Not all Natal Souls are equal.

Yea, I said it. Not the most pleasant thing to hear, but it’s true.

We are not all equal, because we were not created equally.

Yes, we. I myself am also a Natal Soul, which makes it okay for me to criticize my brothers currently flooding the battle-field, but I’m built different. To understand why, we would first have to examine what a soul really is, a concept Prime Me has struggled with for some time now. In philosophical terms, the Brotherhood would say that a soul is the eternal vessel that houses the essence of our unique being, one which persists throughout our repeated journeys through life and death. In more technical terms, one could argue that a soul is what separates a living creature with thoughts and agency from an inanimate object like dirt or a rock, though I’m sure there are people who believe those have souls as well. Personally, I believe a soul is a core component of life as we know it, one that is imperceptible to the basic human senses, but exists all the same, a quantifiable element of the world we live in which humans and animals cannot do without.

At least, that’s the theory I’m working with, which admittedly could be wrong. If new information comes to light, then I’ll review the facts and revise my theory as needed, because that’s how science works, but otherwise, this is the way things are. As for whether plants, bacteria, or rocks have souls, this is a question best left for Prime Me to muse over, because unlike him, I have precious little time to waste. Sticking to the facts alone, we know that the Core is the medium through which Martial Warriors interact with the Energy of the Heavens, because Shen ZhenWu said so, and it made sense. He also said, ‘Therein lies the key to humanity’s success, as well as what may be our ultimate downfall’, and I’m beginning to think I understand why. If the Core is the medium through which Martial Warriors interact with the Energy of the Heavens, then how is it possible for base vanilla humans to regrow their teeth? That is a definitive example of regular, everyday people interacting with Heavenly Energy, which tells me that it’s possible to do so without a Core.

So if a Core is part and parcel of the soul, then it stands to reason that the soul is the medium through which humans and animals interact with the Energy of the Heavens without a Core. How the interaction is made is still unclear, as there are elements of Will, emotion, necessity, and various other triggers Prime Me has stumbled across during his journey through the Dao, but that’s not important here. If we follow along with the previous line of logic, namely that a soul is the medium through which we interact with the Energy of the Heavens, then a Natal Soul can be defined as an isolated portion of one’s soul, one which is not necessarily a carbon copy of the original, but merely cut from the same cloth, so to speak. While Prime Me created all of us Natal Souls in his own image for the sake of Balance, this isn’t necessary for the creation of a Natal Soul. Dastan’s Natal Soul is a more simple and honest existence, one he crafted to help hold onto his dreams and ideals while he himself suffered through hardships which threatened to break his spirit. Sahb’s Natal Soul is a wooden statue, one devoid of thought and agency which he uses to hone his skills within his Natal Palace while he goes about his day. Ulfsaar’s Natal Soul is a prison for his darkest, most murderous urges, one he sets loose every time there is blood to be shed.

And Baledagh was a puppet I crafted to behave like the person I believed was best suited for this world, a bold, headstrong Warrior who didn’t sweat the small stuff and wasn’t afraid of chasing after his dreams.

No, not ‘I’. I didn’t create Baledagh. Prime Me did, a distinction I must heed lest I develop ambitions of moving beyond my station. Much as I hate to admit it, I am merely a tool, the right tool for the job at hand, but a tool nonetheless, one whose existence will end once my purpose is served. Though I fear death, it is failure which I fear more, because though I am merely a fraction of the whole, I share the same hopes and fears as Prime Me, which is how I am able to appreciate the stakes at hand. If I fail here, then Meng Sha will fall and people I love and care about could die.

And so I must not fail, because I am integral to the success of Prime Me’s plan.

The vast majority of the Natal Souls were willingly severed by Prime Me for the sake of delivering usable Heavenly Energy to his allies. Usable being the operative word here, since most people don’t have any usable Heavenly Energy to dole out, but as past experience has revealed, Prime Me has become a font of Heavenly Energy thanks to his merger with Blobby, the Heavenly Tear. Since they are merely vessels to deliver Heavenly Energy, most of these Natal Souls are… inferior. I say this not to denigrate them, but because it is the truth, a result of circumstances as much as anything else. Prime Me was working with limited resources, so most Natal Souls had to get by with the bare minimum. This isn’t to say they’re mindless puppets, because nothing could be further from the truth. As Lin-Lin pointed out, Natal Souls aren’t good or evil, they’re just reflections of the emotions contained within them. Thus, to ensure his Natal Souls stay the course instead of devolving into imbalanced Spectres, Prime Me made sure his Natal Souls were all Balanced as could be, specifically by ensuring they had the same personality and experiences he himself possessed. Not ideal, since Prime Me is a smart-ass at the best of times and all of us Natal Souls have inherited this same trait, but when push comes to shove, he comes through in a pinch, and the same can be expected from all his Natal Souls.

That being said, even though you’d think that being a font of Heavenly Energy would mean that Prime Me has an infinite amount of Heavenly Energy at his disposal, this is not the case. He’s limited by a number of factors, including how much Heavenly Energy he can store and utilize at any given time. This is likely due to constraints of my Core and/or soul, though there could be a multitude of other reasons as well, like time required to process or what have you. Admittedly, this is a far cry from what he accomplished in JiangHu with his million-strong army of Natal Souls, but circumstances were different then, as he had access to more… well, everything, in a nutshell, the most important of which was guidance from the Heavens above in the form of limited omniscience. Combined with the ability to process an absurd amount of information in what amounted to practically no time at all, and how he was able to draw upon ambient Heavenly Energy from the world itself, this enabled him to do things that even now we still cannot wholly comprehend.

Bereft of the benefits he enjoyed in the Call Centre of the Void, benefits which came at far too steep a cost, there were only so many Natal Souls Prime Me could create. What’s more, each one was armed with the smallest sliver of Heavenly Energy possible, but there’s another problem to consider. During the escapades of Buddy and the Natal Soul, Prime Me discovered that severed Natal Souls lack the ability to generate emotion. They still feel emotions all the same, but it comes at a steep cost, namely consuming some of the usable Heavenly Energy they were provided with. A curious relationship, emotion and Heavenly Energy, but if Heavenly Energy consumes emotion, then I suppose it makes sense if you can get emotion from breaking down Heavenly Energy, yea?

The mechanics aside, this means it is vital that each Natal Soul uses what little Heavenly Energy we have with the utmost efficiency, else all our efforts might be for naught.

This is where I come in. You could say that I’m the number one Natal Soul around, created as a workaround to technical limitations. Just as an army requires a chain of command, so too does this battalion of Natal Souls, else they would be unleashing all manner of chaos and anarchy all across the battlefield by behaving as they please. Prime Me is acting as supreme commander, safely ensconced within our Natal Palace at the back of the fortress. While his ability to multi-task pales in comparison to his attainments in JiangHu, he’s shown some improvements in just this battle alone, as evidenced by how he helped so many of the soldiers on the battlements earlier. With him manning our beefy PC battle station, he’s perfectly poised to oversee his Natal Souls from a macro position, directing them all to where they’re most needed or most effective.

In contrast, I am the general in the field, the Natal Soul in charge of the micro, if you will. There are a handful of Elites, advanced Natal Souls tasked with critical missions, like delivering a bit more Heavenly Energy to Mila, Yan, and Li-Li, because nepotism, or other, more complex tasks that require more Heavenly Energy to complete. They don’t need my direction, because they have their jobs already, and the same could be said of the Natal Souls directed to my friends, comrades, subordinates, and so on, but then there’s the grunts, the rank-and-file boots on the ground who will be doing the bulk of the heavy lifting. Most of them are more than capable of making their own decisions regarding where to go and who to help, but there are only so many people willing to accept my assistance. As Prime Me discovered only seconds ago, not everyone is receptive to his help, because there’s the whole inviolability of the soul to consider when doling out Heavenly Energy in soul-wrapped packages. As such, most of the soldiers on the ground are unable to receive Prime Me’s aid, because they lack sufficient love, trust, or what I assume is faith in their Legate Falling Rain for his usable Heavenly Energy to break through the natural defenses a soul provides.

Meaning usable Heavenly Energy is different from regular Heavenly Energy, but also different enough from Chi to matter. Again, something for Prime Me to consider, while I handle business out here.

So how do I get my fellow Natal Souls around the seemingly impenetrable barrier that is the soul? Why it’s simple. We take a page from the Spectre playbook and trick Imperial soldiers into accepting our help.

Which turns out isn’t all that difficult to do. I’ve always known that Spectres and Zhen Shi are unable to read minds, because otherwise they would’ve long since uncovered all my weaknesses and discovered my deepest, darkest fears and secrets, but now I understand where their limits truly lie. Thoughts remain beyond my reach, but reading emotions is as easy as turning a hand, because when you get right down to it, humans and animals are emotive beings. Whether we’re happy, sad, angry, scared, or otherwise, we almost always convey how we’re feeling in some way or another, with words, actions, body language, or whatever. Even the most closed-mouthed and unreadable individuals are always broadcasting their emotions out loud, but in a way most people are unable to perceive, one in which even I cannot wholly explain. If Blobby is a font of Heavenly Energy, then humans are fonts of emotion which we emanate out into the world around us, like a cloud of charged energy cast off in our wake, a cloud Spectres and Zhen Shi use to gauge the moods of their unwitting victims and drive them ever deeper to despair.

Even without Spectres infesting the skies, Meng Sha is rife with gloom and doom, and not solely because of Zhen Shi’s foul workings, but because even though OuYang Min Jun is an adequate tactician, he is a sub-par leader who does not understand the true power of morale. If Hongji were here, he would deliver a rousing speech calling on the soldiers to stand firm, while Nian Zu would make a public appearance and deliver a crushing blow to the Enemy, but Min Jun is too focused on the raw numbers and calculating the odds to really pay attention to the wavering confidence of his soldiers. Luckily, he has Prime Me and myself to help pick up the slack, so I focus on the task at hand and set to work coordinating the efforts of my fellow Natal Souls, a few hundred at a time.

Thankfully, being the head honcho Natal Soul is not without benefits, including a notably larger package (ha) of Heavenly Energy to power all my add-ons. I also come equipped with extra processing power which enables me to multi-task almost on par with Prime Me, though I find myself less equipped to handle the influx of information which follows. It’s a strange feeling, being able to perceive that I’m doing a whole bunch of stuff at once, but not knowing exactly what it is I’m doing unless I focus on one task in particular. Take this young soldier on the wall whose name I do not know, one of many faces among the crowd that I doubt I’ve ever spoken to before. I don’t know who he serves, where he’s from, what he ate this morning, or even where he sits on the scale of strength, but I can tell he is deeply afraid of dying here today. Not solely because he fears death, but because he got caught up in all the excitement of a crusade and left someone he loves behind, someone he’s thinking about right now. It could be a parent, a sibling, a friend, or childhood sweetheart. I’m not sure who it is he’s so fixated on, because I’m too ‘distanced’ from the emotion to tell, but I can sense he sorely regrets not expressing his love before leaving to retake the West. As he fights for his life, he is overcome with his regret, which the maleficent Aura in Meng Sha magnifies a thousand times over.

“Survive,” I whisper to the young soldier, words, emotions, and concepts echoed by one of my counterparts ready and waiting to lend him aid. “That is the only way you can ever be rid of your regret. Survive and return to make things right.”

A simple enough concept, but words he needs to hear, and the results are staggering to behold. A bit of encouragement is all it takes for this young soldier to break free from the chains of fear and regret holding him down. Even more astounding is how he accepts my Natal Soul at the same time, for he knows he needs all the help he can get and is none too picky about where it comes from. In his eyes, the Heavens have bestowed upon him the courage he needed, and he holds fast to that connection as he strides forth to do battle. Basic training is all he has, but he practically spent his entire childhood aboard a fishing boat where patience and diligence became second nature, a fact I can tell not just from my connection to the Natal Soul currently merging with his soul, but also his general poise and familiarity with his actions. A dutiful worker, this young soldier paid close attention when his drill sergeants told him what to do, but he always felt uncomfortable holding his spear normally. Like most soldiers fresh out of training, he wields a standard-length steel spear that he finds slightly too heavy for his slender, malnourished frame, but he puts his fishing skills to good use as he hefts it in an overhand fashion. He stabs once, just like he would when spearing a fish, only this time the fish has a spear of its own, a deadly point which punches through his hard-leather armour with laughable ease. Ignoring the pain, the soldier stabs again and again, his weapon glancing off the Mataram Clansman’s Runic armour with a metallic shriek, but his fury is enough to drive his foe back just a single step.

Then everything lines up perfectly and the young soldier sees his chance, casting his spear out and across the meter-long gap to plunge neatly in his foe’s exposed face. Even as gore and viscera spews out from the dead Defiled’s Runic helm, the young soldier retrieves his spear with the practiced reflex of a man who’s done this a thousand times before. This too is a Movement of the Forms, but not any Form I am familiar with, though that does not make it any less legitimate or effective. This is the result of countless hours of practice and repetition, the action engraved not just in his body, but in his mind and soul as well, causing his Chi to flow through him in a distinct pattern as he executes the attack. Chest heaving with excitement, he lines up his next foe and raises his spear once more, all the while heeding the advice of the Natal Soul guiding him through the process of producing Panacea to Heal.

A Captain catches my eye, a bearded, middle-aged, noble-born gentleman who would love nothing more than to throw his sword down and run judging by the thick waves of fear and desperation emanating off of him. He can’t do that though, for various reasons, chief among them being the loss of face. There’s also the fact that the walls are too crowded for him to run very far, not to mention how his commander would likely give the order to strike him down where he stands. Cowards and deserters are universally reviled in the army, not because no one understands why a soldier would flee, but because they become a burden to the others left behind. That being said, he’s close enough to the gate that he’s considering his odds of survival if he jumped off the battlements and braced himself against the corner to slow his decline, but then he’d be trapped in the courtyard. Not much of an improvement, but anything has to be better than standing here and waiting for death.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Or so the maleficent Aura would have him believe, but this is merely his fear betraying him.

“Are you a coward?” I ask, a question which freezes the Captain in his place mere moments before he makes his final decision, the outcome of which I cannot even begin to guess. “Or are you a Warrior? Death comes but once in a lifetime, but there is no cure for regret.”

Not the most inspiring of words, but it’s the kick in the pants this Captain needs, because he is nothing if not prideful. It’s baked into his bones, entwined in the very fibre of his being, but arrogance is a form of faith and conviction in oneself. Even though he is only a middling Martial Warrior already half dead from exhaustion, he believes he was born into greatness, and this alone gives him the courage of a lion and the audacity to advance along the Martial Path. Raising his Spiritual Sword up high, he lets loose with a bellowing roar that is equal parts fear and bravado, but his soldiers only hear the latter as he launches himself at a blue-and-black armoured Mataram Officer. A hedonistic lifestyle and lack of diligence has left him with an inadequate grasp of the Forms, but he’s seen enough Warriors of note to know what a Hero looks like. Fake it till you make it, except this Captain doesn’t even realize he’s faking it, so high on his own supply of conceited narcissism that he truly believes he is a Warrior without peer.

To be fair, he’s not the worst Martial Warrior I’ve met, nor is he entirely without talent. Though he is full of pomp and pretension even on his best days, it serves him well today as he mutters a prayer and rises to the occasion by trying to recreate a sequence of Movements he once saw Ryo Da’in use in a sparring match against Chang Tetsudo. The Natal Soul assigned to him is as flummoxed as I am, because we both sense that the Captain barely understands what Da’in even did, unable to even put name to the Movements themselves. All he knows is the sequence of events that saw her emerge victorious against a spear user, so the Captain thinks it will work for him here. The problem is, he hasn’t taken his opponent’s actions into account, so he begins by parrying a thrust his foe has yet to deliver, leaving him wide open for the attack he already saw coming.

Luckily, he has the Heavens on his side, or the Energy of the Heavens at least, surging into his Core as his appointed Natal Soul fulfills his purpose and dissipates into nothingness. One with the Sword, the Captain wields his weapon with renewed purpose and vigour as he’s struck by a flash of Insight, one which arrives none too soon as the Clansman’s spear hurtles towards his throat. The essence of Da’in’s Movements are simple enough, to use her opponent’s momentum against him, and the Captain follows suit without even needing to think. His sword circles around to parry the thrust, making it look as if the first missed parry was merely an ornamental flourish, and he steps in to trap his foe in his grasp. The sword threads around the spear until it’s wedged between hilt and blade, giving the Captain enough leverage to hold the weapon in place with a single hand while his foe struggles to free it with two. From there, it’s merely a matter of pivoting to one side and taking a step back before allowing the Clansman to believe he’s successfully freed his spear, when all he’s doing is opening up an avenue for the Captain’s thrusts to take him clean through his throat.

Forward step, side step, back step, and thrust. That’s all most will ever see from an outside perspective, making this complex maneuver seem as easy as breathing, but only the Captain understands just how difficult it truly was. It’s not just about strength and accuracy, but timing and rhythm as well, a basic concept he only now grasped, but in spectacular fashion. Much like with the young soldier, the Captain’s Movements synchronized with his Chi flowing through him in yet another pattern, one entirely unique to the Captain himself. There are no glowing lines to follow or shimmering lights to indicate the flow of Chi, but I can feel it all the same, and the flow speaks to me on a level I cannot quite comprehend.

On the Northern beach, a nameless Major fights for his life against his most formidable foe to date, a Demon in the shape of a desiccated corpse wielding two bone scimitars in hand. Though not much to look at, the Demon moves with the grace of a dancer and the speed of a pouncing cat, a poor match for the hulking brute of a Major and his two-handed mace. Made to look the fool by his agile foe, the Major’s mounting anger and frustration leads him to reminisce about the earlier glories of his youth. By the Mother, he was strong then, a young Talent in the prime of life, but so many decades had passed him by with little to no progress since. He feels the rigours of age bearing him down when he once could have fought for hours without rest, but there’s something pushing him to keep fighting in spite of his aches and exhaustion. I see it now, in the eyes and emotions of a soldier behind the Major, one who shares the same nose and jawline. A son perhaps, or more likely a grandson, one who watches his grandfather with the wide-eyed stare of a boy seeing his hero in action. That’s what drives the Major to continue, the unwillingness to disappoint his grandson, so he swallows his pride and chases after the slippery foe dancing before him, but the Demon remains one step ahead and one hair’s breadth out of reach at all time. In his haste to close that tiny, yet insurmountable distance, his movements grow frantic and clumsy as he pursues his nimble foe up and down the battlements without landing a single blow, though he kills a good number of Clansmen along the way. A valiant effort, but a waste of his strength all the same, for the Demon kills just as many Imperial soldiers in passing, if not more.

Contrary to his burly, meatheaded appearance, the Major is no fool and understands what his foe is trying to do, lead him about on a merry chase until it can catch him off-guard and kill him. To this end, he feigns shortness of breath and pretends to be blinded by rage as he recklessly chases the Demon down, but it refuses to take the bait and continues to flee without honour. A Peak Expert could kill the Demon as easily as turning a hand, but the Major is still several steps short of calling himself such, for his skills in Lightening, Guiding, and Deflection are sorely lacking. One tiny burst of speed, that’s all he needs to catch up, but as things stand, he might as well try to pluck the moon from the night’s sky, a surprisingly poetic sentiment from the strapping and imposing Warrior.

“And why not aim for the moon?” I ask, and the Natal Soul assigned to him whispers the same general concept into the Major’s ear. “Even if inevitable failure is what awaits you at the end, you will go far in pursuit of so lofty a goal. Better to chase a fool’s dream than stand idle in pragmatic cynicism.”

A message which resonates with the long-toothed Major, for it reminds him of the delusions of grandeur he enjoyed in his youth. No, not delusions, for he’d come further than he’d ever believed possible, a respected Major and Demon Slayer of the Imperial Army. So what if he wasn’t a Peak Expert? He could still shoulder the Heavens for his loved ones, including his grandson serving at his side. All the Major needs to do is stop the Demon in its tracks for a single moment and it will crumble in a single blow, so that is what he sets out to accomplish.

And in response, the Major’s Chi surges through his body and out into the world as his Domain bends to his Will and Deploys all around him, stretching further than it’s ever stretched before. On a regular day, his Domain might extend just under three centimetres past his skin if he Deployed it without direction, but today, it expands more than twice that. Six centimetres doesn’t seem like much, but once directed and shaped by his Intent, it is more than enough for the task at hand. Neither I, my Natal Soul, nor the Major himself understands the forces at work here as his Domain merges with the Energy of the Heavens to solidify and stretch out, grabbing hold of the Demon like an amoeba grabbing hold of its prey, but the Major doesn’t care one whit about the how. He cares not for the laws of Heaven or even nature, for here within his Domain, his Will is absolute, and the Heavens will just have to forgive him for overstepping his bounds. Letting loose with a roar of victorious fury now that his foe is caught in his grasp, he leaps forward and brings his two-handed mace down to unleash the most powerful blow he’s ever dealt. The weapon hammers home on the immobile corpse Demon and snaps its bones like twigs, leaving it bent double and held together only by its rotted, leathery hide. A micro second later, the dead Demon’s skin bursts open as it breaks in twain, spraying a wave of vile Ichor into a crowd of Defiled who howl as the caustic fluid eats away at their skin and flesh.

Each one of these victories represents a minor shift in the tides of battle, one that is nigh imperceptible from even ten steps back, but no man is an island. Seeing the young soldier’s bravery and success, his comrades are spurred to action and move to support him for various reasons of their own. To some, solidarity and camaraderie drive them forward, and others, it’s a sense of shame at shirking their duty while weaker Warriors hold up the Heavens, and still more move simply due to their training, because that’s what training is for. It’s there to take over when fear and confusion would otherwise stop you in your tracks, and the young soldier reminds them of this fact.

The Captain’s superlative swordplay provides a much needed spark to ignite the spirits of the soldiers serving under him, for they have never seen him fight or even practice before. Though you’d have to grade on a curve to call the Captain a mediocre Warrior, his soldiers now see him as the peerless Warrior he pretends to be, and thus are far more willing to fight to keep him safe. No one wants to protect a haughty, stuck-up superior who is also incompetent at his job, but it’s another thing altogether when said superior is willing to do his fair share, and their faith in him shows in their efforts as they drive the Defiled off their section of the wall.

After killing the corpse Demon, the Major continues to run rampant along the Northern beach, smashing his way through multiple Defiled with every swing of his mace and clearing the way for the soldiers behind him, led by his precious grandson who idolizes him so. It doesn’t take long for the Major to grasp how to best utilize his newfangled ability, one that is so similar to Hongji’s Ethereal Palm, yet different at the same time, which allows him to remain unrivalled by anyone under Peak Expert. Much as I would love to indulge my curiosity, my time and Energy is better spent elsewhere, so I simply ignore all the burning questions eating away at me from inside and watch as the Major slaughters Demons and Champions like flies, until finally there are none brave enough to challenge him.

Heartening as all this might be, not every mission ends in success. A soldier on top of the wall ignores my Natal Soul as he plummets to his death, reflecting on his bitter regret instead of learning how to Lighten so that he might survive the fall. A Lieutenant Colonel gives into his fear and launches a near-suicidal assault against three formidable Demons, when instead he should have hunkered down and defended while his allies moved into place. An Irregular rejects the notion of trying to Form his Core, because in his mind, a Martial Warrior is a lofty existence far above his own, a goal not even worth dreaming about, so instead he focuses on his task of loading his catapult so that he can kill as many Defiled as possible before they breach the lines.

And despite all their best efforts and more, the scales of power are still tipping in favour of the Enemy here today.

News of our imminent defeat should disturb me greatly, but I find I’m more bothered by the fact that no one will ever acknowledge my efforts. Even if Prime Me reveals what he’s done here today, my existence will be overlooked alongside the rest of my fellow Natal Souls. Regardless of our ultimate success or failure, none of us will ever make it back to our Natal Palace alive, because we are but temporary vessels created to be used until nothing is left. Thus, I must rationalize their deaths as a necessary and heroic sacrifice, because to do otherwise would leave me overwrought with guilt and anguish, but it doesn’t change the fact that I, and others like me, are paying a high price for victory.

Is this compassion? Empathy? Or extreme narcissism? I don’t know. I only know how it makes me feel, proud of my fellow Natal Souls and melancholic for their unenviable fate.

To keep myself from spiralling into despair, I check in on some of my loved ones and friends and share in their successes, for Li-Li, Yan, and Mila have all emerged unscathed from their respective trials and are that much stronger for it. The details of their efforts flow through my mind as if I’m remembering it all firsthand, information left there by my comrades for Prime Me to grasp. Not sure if he’s already assimilated the information, but it’s not like I stole it and no one else can have it ever again. That’s the beauty of sharing information, because the more eyes you have on a subject matter, the more perspectives you can learn from. Even though every one of us Natal Souls were created at the same time, the events that transpired in the short time since have forever altered our perspectives in a myriad of fresh and unique ways, meaning that I might glean something from this information that Prime Me misses, and vice versa.

Psuedo-Domain, Wind Domain, Blessing of the Sun, I take note of everything I see and reserve judgement for later as I move on to other friends and comrades. Jorani’s injuries are healing nicely, but his broken leg has effectively taken him out of the fight, though that doesn’t keep him from bellowing orders and supporting his soldiers from the back, his Aura billowing out with just a hint of heroic spirit that elevates it beyond what a standard Aura can do. Old Bulat is dog tired and ready to drop where he stands, but he’s never been one to quit while he’s ahead, so he continues to fight the good fight and unleash Domain imbued bullets that Amplify on impact and shatter Runic armour like glass. Though Reinforcement is his weakest skill, Zian leaves it as is and doubles down on Amplification and Reverberation instead, finding Insight in the midst of battle and discovering how to turn the chiming strikes of his twin sabres into a symphony of resonating notes that tear a Demon apart from within. Concealed in plain sight from friend and foe alike, Ravil has become a force unto himself while remaining largely unnoticed as he stabs, shoots, and generally kills anyone standing in his way. Lang Yi needs no help from the Natal Soul on his shoulder save to bolster his base physique, but Lang Er works with his Natal Soul to emulate his older brother’s efforts and become more than One with the Spear, marking yet another future Peak Expert in the making. Wang Bao, Siyar, Chey, Ral, and many others progress along the Martial Path and improve in their respective fields, but the one who benefits most from all this is Dastan by far.

For with the Energy of the Heavens at his disposal, Dastan stabilizes his burgeoning Domain and exerts his Will to Sever anything that stands before him. Demonic Chitin and Runic Armour prove no barrier to his Severing Axe, a Honed Domain affixed to his weapon which cuts clean through the very fabric of reality itself. This is his Path, the path of the vanguard who clears the way, for only then can he ensure the safety of the people behind him. This has always been who he is, a man who fights for the betterment of others, and now he finally has the tools needed to do so.

The knot in his heart has come undone, for he truly doesn’t care about his Oaths anymore, and seeing this, I expend a portion of my limited Will to help him unbind the shackles around his Core which sets his Chi to surging like never before.

This is not the first time I’ve noted the flow of Chi, but I never really understood just how integral it was to a Martial Warrior’s strength. There are a myriad of details I have yet to work out, but thus far, it seems like the faster the current, the stronger the Warrior, which I suppose is why people are so amazed when others display Purity. That’s just drawing the Energy of the Heavens quickly enough so that others can feel the flow, but how it became synonymous with the absence of Spectres is beyond me. I mean, technically, Spectres are a form of Heavenly Energy, so I bet if you gathered enough of them and set them to racing about, a regular commoner would feel it too.

…

Oh yea. Where are all the Spectres? I’ve gotten so used to their absence, I almost didn’t even consider it, but during a battle like this, they should be amassing in droves. Even if Zhen Shi is herding them off to the Void en masse, I should at least be able to notice their presence as they leave, but the only… Spiritual, I guess, presence in Meng Sha is me and my Natal Soul brothers. Comrades? Homies? God, I feel old. No, I shouldn’t be feeling, because feeling is wasting Heavenly Energy.

Still multi-tasking to command my fellow Natal Souls in battle, I devote a few brain cells to uncovering the various mysteries plaguing Meng Sha. We already knew that the Energy of the Heavens responds to emotion, but flow is important too. How is that flow shaped? Through many different vectors. Visualization, Intent, Faith, and Emotion are but a few that I rely on, but as I ruminate over the experiences of the friends, loved ones, and strangers I’ve helped today, I realize there are as many ways to shape the Energy of the Heavens as there are stars in the sky. All of it can be summed up under the umbrella of ‘Will’, yet that’s like saying you’ve stepped in some liquid. You get the gist of what’s happened, but the details matter, because stepping in a puddle of water is a whole different story from stepping in a puddle of piss, blood, or acid.

So if flow is so important, why don’t I try and see the flow of the nefarious working dragging everyone in Meng Sha down into the pits of despair?

No reason why I shouldn’t at least try, right? Passing a message back to Prime Me encapsulating everything I’ve seen, heard, thought, and generally experienced here today, I close my eyes and open my senses to the world at large. ‘Spiritual Sense’ is the working term everyone’s been using, and being something of a Spirit myself, I should be wholly in tune with mine. I know that Spiritual Senses are linked to the Domain, but a Domain is not a requirement to have them, it just makes it easier for your physical senses and hardware to perceive them. My best guess is that the Domain acts as a coupling to help merge the two sets of senses into one, working system, yet another way in which the physical and metaphysical intertwine together, but the why and how doesn’t matter at the moment.

All I want to do is sense the flow of Heavenly Energy, and maybe, just maybe, prove my hunch right. Even though the Spectres are all absent in reality, my gut tells me they have something to do with the ‘Aura-like effect’ pervading throughout all of Meng Sha. Mostly because this pall of desperation and discouragement is pretty much Spectre 101, save for the complete and utter absence of Spectres.

But if it looks like shit and stinks like shit, then chances are Prime Me stepped in a giant pile of it when he settled on Meng Sha for his base of operations.

Time passes as I parse through the mysteries of the Dao, a second, a minute, an hour, all in the blink of an eye. For the sake of my sanity, I check in on reality and find that Bulat’s latest bullet has travelled a fraction of a millimetre since I started, even though it feels like an eternity has passed since. Focusing all of my efforts on the task at hand, I uncover a loose thread in the metaphysical foundation of the world around Meng Sha, a wrongness that sticks out like a sore thumb now that I know to look for it. How I didn’t see it before is a mystery to be sure, but I head over and do what I always do when I find something strange and unfamiliar.

I give the metaphorical thread a metaphorical tug. I mean, it’s just human nature, and though I lack a physical body, I am still human after all.

“Don’t!” Prime Me Sends, a message that comes a split second too late, but a split second might as well be an eternity as the Void opens up before my senses and swallows me whole. The din of battle falls silent as the barren emptiness stretches out in all directions, until it is empty no more.

“And so little worm has set itself upon the hook.” Looming over me like a mountainous giant clad in robes of gold and horror, Zhen Shi sneers down at me from his perch on high. “How kind of you to send coal in the midst of a blizzard, a kindness this Sovereign will not soon forget.”

His wrinkled, gnarled hands reach out to grasp me tight, and soon all I can see is the ring set around his index finger, a horrific amalgamation of a thousand screaming Spectres whose fate I fear I might envy soon enough as they rise up and hold me fast in their cold and bony appendages.

Chapter Meme