“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

- Sun Tzu, The Art of War

The chief looked at Aki and then at the four guards around him. Aki had a bad feeling about what was going to happen. Cycling his mana and breathing, he moved his eyes from each of the spear wielders who surrounded him. He didn't make any movements, just watched. The other elders were in the tent as well, none of them said anything, just looking between Aki and the chief. They wondered if they were going to get their way and be done with the outsider.

It seemed to go on forever, this moment of uncertainty, when it was broken by a loud, almost exaggerated laugh from the chief. He gave one last long, wanting look to the girl he was sitting next to before he stood. Chief looked at Aki and laughed a full-bodied laugh that jiggled the man's stomach. He held onto his midsection and even wiped a tear from his eye.

The spearmen around Aki, seeing the chief's new reaction, lowered their spears but still stood ready. The chief walked towards Aki calmed from his laughing fit and looked into Aki's dark eyes with his own brown ones. He put his hands on Aki's shoulders and smiled a crooked, untrusting smile.

"Tell me, tell me what happened? We have not heard from you for weeks. Where is Kaga? Where are the animals you were supposed to bring back for the horde? Where are the other members of the hunting party?" The chief asked Aki, still smiling.

Weeks? Aki reeled. It couldn't have been weeks, could it? He was only gone with the hunting party a day or so before they were attacked. Then he could swear it was only a couple of days of wandering around in the desert getting lost. He furrowed his brow, looking up into the Chief's eyes. This, of course, made the chief laugh once more, harder than before.

"You didn't know about the Shifting Sands? The desert is a treacherous, ever-changing place. You can get lost in those sands forever and never find your way out. The fact you made it back here at all shows you are powerful, and it is good you are part of the tribe," he said once he stopped laughing again. When he spoke about being powerful, he took a moment to glare at the other elders. "I told you, didn't I?! Told you he was good to have with us!"

No one reacted to the chief's outburst. No doubt used to this sort of display from the man when he thought he was proven right. The chief looked back at Aki, still gripping his shoulders. "Tell me, though, where is Kaga? The rest of the party?"

Aki frowned and closed his eyes. He gave a simple, concise shake of his head in response.

The chief let go of Aki's shoulders and took a step back now. "What does this mean?" He asked him. "Just a shake of your head?"

"You know what it means," a woman's voice answered.

Aki opened his eyes and saw the older woman in snake skins standing now, glowering at him. She folded her arms across her chest.

The chief said nothing, just took a few steps back away from Aki. He looked back and forth between the snake elder and Aki, waiting for Aki to confirm it.

"We were attacked," Aki started and held out a hand, trying to calm the chief. "It was some spirit. It killed everyone. I could barely escape. You said it yourself, the desert is treacherous."

The only other elder who did anything was the snake woman, and she just laughed. The rest of them stared uncomfortably, wondering what was going to happen next.

"Kaga knew his way around the desert. He's the one who taught me! He had nothing to worry about," the chief cried. His hands were balling into fists, and his look went from sorrow to anger.

Aki looked at the chief, his eyes growing wide. He taught him? Aki thought Kaga was just another chief from another tribe they picked up to make up this horde. His hands came up, and he could feel the four guards taking their ready stances once more with their spears.

The snake lady pointed at Aki. "Kaga knew the desert and could handle himself against whatever happened out there. This coward probably killed Kaga in his sleep and then the rest of the party."

"No, I didn't kill anyone. Just the spirits," Aki told them.

"You fool. You don't even know who Kaga was," the snake lady yelled out, laughing again.

"He taught me!" the Chief raged once more and then growled, advancing on Aki. "He was my father!"

Aki breathed in deeply. The four spear wielders were mortals. They'd be easy to deal with, quick. The elders, though, would pose a problem. They were powerful in their ways. He had been cycling his mana through his channels the entire time he was in the tent with the elders, and now he used his power.

With the chief moving towards him, Aki pushed his hand out in the Blossom's Zephyr technique. It unleashed a blast of wind, throwing the large man back. Once the technique was thrown, he ducked. The spear users were swiping at his head. Aki's sword dragged against the cane scabbard on his back, and he raised it to deflect one spear that aimed lower. It would have stabbed him right in the eye if he had been a moment slower.

The dagger from the back of his belt was then drawn as well. Four breaths. Swings with both the sword which he held properly in his offhand. The dagger held in his dominant hand in reverse grip like he was used to. From there, the four mortal spear-wielding guards were on the floor in a clump on the ground. Blood and viscera flowing from the open wounds in their necks and bellies. He was a breeze of movement when he struck out against them. The wind lent him its power as he danced through their spearheads. Two were downed with the sword, and two with the dagger.

He used the dagger to slit the men's necks, and while the blade was sharp, it didn't quite cut cleanly. It left behind a cut that frosted and iced over away from the wound. It looked gruesome with the frost. The blood flowed out in red iced slush once it passed from the wound.

The elders all jumped to their feet, drawing their various weapons. Spears and arrows held in Aki’s direction. A couple of them using the small one handed axes, dual wielding them. The chief had already recovered from the blast of wind and was standing with his axes at the ready. Aki held his sword at the ready towards the group of elders. He didn’t like the odds of this fight. While they weren't proper cultivators, they were powerful, and he was outnumbered by almost a dozen.

"Where are the townspeople? From the town where you found me?" Aki asked the Chief. He tried to ignore the others. They wouldn't act without the Chief's command. Or well, Aki hoped.

The Chief raised his head and looked at Aki sideways, cocking his brow. "Is that why you're doing this?"

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Aki looked at him and gave a slight shrug. This made the chief burst out in another one of his loud laughs. He shook his head and put the axes away. He didn't wear them on his back like the others did. They were too large. His axes were proper-sized axes, large and normally unwieldy in one hand. He must have something like a spirit ring that he sent them back in.

"They're gone. You've been gone a while. They're all gone. Sold or traded away. We aren't far from the capital. While the pale folk don't like us much, they don't ask us many questions when it comes to cheap labor to work their fields or fight in their pits," the Chief explained.

Aki's blade dipped a little, but he raised it once more. Even if the Chief's weapons were gone, he had seen the man pull a bear spirit out to devour someone. The Chief walked towards him, pity in his eyes and non-threateningly. Aki didn't make a move to defend himself from the Chief's advance.

The Chief clapped Aki on the shoulder. "It is the way of the horde," explained the Chief.

"Not my way. You shouldn't have done that. What about Endra?" Aki asked him, his eyes growing hard once more.

The Chief nodded his head. "Your companion has your tent set up nearby. I heard she was making all the sentries lose track of their duties. She's bathing in one of the springs nearby, last I heard."

"You can't let him go, not after all of this."

Aki looked up. It was the snake woman elder again. He looked at the Chief. "I'm taking her and I'm leaving."

"No, you aren't. If you want to leave, you have to fight." The snake elder moved forward now. She was the only one who still had her weapons drawn. When the tension eased, everyone else put their weapons away. She still had her two small axes in her hands, ready for battle.

The Chief looked back at her and glared. He looked back at Aki and nodded his head. "She is correct, though. Custom dictates that an elder is allowed to leave if they wish, but they must fight if they want to leave honorably."

"I, Huritt of The Order of Snakes, challenge you to a duel to the death," the woman spat out.

Aki looked her over once more. She was skinny and older, graying in her hair a little. Tall for a woman as well. These people all seemed taller, though, so it was hard to tell. She was a little taller than he was. She radiated a sort of twisted, corrupted power. It was strange even for these people. He grinned from behind his beard and, while he wasn't looking forward to a fight with her, he nodded his head. "Fine if I win. I take Endra and her boy, and we leave."

The Chief nodded at this but sighed. He stepped away from Aki so he wouldn't be in the fight's way. He tried to force Aki to stay, but he knew it wouldn’t work. Aki had a problem with the way this horde lived their life. Taking prisoners, buying and selling people, raiding towns. It wasn't for someone like Aki.

"When I walk over your dead corpse, I'm going to take that woman as my own. She will make a fine amount of gold selling her to the richest bidder," Huritt countered.

Knowing he shouldn't, Aki rushed the woman. He lunged forward with the blade. It was an obvious strike, and Huritt brought her ax to deflect the sword. He swiped the dagger towards her, and her other ax met it. The two stayed locked like that, each of them swiping or stabbing with their respective weapons while the other dodged or deflected the attacks.

Around them, the aura gathered. Her corrupted, poisonous aura weaving through his wind. Aki didn't notice since they were locked in battle, matching move for move, but there were snakes forming in the air and ground around him. They did nothing for the time being, just slithered around the gathering. They weren't full-bodied snakes. They were more outlines of snakes with a green haze about them.

He noticed that whenever his dagger connected with the metal on one of her axes, it would frost a bit. The frost grew on her axes as he intentionally tried to dodge and strike out with it more often. It wasn’t hard since he held it in his dominant hand, using it the same way he would use his sword. The only problem was that it was obviously much shorter. There were some cuts that should have connected, but didn’t because Aki goofed up.

"You aren't as good as you think you are," she grinned at Aki. "I've barely been trying. You're slow, clunky, and with no grace. Without that foul trick making Hinto throw up, he would have killed you."

Aki grunted, the wind surrounding his blades. She had a point. He wasn't the best swordsman. He tried to fight without it, using pressure points and his needles to stop his opponent. A proper fight like this, and Aki was outmatched. With this woman's powers, he might be outclassed in any sort of fight.

He needed to turn this back in his favor. The snakes were lashing out to add to Aki's list of problems in this fight. He got a sneaking suspicion he did not want to be bitten by one of these snakes. Aki moved in close to the woman. Her ax heads were almost frosted over now. He kept low to the ground and cycled his mana. He had an idea, it’d be risky, but it was something. He sheathed his sword back in the cane scabbard on his back.

Cycling his mana through his channels, he blasted wind from his lower body. The Blossom's breeze was something you projected through your hand towards a person. He had to concentrate on the movement of the wind and he brought it up in a swirling of air around him. It then expanded out in an explosion. This gave Aki some space. It blew back the aura snakes and even knocked Huritt back. The tent rippled around everyone and expanded out before settling.

She recovered and stayed on her feet and just slid back on the desert floor that was this giant tent's floor. The snakes, though, blew back, and it dissolved her technique that made the snakes when she lost her concentration. The misty green drifting away in the air returning to aura. He dropped his sword, now reaching into his sleeves to pull some of the speckled salted needles he kept.

He rushed her while she was still stumbling backward. Dagger in his right hand went up and hit the belly of the handle. The iced blade slid up into the beard, and he held the dagger there. Her other hand swiped down with her other ax, and in swift movements, the hand holding the needles reached to arm and stabbed a needle into the pressure point. He moved and plunged two more needles into two different spots in the arm.

Huritt gasped and then grunted, her arm falling limp. The needles pushed into the pressure points, they disrupted her power and paralyzed her arm. His leg lifted, and he kicked out, connecting with her gut, kicking her back across the tent. She landed in the pillows of the Chief's landing next to the young girl he was making eyes at. The girl screamed and jumped to her feet, scampering away since the fight got so close to her.

"Yield!" He called after her.

She lay on the pillows, glaring up at him. Aki reached down and picked up his sword once more. He slipped the dagger back into the sheath on the back of his belt.

"I'm going to take that woman off yours and destroy her after I kill you. She won't even be able to be used as the sort of slave the degenerates buy at the markets, she'll be so used up," she spat at him. The woman climbed to her feet from the pillows, her right arm hanging limp at her side, the ax it used to hold laying forgotten on the floor.

Aki sighed and shook his head. She stood glaring, her one arm ready to attack. Aki cycled his mana. He held his dagger angled downwards and brought it up in an angled slashing motion towards the roof of the tent. The wind formed around him, and he lashed out, the Blossom's Strike. He hadn’t ever used the attack in a proper battle. It was an attack that ended a battle. If it hit, it would gore his opponent. It ended them.

This was as much a sword technique as it was a wind technique. While anyone could use the same martial path he followed, The Blossom's Way, it was geared for sword users. The wind carried his sword slashes through the air. Huritt was instantly sliced and cut all around her body, deep gashes that took a minute for the blood to bloom. When it did, though, it flowed. The final strike went across her neck.

She stood there, mouth gaping open as she felt the blade strikes against her skin. The snakes she tried reforming around Aki once more dissolved into haze. The older woman coughed and sputtered up some blood, letting it run down her chin. She looked down at herself and then around at the other elders before letting her gaze land on her chief.

He stared back and forth from his Elder to Aki. His mouth was hanging open, and he matched her gaze. He mouthed to her, 'I'm sorry,' just before she crumpled back down into his pillows. Blood leaked out and soaked the pillows. There was screaming again, the young woman from before. She was the only one in the tent who wasn't an elder.

"I'm getting Endra, and I'm leaving," Aki spoke lowly, almost daring any of them to challenge him. He was breathing heavily, and his voice was haggard. Before any of them could say anything, and before he could crumple over himself from exerting himself so much from the fight and that final technique, he left the tent.

Once he was gone, a couple of the other elders went to the woman's body to check on her. She was beyond help, though. She was dead. A couple of the others made movements to follow Aki from the tent and stop him.

"No. Stop. He fought the challenge and won. He can get his prize and leave," the Chief commanded but sighed. "I told you guys he would be a powerful addition."

He turned and looked back down at Huritt's dead body and shook his head. "Get some people in here to clean this up. I'll be in my personal tent." He made for the exit and looked back at the young woman with a smirk. "Come," he commanded, and then left. She followed him through the exit.