retinue has only grown in number alongside the mountain of corpses behind me. Even the heroes of the Iron Banner died to keep me safe. Cheery Mengu, fierce Khagati, and innocuous Kharnate all fell in Sinuji, and there is not a day I don’t wonder if they regretted their decision to join me. Each of them left people behind, siblings, parents, children, and in Khagati’s case, his beloved wife Yaruq, all to protect a cripple foundling they stumbled across all those years ago. Then there’s all the loyal Sentinels, reformed bandits, vagabond Protectorates, fanatic Aspirants, and brave commoners who have joined my mountain, so very many people and more added to the near endless litany of names which has long since gotten out of hand. There are times when I need to stop and think if someone I knew is still alive or long dead, which always leads to more grief and guilt, to say nothing of all the poor animals who’ve died too. Since coming to this world, others have paid the blood price while I reap the rewards, emerging time and time again to secure fame, wealth, love, and power aplenty while most of the people who helped raise me to such heights have long since been consigned to ashes in the wind.

Most days, I am happy with my new life here, but then I remember the price I paid and wonder if I am worth it, a question I cannot ask the fallen, and lack the courage to ask the survivors. Why did so many people have to die for me to arrive where I am today? How many more will die in my journey to force my ideals onto a world that will likely fight tooth and nail to oppose me? My crossbows, catapults, and cannons have been used to great effect against the Defiled, but will I be able to stomach turning those weapons of war against fellow soldiers of the Empire? Even after all I’ve done with the reputation I’ve made for myself, the Emperor would only need to issue a single Edict to reverse it all, as I doubt even Nian Zu would turn rebel to fight on my side.

That’s the power the Emperor holds, and I have no idea how he managed it. I once noted how the Empire has no real formal religion besides a disorganized yet communal worship of the Mother Above, but I’ve since come to realize it’s because the distant and absent Emperor fills that void in their lives. With his power, he might as well be a god to most in this world, an aloof authority figure who renders unseen judgment from afar. That’s why the Emperor renounces his birth name upon taking the throne, becoming the Emperor first and foremost to all, for it is more than a mere title, but a mantle of sorts, a head of state and religious icon both wrapped up in one. For as long as the Empire has existed, the Emperor has sat on the throne, and while the physical person may be killed and replaced, the Emperor persists so long as the Empire still stands.

Or at least that’s what I assume Zhen Shi meant when he claimed he would be the first to topple ‘the’ Emperor from his throne, as opposed to ‘an’ Emperor, though I’d be lying if I wasn’t concerned about the possibility the Emperor is actually an eternal, body snatching monster of antiquity, making me the bad guy in Zhen Shi’s heroic journey to overthrow the tyrant. Honestly, if that’s the case, I’d probably write this world off as a loss and head back to the mountains to live my life in peace, because fuck everything about that specific nightmarish scenario.

That’s the real problem I’m facing now, one of motivation. Zhen Shi’s adaptive responses to my tactics has got me second guessing about my chances, and now his words and tactics have me wondering if it’s even worth fighting him to the bitter death. If this whole war was truly part and parcel of some greater Imperial political struggle, then just what am I fighting for? The safety of innocents, but while defending them against the Defiled is simple enough in theory, I have no idea how I could even begin to protect them from Imperial machinations. Though I still yearn to save the West from the clutches of the Defiled, I no longer have the confidence to fight this out if the true Enemy is the actual Empire instead. I can slaughter Defiled without losing too much sleep because most are unrepentant monsters, blood-crazed cannibals who delight in the torment and suffering of others. It’s another thing altogether to fight relatively sane Imperials who wholeheartedly believe that I’m a traitor and apostate who threatens their Heaven-sent Emperor.

For this reason, I yearn for sleep, because at least then I can stop thinking about my problems for a bit, but even this is denied to me in this time of lacking consciousness. The waking world is denied me because my body and soul are too weary from my overuse of Chi, to the point where even my Natal Palace is out of reach. All I can do is suffer my own company in this semi-conscious state and await my return to the waking or spiritual world. This might well be my own personal hell, because I am nothing if not ever critical of my own actions, and this downtime gives me plenty of time for scathing introspection, burdening myself with guilt and obligation like disgusting sugary treats which only serve to pack on unwanted fat. My mind makes a full loop as I ponder through the implications of my decisions and replay my life back in detail, wondering if I could have changed things by doing something, anything, everything different, or if I would have been better off dying in the camps. My mountain has more bodies than just soldiers I’ve lost, as I’ve also killed a good number of people with my own two hands. Some were deserving, and others just collateral damage, like the two young heroes of the Society Teng Wei Chuan and OuYang Yu Jin. I could have spared the first and was so bloodthirsty I never even tried with the second, killing two promising young soldiers serving at the Wall who might well have had many future contributions. Then of course there’s all the pursuers the Society set upon me and my family in the first place, though the only one I truly regret killing is Elder Ming’s unfortunate nephew Zhong Lang, who I could have easily spared, but didn’t because I wanted to send a message in blood to the people threatening my family.

A message which went largely ignored by most and ended up escalating matters even further, but even I can’t blame myself too much for that one. Alas, even then, I still feel bad about the kid’s death, especially once I remember how scared and helpless he was, but he came after my family, and I would sooner stand aside and watch the world burn than let my loved ones suffer any harm.

This is all of course without touching upon what might well be my greatest sin of all, beating Gen within an inch of his life and leaving him to stew in the humiliation simply because it made me feel better about myself. Sure, he brought it upon himself by assaulting Qing Qing like he did, but I was strong enough then to stop him without going so far. I lost myself to rage, then held myself back, not because I didn’t want to kill him in cold blood, but because I thought his life was so miserable it would be a mercy to take it away. How many have died for my pride that day? Too many to count, and they all belong on my mountain as well, to say nothing of sweet Qing Qing herself, who I failed in so many ways.

When I finally get tired of second-guessing my past decisions, I set my sleepless mind to fretting about the future and all the pain and torment lying hidden down my steep and seemingly insurmountable Path. Say I defeat Zhen Shi and drive the Defiled out of the West, a tall task to be sure, but one I am reasonably confident I can complete so long as I have the support of the outer provinces. What comes next? Resettling the West I suppose, and dealing with the fallout of Zhen Shi’s backers coming after me for ruining their grand schemes. I doubt I can count on Shen ZhenWu to shield me, as I will likely have long since served my purpose at little to no cost to him, meaning he will throw me to the wolves without thinking twice. I mean, even a blatantly Imperial attempt on my life couldn’t bring him out of hiding, and I doubt he cares if Miss Rou or her backers try to kill me a second, third, or fourth time, so long as nothing can be traced back to him. It sucks to even consider it, but it might be time I cut my losses and head home for the decade to let this whole kerfuffle play out. The people of the West will suffer, and will only suffer longer even if I succeed, because I’ve run the numbers and even combined, there’s no way for North, Central, and South to sustain the West without bleeding themselves dry. The West’s greatest natural resources are considered luxuries after all, making them an expense which the other provinces can do without.

That being said, I cannot see myself ever walking away from this conflict, not even if ordered to by the Emperor himself. I’ve experienced firsthand how the Defiled treat their slaves and seen what awaits them at the end, one at the bottom of a cooking pot if they’re lucky, and as the centrepiece of a macabre tapestry of flesh and blood if they’re really unlucky. That means that I need to step up my game in order to survive, to make it so Dad, Naaran, Binesi, and all my other protectors no longer have to put their lives at risk to defend mine. I almost lost Dad today, or however many days ago I fell into this coma, and I cannot bear the thought of actually losing him. Even now, I’m still not entirely sure if I saved him or if my brief chat with Lin-Lin was merely a figment of my imagination, a wonderful, pleasant dream to keep me from forcing myself awake and possibly doing even more damage to myself than I’ve already done.

I’m certain that’s the issue here, that this comatose trance is self-inflicted so I can take the time to Heal and recover from overusing my Chi. It happened after JiangHu after all, when I called upon the Energy of the Heavens to summon a storm cloud in order to shed all my earthly emotions, the actions of a frightened fool who only wanted to get away from it all. Even then, I knew that Zhen Shi had pushed me to sever my fingers in the dream world contained within his writhing cloak so he could get his hands on slivers of my soul, yet there I was delivering an all you can eat buffet of soul which I severed without thinking of the consequences. Most of it went out in the world to do what I myself could not, raising Irregulars to Martial Warriors and guiding wayward Defiled into the arms of the Brotherhood, but as I have already noted, there is a dark side which I do my best to ignore, so who knows what those most sinister of intents were up to? It’s possible a part of me sought Zhen Shi out in hopes of obtaining power and knowledge, or perhaps he knew enough to collect my severed soul the same way he collected my illusory fingers. I don’t know which one it was, but I’ve no doubt my actions in JiangHu played no small part in his newfangled understanding of my abilities, and I have no one to blame but myself.

It’s infuriating going up against an opponent who knows exactly which buttons to press to get me dancing to his tune. Zhen Shi has targeted my family before, but only through illusions, and not perfect ones either, like when he had Gen handle the details and the idiot not only forgot to account for smell, but also went to great lengths to feature Naaran in the death illusion instead of someone actually close to me. Now though, my enemy is targeting my family in real life, because that bolt was not aimed at me. Zhen Shi wanted Dad dead, and more than that, he wanted me to be there to see it, but he fucked up. Terrifying as it is to know my family is in danger, my fear pales in comparison to the sheer rage bubbling up from inside me, a smouldering pit of seething hatred that drives me ever onwards to see this threat removed.

Zhen Shi woke the fucking dragon when he went after my family. Fear has always held me back, but it has also been a large part of my motivations, for I always channelled my fear into reckless courage, fear which I will now use to destroy my foe. Not because it is the right or just thing to do, or because he’s a murderous bastard leading an army to overthrow the Empire, but because no one touches my family. Doesn’t matter if it’s Zhen Shi, the Legate, or the Emperor him-fucking-self. You come after my family, and I will not rest until I see you dead. That is my oath, my motivation, my conviction to this cause, one born of fear, anger, and the desire for sweet vengeance.

Forget being the hero. To protect the people I love, I would make a deal with the devil himself if need be.

Perhaps that’s the reason for my current plight, this state of restless slumber plagued by so many overactive thoughts. While my body and soul have both shut down to recuperate after being overdrawn and overworked, my mind refuses to follow suit in favour of ruminating on my darker emotions in a heated fixation on vengeance. In the months and years after leaving the slave camp, I dreamed of what I would do to the piggy guards if I’d had the chance. I’d force them to do all manner of backbreaking labours, then punish them for failing to live up to impossible standards. I’d vary the punishments of course, make them compete to be the least punished, because there is nothing more cruel than false hope. I would rip the nails off one piggy and tell him to smile for me, take the lash to another and comment about what a nice jacket he’d make, and simply deny food or water to a few others so they feel more fortunate than the rest. Gortan though? I had something special in mind for him, because he was the worst of them by far. His days would be filled with all manner of punishments as he failed at everything I set him to do, and I wouldn’t even bother making good excuses. He would serve as a living reminder of what happens when you anger me. He’d get the lash for being ugly and waterboarded for being smelly, then flayed and branded for good measure. At night when the piggies finished work for the day, I’d nail Gortan’s hands to the wall of their sleeping quarters, just high enough so he can almost rest easy, but too high for him to have any slack. In the morning, I’d wake him up with a boot to the ribs and Heal his hands so he can get back to work, on top of whatever other injuries he suffered the previous day, all so he could be fresh and recovered for a new day of abuse.

These thoughts have always been there in the back of my mind, but I’ve never given them free reign or indulged them too much, but here and now in this quiet period of introspection, I realize my hatred might well be the greatest obstacle to my path going forward. Fear controls me, and I control fear by turning it into anger and hatred, and fearful as I am, it means I also harbour a fair amount of the other two as well. How am I to find Balance when I yearn to subject my enemies to the pain and torment they subject upon their victims? Gen was a bully, so I bullied him, beat him bloody and made him feel weak and powerless. The Defiled turned a tiny village into a charnel house of horror, so I wanted to string them up on the trees and gut them while they still lived, to hear their screams which would serve as warning to the others of what awaited them should they cross me. The bandits sought to murder and pillage, so I thought it would be best to kill them then and there, because death was a better alternative to slavery, but I was wrong to do this. An eye for an eye sounds like justice, but as the saying goes, it also leaves the whole world blind.

This line of thinking is why the Purge nearly broke me, because not only were there atrocities being committed before my eyes, there was a part of me that understood the rationale behind it. How do you fight a foe you cannot see, one who whispers hatred into your heart and forces you to confront the darkness in your own heart? The Spectres are a plague upon humanity in more ways than one, and without medicine to treat it, the only solution is containment and eradication to keep this disease from spreading. Unfortunately, the source of this contagion can never be truly eliminated, for so long as there are humans and Heavenly Energy, there will always be Spectres to torment us.

Perhaps this is why some people are more susceptible to Spectres than others, not because they’re inherently more evil than the rest of us, but because they don’t know how to deal with the inner malevolence present in all humans. We are not a magnanimous race, but one driven by war and conflict, and without the Enemy to unite us, I’d bet dollars to donuts that the Empire would have long since fractured into dozens of warring city-states. Competition for resources is ingrained into our nature, because we are animals in everything but name, tribal creatures of strife and struggle that thrive on an ‘us or them’ mentality. Big Poppa Piggy wasn’t wrong when he called justice, honour, and integrity ‘false concepts made up by bored humans sitting safe and happy in their luxurious homes’. I even agreed with him and pointed out that that’s what made them worth aspiring to, because those ‘false’ concepts are what separate us from the animals, but the Spectres appeal too much to our animistic natures, for they are born from that same darkness good people aspire to overcome.

We are human, and we are strong because we have human concepts, ones which separate us from animals. That’s what I said in response to Zhu Chanzui when he revealed himself in the Central Citadel, but while I still believe this to be true, I realize now that those false concepts are also our greatest weakness. Since honour, justice, and integrity do not come naturally to most, it will always be easier to give in to our darker desires than to hold ourselves above them, because that is simply human nature. Without the rule of law and threat of violent reprisal or punishment to keep people in check, society would fall apart in an instant, for relying on the good will of others alone is a recipe for pure disaster. There’s a good reason why anarchy, which originally was a term meant to describe a society without a ruler, became synonymous with chaos and disorder, for in the absence of a system of rules to adhere to and a means to enforce them, we would truly live in a world of might makes right where only the strong can survive.

This is the ideal that Zhu Chanzui aspires to, a world in which humans are no different from animals, perhaps because only then can he justify his lacking empathy and extreme debauchery while maintaining his self-image as a ‘higher being’. In the same way, I cling to the morals and ideals of my previous life because that is the only way I can keep myself from spiralling out of control in this new and terrifying world of trials and tribulations, yet one filled with freedom far beyond what any person should have. Both of us are deluding ourselves, but I realize now how close I was to the truth back then, when I traded words with the Ancestral Bristleboar in front of the entire Northern Citadel.

We are human, and therefore different from animals, but not so different as to require a completely different Path. Rather than separate the two from beginning to end and envision them as running parallel alongside one another, it would be more accurate to say that they start from different points, they are intertwined and interconnected in so many ways, as they would considering they are two Paths which lead to the same Dao.

And with that, the veil lifts on my mind as I find new purpose to follow the same path I’ve aspired to in this life and the last. I have the opposite problem of Zhu Chanzui, in that I care too much about other people and animals. I don’t want anyone to suffer, or at least not in my presence, because it bothers me so much I have trouble sleeping. That’s why I love solitude, because only then can I be free from other people’s issues. Once I learn there is a problem, I feel obligated to help out, not because it is the right thing to do, but because I am not comfortable seeing others in pain and misery. That’s why I’ve always wanted to be the hero, so I can feel like my obligation means something, because I sure as hell don’t enjoy helping people all that much. I don’t feed the hungry because it’s the right thing to do, but because I can’t stand to see starving children lining the streets around me. I wouldn’t lift a finger if those starving children were out of sight and out of mind, as evidenced by the fact that I haven’t made any efforts to expand my schools and orphanages outside of the North. Does this make me a terrible person? Of course not, because truly altruistic individuals are a rare breed, so rare my jaded self doubts if they actually exist. Regardless of my motivations however, I still strive to do good, hoping to leave this world which I’ve come to love in a better state than I arrived in, which is why I worked so hard to spearhead this campaign to free the West. So what if one or more of the Supreme Families is backing Zhen Shi? There are people suffering under Defiled rule, so my conscience demands I do something to stop it. Were I not Legate and merely a soldier, I would still yearn to fight in this war despite the odds stacked against me, because as a better man once said, the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

And while I am no paragon of virtue, harbouring so many dark thoughts and possessing a myriad of flaws, I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that I am inherently a good man, because if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be so bothered by my conscience.

Having seen past the curtains of my own driving motivations, I understand there is no running from this fight and set myself to the arduous task of overcoming the unavoidable trials and tribulations ahead. Forget the Imperial Clan for now, because I don’t know enough about their goals to do anything about them. I’ll deal with their political machinations as they come, so for now, I only need to focus on Zhen Shi and the Defiled. I am outmatched in both strength and wits, and were I standing alone, I would flee for the North without thinking twice, but I have family, friends, and comrades to fight alongside, all of whom believe I can lead them to victory.

Fools one and all, to have so much faith in me, but thankfully, my greatest talent has never been personal effort, but rather my unprecedented ability to delegate. My purpose in this war is not commander and general, but figurehead and motivational speaker. Thus, to better play my part, I must continue to press forward along my unique Path for one simple reason. It’s clear that Zhen Shi doesn’t see me as a direct threat, but rather as a weapon he covets for himself, hence all the effort he’s been going through to turn me to the dark side. This means he sees potential in me that I have not yet realized, potential I now intend to unlock and use against him. The Abbot told me to stop being afraid of making mistakes and to just press forward, to Shatter the Void and only then focus on what comes next. For the longest time, I was unable to proceed for one simple reason, because I never could come up with a proper answer to one simple question.

Why do I seek strength?

Thanks to Zhen Shi, I now have my answer.

I want to be strong so I don’t have to be afraid anymore. Only with strength can I secure my continued freedom and ensure my loved ones are kept safe. Only with strength can I live my life according to my ideals, which includes changing the world for the better at the expense of the Imperial Clan and the other powers that support it. Only with strength can I stop living in constant fear, because while might does not make right, big-stick diplomacy is the best way to keep my enemies from taking everything I have for themselves.

That is why I seek strength, why I yearn to stand at the Peak of the Martial Path. Simple enough in theory, but now I understand that my goal is further away than I ever believed, because the level of strength I require to fulfill my desire is nothing short of unrivalled. Shen ZhenWu and Zhen Shi both saw through me with a glance, and they both warned me that the freedom I seek would be beyond what anyone could grant, for one simple reason. In order to remain unfettered from all conflict and struggle, I must stand above all others, Divinities and Emperors alike, and only then can I rest easy. A monumental task I have set for myself, yet in my hubris, wholeheartedly believe I can accomplish, because at the end of the day, regardless of how I disparage and denigrate myself, I believe I reincarnated into this world for a reason. What better reason than to become a true hero and a man who stands above all others? Stupid and corny as it is to admit it, that is the driving motivation behind most of my actions, my inability to accept a life of mediocrity.

I am Falling Rain, hero and soon-to-be Divinity, for I am finally ready to take the next step.

Course, I have to figure out how first, though I have some inkling suspicions as to where to look next. The important thing now though is to rest and recuperate, a luxury I know I can afford because there are taller shoulders to bear the burden for me, heroes like Dad, Nian Zu, Naaran, Binesi, Gao Changgong, Kuang Biao, and so many others. Chief among them all of course is my hero’s hero, my Grand-Mentor, Grandmother, and Mother-in-Law Akanai, who I thankfully had the foresight to appoint as second in the chain of command after me. Shuai Jiao, Zhen Shi, and the Imperial Clan can play all the games they like, but they will soon discover that she is not a woman to take lightly.

Hell, who knows. Maybe I’ll luck out and wake up to find Zhen Shi dead, the West freed, and the Emperor kneeling at Akanai’s feet to beg for mercy. Honestly, I wouldn’t even be all that surprised, because if anyone can do it, it’d be Akanai, Chief Provost of the People and the Herald of the Storm.

Chapter Meme

- End of Volume 40 -