Chapter 54: Theories of the Renown Genius

Jun Mi listened as Diana recounted her party’s adventure. Four of them entered the domain by chance and discovered the Yoshiki sect. They escaped with Shuraat, which made her happy, but rather than run away and let this be someone else’s problem, the dragon boy convinced them to go back, with the aid of Keigo the Many. So, that was Diana the Bolt, Keigo the Many, Danson the Diamond, Tsukee the Lunar Wolf, a dragon boy, and a young mage girl...and how did they get into Hoka’s spell? Well, the same way they came back stronger this time: The Librarian of Infinity himself. By the end of it all, a wave of emotions washed over her.

First, it left her questioning the bounty system. Instead of these wanted criminals ambushing the Harrabaren, they fought against a sect that would be their ally any other time. The council themselves would say this group had other concerns, yet here they were. And the one telling her all of this crucial information was not some simple girl. Wanted for espionage, subversion, and rebellion, Diana the Bolt knew the weight of her words.

Second, for the questions it raised, it gave her answers too.

“Do you know the members of the Magic Council?” she asked suddenly.

“Like three of them. Grast, Rebecca, Sasha,” Diana answered.

That wasn't a surprise. Grast was the second oldest councilor but had been in the public eye the most.

Rebecca was the councilor of the West Wing.

And Sasha?

Well, between knowing Keigo and the life she lived, there were plenty of reasons Diana knew her name.

"There's another member you should know about, Councilor of the Northeast Wing and delegate of the Jade Wardens, Su Dae-Hyun. He's the one I work under, and who allies the Jade Wardens to the Magic Council, like the Almatt family with the Enforcers." The girl attentively took in the info. "Before I was assigned under Dae-Hyun though, I would hear a lot of rumors…"

Rumors like "he's from a demonic bloodline, so old that it knew the lands before they were called the Triumvirate and the Serpent Dynasty."

Rumors like, "the Su family being a subversive clan," waiting for the right chance to shove a knife into the Triumvirate’s back.

Rumors like, "one of them alone is comparable to the councilors." A rumor that proved to be true when Dae-Hyun later joined.

She shared these rumors with Diana.

“Why tell me any of this?” The girl replied.

"You reminded me of them. I used to wonder, how the Su family could be demons if they didn't have horns. If they were possessed instead, how did they make sure every member of the family were powerful demons? If they really had all this power, how did they go unchallenged for so long?"

“If they were a part of the demon tribe, that'd answer your questions,” Diana said, and Jun Mi knew they were on the same page.

"Yes, and if the rumors are true, then they are a part of the demon clan, ” she nodded.

She sighed too, because this changed how she looked at being a warden. Was that why Hyunwoo wanted to encounter her? Was it obvious to everyone but her that she'd end up questioning her job? But, didn't this all mean the job was worth questioning?

She sighed again, but went on, "In training, we learned that demons manifest in one of two ways. The first is through cults and sects feeding power to errant fragments of magyeon. When a demon "dies" some of their energy lingers like a ghost. Sects gather around that energy and spend decades trying to revive it." Most of those sects fail, but some endure, like the Yoshiki Sect. "And the second occurs through possession. A demon breaches this realm when enough of their presence escapes the maelstrom, and if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, it's like getting struck by lightning."

“So you're either a part of a sect, or you're possessed. That's a horrific way to hide a tribe.” Diana shuddered.

Jun Mi nodded, “I wonder how often I ran into people who didn’t know they were members of the demon tribe. They got the powers, but no horns, and tried to hide it to avoid suspicions. The power still grows, however, and…” It led to situations like her first encounter with a demon. Was he a secret member of a cult? An unfortunate fool? Or a victim just like her?

Diana misread her pause and said, “And people go berserk! Isn’t that sort of what the dark lands see in abominations?”

Jun Mi shook her head, "Not quite. Close, but not enough. We learned about that during training too. Abominations are only formed when something comes in contact with a bad source. The Dark Lands are fully aware of sorcerers, however, and train them to disconnect or avoid them. If someone does become an abomination, there's no subterfuge either. Abominations doggedly pursue other sources."

Diana shook her head. “Great! I don't have to make brain space for those horrors today!”

Jun Mi laughed before she could catch herself. “Yeah…fortunately.” she took a breath again. “This is enough as it is…The Yoshiki sect is dangerous, I can say that much.” She looked at Nakry and Mio, sealed in her wraps. “But I can see why people might join them now.”

Diana looked at them too. "So has the plan changed for you? Good or bad, the sect is still bad for this domain."

“No…it changes things going forward, but for now, we need to focus on what they’re doing.”

“Which brings me to my question. What are they doing?”

“I don’t know, but one of Chiaki’s allies might. We can head to the domain’s core. I’m certain he’s gotten there by now.”

Diana cocked an eyebrow. “Will he be able to stop their plans?”

Jun Mi laughed, “I hope so…he is a renown genius after all.”

The redhead crossed her arms. “Oh yeah? Who is he?”

“Syd Blaek.”

“Who?”

The Renown Genius—Syd Blaek

If life, death, and spiritual balance weren't on the table, Syd Blaek might have complimented the demon pursuing him. As it was now, with the bugman zipping forward, firing back as shots tore pieces of him away, he didn't think this demon would be receptive to conversation. In fact, considering those pieces turned into smaller versions of him, leaping at the demon when he thought they were nothing but broken flesh, he was probably made less receptive, or so Syd theorized.

And when it came to theories, he'd have the demon know he was rarely wrong.

He kept score.

In all of his thirty or forty-something years—he couldn't remember which because he had stopped counting at a point—Syd had been right on 312 occasions and wrong on only 19. Even now he was correct, thinking about this all too angry child, and how a demon would have gained angelic power.

Where would it have started? Exactly where he suggested before.

This Yoshiki Miki would have been a small boy, suddenly beset with an accursed power. His parents, mistaking the relationship between demons and angels would have dragged him to a tomb, sure that the ever-present angelic power would cure him of the affliction.

Sure, it would have done something, but any tomb in the triumvirate was the tomb of an Angel slain by demons. The tomb would forever sing a hymn to make a demon come undone. In a way, his parents were likely influenced by that hymn, and when they saw the demonic nature in him they saw a chance to honor that song.

Take the boy there, trap him where the power always was, and wait as it tore him apart from the core of his inner world. Fortunately, the power of the Yoshiki sect was one of transmutation, and acting like a defense mechanism, it mutated him into something else. Something still close enough to a demon that the power still tried to undo him. An eternal cat-and-mouse game within the boy's core.

“Malignant Chord!” The demon roared, blasting Syd astray with a sonic attack.

Immediately he felt the possession and the hymn coming after it, one part making him a demon while the other attacked what he became. He expelled the affected parts from his body and launched them at Yoshiki Miki.

He batted them aside and roared, coming after Syd as he took flight again.

That spell was the genius part of it though. This demon was a living weapon, turning the violence of its existence into attacks against others. His beam attacks were just expulsions of his own aura, made volatile by the war within him. The Chords were echoes of that war; Viral Chord using hymns to cause possession, and Malignant Chord using hymns to make his target suffer the same fate.

If this boy had even half of Syd's mind, he'd have won already, but as he was now, he could only force a stalemate. This was not a fight Syd could win, so while the demon chased what looked like a fleeing target, Syd led him to the true victor in their battle, waiting just a little further ahead, a muted spiritual presence calling him ever closer.

His target became a visible dot and he turned onto Miki, launching so many pieces of himself that he buried the demon under a pile of Syd Blaeks. He rushed ahead to meet Chiaki and came to a very abrupt stop when he found another young man instead.

Unkempt dark hair, garbed in all black. The boy was on guard at first, but his eyes registered surprise. Syd’s eyes were wide too. His score had just changed from 312;19 to 312;20. He was beside himself, and his mind began to race.

“How could I have been wrong!” He said aloud.

"Aren't you the renown genius, Syd Blaek?" The boy was almost awed.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"No time for autographs!" He said back, pacing left to right. "Considering the muted nature of the power, it should have clearly been Chiaki! Sure it wasn't fully manifested but she maintains a consistent connection to spirits, who could be a greater spiritual blip than her!"

“I don’t want an autograph. I just…I heard about you from my mom.”

"I assure you boy, there is no way for an afelin and human to produce an offspring, not without traversing the vast jungles." He waved the boy off. "No…no! More importantly, if he's not Chiaki then all I've done is put him in danger. He's certainly not a member of the sect otherwise he'd recognize me as an enemy, even being the renown genius." He paced and paced.

“I’m not saying you’re my dad! I’m saying I know about you, my mom talked about you a lot.”

"It is a curse of being renown!" Syd kept going. "Do I then sacrifice this child and pursue Chiaki instead. Hope that he can delay the demon long enough? Perhaps I could weaponize him myself?"

"Well, she didn't know about you when you first met. She saw you with Chiaki and you told her that you could make her strong enough to conquer the Spirit Circle."

"That's it!" Syd paused and turned to him. He came up fast and gazed deep into the boy's eyes. "You're Sanada Keiko's son! She did have a younger one didn't she! As I recall, too, Hijikata sealed the power of Yokumori. That explains why you possess a significant spiritual presence but it feels muted even now. You're sealed too, aren't you? Ah, Syd Blaek, you can't count this as an inaccuracy. There's no way to predict the whims of fate!"

“You’re just like she said.” The boy laughed.

"Yes. Notoriously correct." The pile of Syds stirred behind him. It seemed the demon was finally overcoming it. "Which means this can work."

“What can?”

“I need you to defeat a demon.”

The boy’s eyes sharpened. “Which demon?”

“The one called Yoshiki Miki.” Syd saw a flame of resolve spark. “What is your name, boy?”

“Keigo,”

"Keigo of Yokumori, sealed by Hijikata. If I recall correctly, as oft I do, sealing works in tandem with the spirit. You can't draw on Yokumori's power without fighting the seal, and if you haven't already it's because you either lose or fear the consequences."

The small Syds burned to ash as an explosion rose off of Yoshiki Miki. He stood in a crater, his body charred, his face burned into a rictus of fury.

"Damnable Bug!" The demon roared.

“I know what must be done!” Syd turned his arm into a stinger and stabbed Keigo without warning.

Miki came at them, body healing as he drew in fast. Syd launched more pieces of himself, aiming for his limbs, making them hold him in place.

“What are you doing!” Keigo roared. Then his face softened. “Did you just undo my seal?”

“Only for a moment.” Syd answered.

“What will that do!? He couldn’t beat me before!” Miki fought against his captors.

"Before?" Syd turned a smirk on him. "Before you only saw a fragment of that forest. A fragment of a boundary between the Qilin in the south and the Dragons in the north. A fragment of a place that even the great beasts of that land give wide berth. A fragment of horrors only known in the mind of the Endless Dragon King and the nectar of the Mother Tree. The humans that settled in that land named it Yokumori giving name to its power, but that was a spirit born long before it could know a human name!"

A blast ripped one of the small Syd's apart and Miki leveled his arm, aiming at Keigo.

“Tell whatever story you want, it won’t save him! If you thought he was your trump card, you were both dead wrong!”

“I told you before, young man. Today you will learn that whatever the renown genius thinks is usually right! I think, for one, that the Yoshiki Sect will fail this day. And for two, you’re about to make a fatal mistake.”

Miki fired, the beam lancing past Syd, crashing into Keigo. Some other time this might have turned him to ash, but instead, the angelic hymn came apart, making the blast little different from a strong gale. The runes fluttered around the boy, making concentric circles that made his body glow. Miki watched on with complete confusion, and Syd gave Keigo space.

“Pale Boy…” Keigo murmured. “Henshin!” He called out.

Roots and branches erupted from his body, twisting around him to make a great cocoon. Syd felt Yokumori's power screaming out, and Miki did too, according to the horror in his eyes. The cocoon expanded and fell like a lung, leaves, and flowers growing to cover it.

Miki took flight as if to flee, and froze as if caught in a predator’s gaze.

The cocoon peeled and Keigo rose from it, his body made of pointed silver bonded together by flesh of light. He was more of a sculpture than a person, geometric shapes defining the familiar parts of his body, a halo burning white over his head as that same light rose like six wings from his back.

Syd wondered, was it the demon part of Miki that made him freeze, or the angel?

Pale Boy’s face was like a projection, cast out from what looked like a prism. What counted as eyes were impassive, and while some form of him was still Keiko's son, Syd quivered at Yokumori's unleashed power. How old was the essence of this angel? How long had the forest preserved it for transformation?

He looked at Miki, still frozen, and knew that whatever the age, it was older than the angel whose hymn sieged him.

The demon seemed to remember himself fast enough to raise his arms, bringing his hands together, and firing a beam that roared through the sky.

If Syd were in his place he might have put magyeon at the forefront, hoping that transmutation and possession would shift the battle, turning the Angel into a weapon against itself.

And even he might not have predicted what came next, as Keigo swept an arm up, writing celestial runes in the air. The indecipherable iconography splayed out, unraveling the beam like strings of threads. With a motion of his fingers, the icons came together as a new rune, igniting Yoshiki Miki, the hymnal power inside him on a ravenous display.

The demon roared and Syd heard the boy he really was, fifteen or sixteen and no way old enough to endure all the pain he felt. He roared and he cried, sorrow sounding out from him like a siren.

The runes became a lyre in Keigo's hands. The flames that burned Miki stopped, and his body started to heal, all too slowly. Even Syd shuddered as Keigo strummed the strings.

One note and Miki was seized, his limbs stretching out.

On the next, his eyes welled up, the light leaving them as he was taken back.

On the next, Syd saw the memory of a boy, staring into a mirror as his dark hair turned white.

On the next, there was the report of a slap, as a small boy looked at horrified parents with maelstrom cracked eyes.

On the next, his scream sounded out as he lay on the cold floor of a mausoleum, burning with cold flames.

On the next and the next and the next, he cried out for his parents, for forgiveness, for not knowing what he had done wrong, then accepting their hate.

On the last, the song went silent, Miki's body hitting the ground like a sack, all signs of life strummed out of it. Flesh turned to magyeon and flowed apart, stripped of any aspect of identity.

Keigo descended, and branches and roots ripped through him again. Another cocoon and he was back to himself, body sagging as if it had carried too much weight.

Miki was defeated, and Syd had confirmation. The Spirit Guards were not wrong to fear Yokumori but did not know how much they underestimated it.

“The power is gone…” Keigo came tiredly.

"Of course it is. All I did was inject you with a conduit for your spiritual power. There's no way Yokumori wouldn't have burned through it. That's why I said the seal break was temporarily."

“I knew about the heirloom forms but that was…that was way scarier than any form I’ve ever known. I don’t know how my mom could ever lose.”

“Well, I’m sure they started by sealing the forest. Yokumori is terrifying boy. I did not deceive Keiko when I said the Spirit Circle could be hers. ”

The boy shuddered.

Syd nodded. This was the second time he saw that reaction. He even knew that Keigo would say the same thing.

“Yokumori would never settle for the Spirit Circle. The covetous forest is never sated.”

“Alas, you are truly your mother’s son. I guess that’s why you were going to inherit her role. Your brother was more of a scrappy type, wasn’t he?” Syd sighed. “But what point is there to this conversation when the power is sealed in the first place!” Frankly, he had to think about where he should go next. Did he still go to Chiaki, or toward the domain’s core?

“Do you have a spatial mage on your side?” Keigo asked suddenly.

“Yes, though she’s incapacitated at the moment.” Syd supposed that was something else to be concerned about.

“You don’t seem worried about that! We’re in the middle of a battle, aren’t we?”

“Yes, but the circumstances of her incapacitation suggests that she’s protected. If the Yoshiki sect had done it, the spell would be broken, after all.”

“Circumstances? You know what happened to her?”

“Not entirely no…I can say that L’vay is at fault though.”

Keigo's brow furrowed deeply. Syd crossed his arms. “Who is L’vay!? Why aren’t you worried!”

“You know Osheandre, right?”

“The World’s Custodian? The ancient spirit that seals some of the most vile lifeforms to ever walk the lands?”

“The very same! And L’vay is one of those vile lifeforms.”

Keigo bared his teeth as if he was ready to bite, “Why would you be working with him? Why would you let him out!”

Syd sighed, “I like the curiosity young man but you’re delaying my expert conclusion. He was released in case this battle turned against us. Not that we trust him, but L’vay is a horror to demons and angels in particular. We trusted his whims, I suppose. No, not even that. It’s better to say that he could not even begin to threaten Chiaki or Hoka.”

“And you?”

“Because of my remote soul, L’vay can only wish to hurt me.”

Keigo let out a deep and long-suffering sigh. “Would you at least say he’s nothing to worry about?”

Syd gave him an emphatic shake of his head. "No, L'vay most certainly is something to worry about. Which is why I'll bring this question to you. Shall we head to the core, Keigo? Or, do we locate Chiaki?" The best method was to let a spiritualist decide. Syd didn't like that L'vay had free reign, but did his limited freedom matter more than what the sect was planning?

Keigo thought it over too, clenched his jaw, and tightened his fist. “Let’s head toward the center.” He said.

Syd nodded approvingly.

“Am I going to regret choosing this in the end?” Keigo started, and Syd followed.

“No. I suspect L’vay would never trifle with Yokumori’s vessel.”

“And my friends?”

Syd didn't answer immediately. It didn't require thought, but he was suddenly reminded of one of Chiaki's suggestions. The company he used to keep was used to harsh and brutal truths, but the world beyond that circle wasn't prepared for the likes of any of them.

Could he tell Keigo there was nothing to worry about? Could he willingly be wrong, just to let this boy focus? There was worse among his old crew than him, far worse when it came to matters of theories and results. But all of them would likely agree.

"I approve of Chiaki's decision to use L'vay. Of all the tools at her disposal, with the spiritual balance on the line, he was the best contingency plan she could come up with. We did not account for anyone other than the dragon boy being here. We could not prepare for these circumstances."

“Which means you don’t know?” Keigo replied.

“I fear that I do, in fact. And I’m hoping, Keigo, that your friends are as unpredictable as the whims of fate.” The boy found reassurance in that, somehow, and Syd decided to trust him.

One way or another, L’vay was on the move. And when he stopped, something would undergo a severe change…

[Chapter 54 ends…]