With a surge of mana and will, Wen Lambo called on his ascendancy technique to summon his sacred blade. Weapons created via the ascendancy techniques were not unique, rather they were each a pale reflection of a legendary weapon associated with that color. The name of his sword was Cloud, and there had been other silver artists to wield it before him, but he thought that none of them had possessed his skill. Mana poured out of his hand and hardened into a pommel, and from that the blade itself burst forth. It was as long as he was tall, and nearly a foot wide. Had it been a mortal weapon, it would have been unacceptably unwieldy, but as a mana-forged creation, if felt weightless. Cloud blazed with argent light, and wispy images formed in the air around its edge, fluttering like moths.
“Jin, you said? You have saved me the trouble of looking for you.” Wen Lambo swung his sword with the intent of decapitating the rude little zealot. Whoever was responsible for what had happened to Fringe Town, that this boy was only a one-star cultivator who shared the family name responsible for Wen’s downfall was a stroke of good fortune. He could kill him for his temerity as well as for the circumstances of his birth.
Wen Lambo saw no need to play with him. He moved with the speed of a mana body, expecting the encounter to be concluded in an instant. The other cultivators in the field would be more responsive after they saw what he could do to them.
Jin Jammu disappeared, and Cloud cut through empty air. The boy was behind him. He felt his presence just before being struck in the spine. Wen Lambo was knocked forward, but he recovered into a roll and came up again facing his opponent. What had happened? The blow had been as painful as if it had come from a three-star cultivator. Had he really moved, or had there been an illusory technique at work?
To be faster than him was one thing, but no one could be so fast as to become invisible.
“You have advanced without visiting the Starfox Guild,” Wen Lambo said. “All the more reason for me to kill you where you stand.”
“Do you think you’re powerful?” Jammu asked. His stance was relaxed. He hadn’t even raised his arms, but the armor plates seemed to be vibrating where they had sunken into his skin. “Men like you don’t know what true power looks like, but I will show you.”
Wen Lambo had had enough of this cheek. He’d been taken off guard. The armor was clearly doing something to enhance the boy’s capabilities, but there was no way he was a match for a three-star warrior who knew what he was facing. He channeled mana through Cloud, causing it to flash and sparkle, a mesmerizing display to the unwary. However strong the armor made him, the boy’s mind would not be similarly enhanced.
Jin Jammu vanished again, reappearing at Wen Lambo’s side and striking him with the side of his hand. He turned with the hit, bringing Cloud around to cut the boy in half, but once again the edge of his blade met only air. Jin Jammu kicked the back of his knee, then ducked under Cloud on its backswing. He delivered a series of quick punches to Wen Lambo’s ribs and chest, coming in under his guard, and the older cultivator head butted him.
Jin Jammu was knocked to the ground, blood leaking from the top of his skull, but he was up again in time to avoid being skewered by Cloud. He vanished once more, reappearing a dozen yards away, panting and doubled over.
“Is that how it is?” Wen Lambo laughed in relief. “You learned a special movement technique, but your body isn’t conditioned to use it?”
He switched stances to use his own movement technique, Rushing Silver Falcon, and launched himself forward at maximum speed. Jin Jammu was clearly spent, and the look in his eyes said he knew that he had overreached, and that he was going to pay for it with his life. Then Wen Lambo’s wrists snapped.
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A man had grabbed his hands with a grip like the grip of time itself. Wen Lambo’s own strength and momentum worked against him then, as the rest of his body tried to continue forward with his hands and his sword caught in suspended animation. His concentration broke, and Cloud reverted to a burst of mana and light. He was caught like a child’s toy, a ball suspended by a string.
The man was huge, at least eight feet tall, with a mane of blonde hair that was sculpted almost like a helmet. He had come from nowhere, and his gray-green eyes held Wen Lambo as surely as his god-like grip. But when he spoke, it was to the boy.
“You should have come for me,” he said. “You haven’t fully assimilated the Spiral System. You could have died.”
Jin Jammu fell to his knees, showing all of the humility that had been absent in his interactions with Wen Lambo. “Apologies, great one. It was my pride. I thought I was ready.”
“Get up, and return to your meditations.” His expression remained hard, but there was fondness in his tone. He had never broken eye contact with Wen Lambo, and now he addressed him directly.
“The folly of youth, yes?” Amusement quirked one corner of his mouth. “If I let you down, will you promise not to attack me straight away?”
“I swear,” Wen Lambo said. He felt as weak as a child before this man, and all the fight had gone out of him.
The blonde giant dropped him. He was wearing metal like Jin Jammu, but more of it, and more detailed. His entire body had been covered below the neck with interlocking plates of steel. From a distance, it could have been mistaken for armor, but it was physically a part of him. Wen Lambo landed lightly, cradling his injured wrists against his chest.
“What are you?” he asked.
“My name is Titanus, but we are the future of this world. Your Blessed Lands are in for a rude awakening, my friend.”
“Will you not kill me?”
The giant became thoughtful. “That depends on you. Others have come, of course, and met with similar treatment. But you, at least, have the good sense not to try to attack me after I’ve already broken your hands. Tell me your name, and from where you hail.”
“Wen Lambo, formerly of the Azai, Silk Flower Town.”
“Formerly of the Azai? That’s one of your clans, isn’t it? I think I heard that word thrown around a lot when we first arrived.”
“It is a clan, yes.” Wen Lambo was at a loss. This man was so powerful that he could treat a three-star cultivator like a mortal, and yet he was so ignorant he didn’t even know whose territory he was invading? Was he a mad hermit in truth, a cultivator who had gone so far down their path that they forgot the world entirely? He didn’t seem mad. He also didn’t look like anyone Wen Lambo had ever seen. His hair and his eyes belonged to a barbarian.
“Do you not have a clan?”
“I had a tribe,” Titanus said, “but these days of tribes and clans are over. There is only one nation now, under the Eternal Dragon, and those who refuse his grace will suffer the consequences.”
“You really serve a dragon?”
“I do, though the dragon had not been born yet. I’m afraid the mages would explain it better.”
Perhaps he was mad, then.
“If you do not kill me, will you let me go?”
Titanus shook his head, and a single golden curl fell across his face. “I’m afraid that you cannot be allowed to leave. The inhabitants of this village were disappointingly parochial, and I’m hoping you can tell me more about your Blessed Lands than they could. Beyond that, I will invite you to join the ranks of the metalborn. You have seen what young Jin can do, and I understand he was only the lowest of the star lords before he became one of us. I see your tattoos. There was only one man like you in this village, and he had to die. I’d like to see what someone like you can become once you accept the dragon’s holy bondage.”
Wen Lambo did not relish the thought of having those plates become a part of his perfect body. The promise of power, however, was always a temptation. He had no ties to the Azai any longer, and the strongest man he had ever seen had just given him an invitation. They might not call themselves a clan, but clearly, that is what they were, and they could not be worse than the Zaibatsu.
“I will consider it,” he said. “Until then, you are right that there is much that I can tell you.”
“Good.” Titanus patted him on the back, guiding him toward the center of the settlement. “I can tell that this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”