Chapter 11: Ritual of Age

The mountains may crumble, the oceans may dry, and the world may bleed, but my spirit shall never be destroyed.

Not by time, the master of us all, nor by death, time’s other name.

It may falter, but never be destroyed.

-One of Conviction

I stood facing against the sun on top of a field of small plants. I stood still, tracing the movements of each form of the blade-spear. Half Circle. Lunging Moon. Cutting the Mountains. Arc of the Moon. Snake Flight. Clearing the Clouds. Triumph of the Eagle. And so on.

There is a sort of bliss in the silence of devoting your entire being into each slow movement of the weapon. The feel of the hard wood on your hands. The feel of being in utter control, of both your weapon and yourself. It’s as if time slows down for you, as if each movement becomes free, stuck between the perpetual beginning and the perpetual end.

This blissful silence was soon interrupted as I entered into Arc of the Moon.

“Brother Wolf, you practice with your blade-spear too much,” came the voice of Dance of First, like the first crack in a frozen pond. She was sitting on a large flat rock with her knees crossed, dressed in a simple green dress. “You are probably the one that practices the most with your blade-spear out of all your Brothers. If you get a wife, she will be jealous of your weapon every day. ”

I answered her with a shake of my head, not at the latter statements, but at the former. I knew myself that I spent too much time practicing. I smiled wryly at her. “To devote is to practice. To practice is to hone. To hone is to master.”

She gave a small frown at that. “You’ve been spending too much time with Hunter.”

“Not really. Five of my Brothers have already completed the Ritual of Age. The only ones remaining are Brother Leaping Fox, Brother Ronat, and me. We are the only ones still training with Hunter.”

A small “hmm” was the reply before she became silent. In her day off, Dance of First would always come to visit me if she could. Today was no exception. She had been watching me practicing for some while now.

“Say, Brother Wolf,” she began. “Why do you want to be a Hunter?”

Her question came out of nowhere. It gave me a small pause before I continued on with my forms.

It was a good question. One I did not have an answer for. I had been born into the role of a Hunter. I had been given no choice as a child. After eight months in infancy had passed, I, along with my seven Brothers, were all in training.

Did I truly wanted to be a Hunter?      

“I don’t know. I have never truly thought of such things,” I answered honestly. Both to myself and to Dance of First. “What about you?” I asked.  

She didn’t hesitate in her answer. It told me that she had thought about such questions many times. There are many things you can find in a pause. Or in a certainty. “As for me, I see it as a simple thing, Brother Wolf Under Stars. All I have known of, as a child and to this age, is being a Magus disciple. I didn’t like it at first as a child, but now, it’s all I can find myself doing.”      

Sometimes, it is the role that shapes us, not us who do the shaping.

“You are still a child,” I teased. “Barely ten years old.”

A small pout. “Just because you are going to undergo your Ritual of Age soon does not mean you can treat me like a child.”

“Even without that, I have already reached the end of my growth.” It was true too. I was already seven feet tall, the average height for a full grown Demona Hunter, though I was only half Demona.    

She made a fake sniffle, putting a childish whine in her voice. “Don’t think you can bully me just because you are a Hunter.”

I smiled at her feigning. “Yes, yes. You win, Sister Dance of First. You are not a child.”

We fell silent then. It was not an uncomfortable silence, but rather a comfortable one. I shared in the comfort of her company, and she in mine.

It was a ponderous mood that fell upon me in that silence. I thought of the secrets told in that night with Elder Magus Zelas. The mysteries that he had brought up. The questions he had asked. Do you want to know the secret of the Hunters? Of their parents?

As a small child, right after my infancy, I had wondered about my parents. Who were they? I knew that one of them was a Demona and the other a Wraithborn. But who exactly were they? I had never met them before. In fact, none of the Hunters were ever told of their parents. Only a few of the other Demona and Wraithborn children knew of their parents. Not me, nor my Brothers.

I felt as if this was related to the secret of the Hunters, of our parents. But I shook my head at these frivolous questions. I would eventually know. The Ritual of Age would explain everything. It was a process that would take one month and would be carried out by the Ritual Master, a former lead Hunter.  

Putting these thoughts away, I focused on the forms in silence for the rest of the morning while Dance of First sat cross-legged, her eyes closed, and a faint energy around her. She was Surging. I could feel its gentle caress like the wind blowing on my skin. And my blood dancing to its tunes, as if responding to the Surging.  

“Let’s go back,” I said. I hesitated slightly. Half a second perhaps. “Thanks for the company, Dance of First.”

A smile bloomed on her face. “You are welcome, Brother Wolf.”

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Two months later, the Ritual of Age came for us. It came in the form of a heavy rain as we traveled through the northern forests with Hunter, a few of the older Hunters, and the Ritual Master. With me also were Brother Leaping Fox and Brother Ronat. We were the only three left that had to undergo the Ritual of Age. The other five Brothers had finished four months ago.

And they returned changed. The usual ridges that grew on the other adult Hunters could now also be seen on their bodies. And their bodies were no longer plain, but instead tattooed with the markings. They seemed much stronger, like tempered metal, like gnarled trees that had survived for centuries.

“I am dying, Brother Wolf,” Leaping Fox said in a dejected voice, none of the usual energy in him. He was sprinting beside me along with Brother Ronat. We were following the Hunter and the rest of the older ones.

The cause of his dejection was obvious to me. Brother Leaping Fox hated the rain. I didn’t mind though. The drops of glistening water that smashed upon our shoulders and heads were a soothing cold comfort.

I shushed him. “Listen, Brother Leaping Fox,” I said in a soft whisper, though it came out as more of a shout in the rainstorm. It was a big one, and noisy. All of the animals and beasts in the northern forests had most likely undergone into hiding. “Do you hear that?”

Leaping Fox went still, his breathing slow and steady. “What is it?”

“Do you hear the sounds of the rain? Their soothing drops? Like pitter patter, patter pitter. Spiders hate the rain you know?” I grinned at him.    

He frowned. “That’s not funny, Brother Wolf Under Stars. I had thought you were being serious too.” He smoothed his long hair, black streaked with grey strands. Like all our Brothers, including me, and most of the older Hunters, Leaping Fox wore his hair long. “Why do you even like the rain?”  

“We all need water to survive.” I shrugged as if it was an obvious fact. “And blood.”

Leaping Fox only gave a reluctant grunt at that, while Brother Ronat had a wry smile on his face. It lasted only for a half second, but I knew he was amused by our conversation.    

I like the rain. With rain, it brings a cleansing, washing away all the past memories, all the past sins, and all the blood on your hands. With rain, it brings renewal, a rebirth. And afterwards, a new morning. And soon a new year.

The end of the year was always a time for the rainy season. It rained hard and well in the last two months of each year. It was my favorite time of all. The Brothers hated rain, but I liked it. The world just seemed bigger and better after a rainstorm. There was nothing sad about a rainstorm, despite how the drops from above would seem as if the skies themselves were crying.

There was just something constant about the rain, the insistence of it. It didn’t make sense, for a rainstorm only lasted for a while. But somehow, it just did.

After another week’s worth of traveling on foot, we exited the northern forests. On the way, we met two purple male Arachne and a Drakon, the second king of the forests. They lived only for a short while. One of the older Hunters took care of it easily, his superior blade-spear thrusting into their heads, the force of his strength bursting almost half of the head opened. It was an instant kill. Only one simple move, and the beast died. Not even half a minute of time was wasted on what was considered to be the second strongest creature in the northern forests.

It made me realize that I was still far too weak in comparison to the older Hunters. When I had fought a Drakon, a two-headed serpentine creature that walked fully upright on four legs and had two arms that could rip a young tree from its roots, it had taken me close to an hour. I had to run circles around the creature, slowly whittling it away, like cutting at a tree with an axe. Its armored head was so tough that my blade-spear could not even penetrate through it. In the end, the creature died from having bled out.

I looked at the Hunter who had killed the Drakon. He was one of the older ones, and had a sparsely grown beard with his black hair tied into a ponytail. His muscles flexed with a controlled strength, his grip on the fearsome blade-spear was as steady as a mountain, and his markings glowed with a faint sheen. A Hunter who had fully grown into his powers was not to be underestimated.

“So this is the grassland between the northern forests and the Desolate Forests Range,” Leaping Fox said, his eyes looking at the scenery that laid before us. A questioning frown on his face.

“The Bleary Grasslands…” Brother Ronat whispered softly, in answer to the questioning frown.

“Ah, right. That was its name. It was just at the tip of my young tongue.” Leaping Fox scratched the left side of his neck. It was a habit that he did often when he was feeling sheepish. Names and forest lore were not one of Leaping Fox’s forte. It was strange too, seeing how he had a flair for words.

“Too brown and grey looking,” I said. The grassland, true to its name, was indeed a land of bleary greyness. The grass growing on the land went up to almost our knees and it went out as far as the eyes could see. There were only a few colorful plants, but they were few and far between. Even the trunks of the trees were grey in color. Ash Trees, they were called. “Bleary indeed,” I said.

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Brother Leaping Fox slightly chuckled. “No wonder the Sun Cherishers tribe call themselves that name. They live in such a grey place.” As usual, Brother Leaping Fox had his flair for words with him. He didn’t have it with him the last few days, but perhaps it was because it had been raining.

In front of us, Hunter turned to look at the three of us, a grey amusement in his eyes which matched the surroundings. “Brother Ronat. Brother Leaping Fox. And Brother Wolf Under Stars.” Each name he said with an emphasis.

A gesture of respect. “It has been an honor for me to teach the three of you.” A gesture of welcoming. “I am not one for words, so I will be short. After the Ritual of Age, the three of you will be full grown Hunters. You will have climbed the peak of the mountain, and see things from a new height, a new perspective. But after this peak…”

He waited, forming a short pause—we knew what Hunter would say next. “There will be another mountain to climb, a mountain of mastery. But even after that, there will be new peaks, and new mountains, each more formidable than the previous one.”

Hearing his speech, in my mind, there was a question that I had always wondered about before, ever since Hunter had first talked of mountains. “How far have you climbed, Hunter?” I asked.

His dark eyes met my own pair of grey ones. There was a twinkle of something in them. More amusement? Pride? Admiration? I couldn’t tell. “As expected, Brother Wolf Under Stars, always a hard worker. You can ask me that question after you have feel that you have climbed the third mountain.”          

Hearing my question, Leaping Fox wanted to ask his own. “What comes after mastery then?”

I knew what words Hunter would reply with to that question. I was not disappointed.

“More mastery,” Hunter said, the amusement tracing each syllable of the two words.

“Oh,” Leaping Fox said. He sounded disappointed.

Hunter gave a small laugh. “I will be going now, young Brothers. The Ritual Master shall take over just like he did for the rest of your five Brothers.” He gestured to the three older Hunters with him. “And these Hunters will be with you in case of troubles.”

A gesture of farewell.

We returned it with our own. A turn of our blade-spears. The hard thud of our weapons against the Bleary Grasslands.

Sometimes, words were just not enough.

Hunter formed a full smile at that. He paused. And ever so softly, in a voice we had to strain to hear even one word, he said, “good luck.”

Then he left the three of us Brothers standing in the Bleary Grasslands watching his retreating back. Our teacher. Our master. Our Brother. And the father we never had. He was all of that and more.

Hunter didn’t look back as he entered the northern forests.

A cough sounded from behind us.

We turned around, facing the four older Hunters left. One of them was the Ritual Master, who was in the forefront. He wore his years well. One would almost think he was still a young Hunter from peering at the muscular body, the sharp ridges still standing against the power of time, but looking at his face and hands, he showed his years. The hands of the Ritual Master were gnarled, like the wood of an old tree. Old, but still strong. His face had seen better years too. There were wrinkles setting in under his eyes and cheeks.

On his back, he carried a bulging pack. Judging from the protrusion, the item inside was probably something rectangular in shape. Heavy too, most likely.  In his hands, he held a ferocious blade-spear, the tip of it red. It seemed different from the other blade-spears the older Hunters carried. There was a sense of mysteriousness to it, almost comparable to the blade-spear Hunter carried.

And just like his body, his voice was also still strong. It carried a strength within it that could not be denied. “Young Hunters,” he said, his sharp eyes peering at us, “you may call me Ritual Master, or shorten it to just Master. I shall be the one to lead you in this ritual. If I say left, you go left. If I say right, you go right. If I say kill, you kill. If I say die, you die. In all matters, you shall obey me.”

We nodded. And he smiled at that. A cold smile that sent shivers down our spines.

“You shall ignore the three Hunters behind me. They are not part of this Ritual of Age. They are only here to protect you.” A small pause. “From yourselves and from any…unexpected troubles. Now follow me.”

So we followed him. The Ritual Master set a brisk walking pace that almost made running seem the slower pace. After perhaps an hour, we came to a stop at a deeper place inside of the Bleary Grasslands. Grey grass surrounded us as far as the eyes could see, but in this place, they didn’t grow as high as before. They only came up to our boots.

From his pack, the Ritual Master took out a heavy square box made out of some strange metal which I did not recognize. Intricately carved, the length of its side were about as long as the forearms and the edges of it were red as blood. The rest of its metallic body glistened with a distinct blue that stood out in the dreary colors of the grassland.

“This box, young Hunters…contains the secret of the Demona Hunters.” The Ritual Master, with careful hands, ever so slowly, he opened the lid.

I felt it then.

Whatever was inside was calling to me. To the blood within me. I felt as if I was resonating with the unknown object that was inside the box.

I sneaked a glance at my Brothers. The two of them were also shaking uncontrollably, as if they too were being called upon by that unknown object.

“Obtained by the very first of the Demona tribes and spread throughout the eleven descendant tribes, there are a total of four pieces. Four hearts divided equally among the eleven descendant tribes, each piece of the four hearts as powerful as one could ever imagine.”

“What are they?” I whispered, my voice softer than even the caress of the wind on a blade of grass. I felt a fire spreading throughout me, far stronger than I could have imagined. It was even more powerful than the convulsions that fell upon me when I came to Know my own blood.

“They are the pieces of the four hearts of the Star Behemoth King, a star beast that fell from the very skies themselves. It happened long ago, far before you were even born, far before even I was born.” He gave a short bark of a laughter. “And I have seen many years, young Hunters, almost two lifetimes’ worth.”

“The destruction the star beast caused upon landing was as wide as you could imagine. Whole forests and whole lands were wiped out. Only remnants of the very first Demona tribes, isolated far away, survived from this swathe of merciless destruction. Our ancestors then took the four hearts of this dying star beast and with these four hearts, they became the very first Hunters.”

The Ritual Master paused, and his eyes glowed with a fearsome light. “This is the most guarded secret of the Hunters, of the Demona tribes, and the first step in becoming a true Hunter. For your first task, we shall test the affinity you share with the four hearts. Some Hunters have failed in this task, and their failure cost them their lives.”  

I held no doubts about the implied threat behind his words, behind the soft whisper of his voice. If we failed in this task, we would die—

The Ritual Master would make sure of it, and possibly the three older Hunters behind him, who carried their blade-spears firmly in their hands.

“Become a true Hunter or die,” the Ritual Master said with finality. There would be no denying this command.  

We stepped up, one by one. Brother Leaping Fox went up and his hand reached for the inside of the intricately carved chest. His eyes looked awed as he picked up a piece of the four hearts. The heart he had picked up looked purplish and the thick veins pulsed every few seconds, as if the heart was still alive. Still clinging on.

A flash of blinding light. It dyed the surroundings in a purple hue. And for more than a few seconds, my vision was blurred and my whole body felt disoriented.

"The purple heart. Of nobility. Of cunning. Of  selflessness."

Next came Brother Ronat who picked up a pale yellow colored heart.

This time, I knew what to expect and closed my eyes. But even with my eyes closed, I could still feel the yellow light seared into the darkness, lighting up even the blackness.  

"The yellow heart. Of loyalty. Of vision. Of faith."

Finally, it was my turn. Inside the chest, there were four different colored hearts, each of them pulsing with a powerful something. Something alien. Something unknown. I could feel it in my bones, my blood, and my very heart. There would be no coming back from this. It would be a change as permanent as death itself.

I picked the heart that called to me the most strongly.

A pure blood colored heart that was about the size of my palm. It felt right in my hand, as if the heart had been made for me.

I waited for that flash of blinding light.

A second. Two. Three. Four.

Nothing.

I stared at that blood red heart, waiting for it to do something.

Still nothing.  

Then a brilliant white light, far more powerful than the last two. Then I felt myself flying, the wind rushing at my face and body. And before I even knew it, I was looking up, my vision a blur of red skies. I felt a wetness on my body and face. I was bleeding? Why?

Lying against the ground, I strained my neck, looking at the Ritual Master who stood more than a dozen feet away. I had been thrown backward by that forceful light. A strong force that had been powerful enough to injure me. I felt weak. And my blood felt cold, as if having lost all the fire in it.

The eyes of the Ritual Master turned cold and hard. "You are not suitable, Wolf Under Stars.  

I looked to my two Brothers, their faces pale and their muscles tense. The grip on their blade-spears were forceful. They ran toward me, standing before me.

"Move or the two of you will die along with him. He is not a true Hunter. He has been rejected. " His eyes narrowed, as if the Ritual Master was looking even closer. "You shall die now, Halfling," he said with a finality, pointing his red blade-spear at me.

"And I will kill you myself."

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AN:

Thanks for all the comments and the small critique from FirstDragon. I will keep that in mind.