He was considered a samurai by his people, but in truth he was a Dragon Warrior, a student of the martial ways of chi, and a follower of the Light-Sparkling-Water School, which had risen to become the foremost school of the sword in Darwin. His hand was on the hilt of his Katana Oil-Cutter, staring at the flames rising on the walls of the Heaven-Breaking Dojo, blazing up from the shattered and fallen buildings within, burning upon the fallen doors blown from their hinges, and allowing a clear and unobstructed view of the carnage within.
He had seen the magic leveling the place, the potency and fury of the flames that had raged to consume it all, and he had seen something more.
He had seen Holy power!
He was what the Harsistes were calling a Faux Seven, and was more than spiritually sensitive enough to identify Sacred energies he had seen wielded many times by those empowered by Harse and Aru, Amana and Flora, and even Heavenbound Warlocks.
There was no mistaking such energies, and such powers could not be wielded by just anyone. Some very powerful force aligned with Heaven had moved to act against the Heaven-Breaking Dojo.
His elite guard, also all Powered like himself, were prepared to run into the compound and see who they could save, but he held them back as he waited in front of the falling doors, staring at the show of carnage within.
Dead. They were all dead...
Most of the younger students were nothing but ashen smears on the ground, their weapons seared and half-melted next to them. The corpses of the senior students, the true Cultivators, still remained, their bodies half-burned, often bearing wounds that looked like they’d been hit by explosive bullets or something, and their pale faces wide in disbelief, anger, or shock that this could happen to them.
Something about all the corpses he could see being Cultivators made his skin crawl.
There was motion.
Gunmen behind him brought their rifles up as the tall man walked out of the burning ruin of the dojo, two corpses on his shoulders, smoldering, and tossed them unceremoniously to the ground.
Pale and smooth white skin. Both of them were Cultivators. Kentai’s skin crawled.
None of his children had been born Powered, of course. The only way such a thing was possible was if your mate was not human, and your children half-breeds inheriting the magic of their non-human parent. She had eagerly signed on for Cultivation lessons, and proven extremely talented, coming from a background where martial skill was prized and having been taught basic ki techniques since she was a child.
She was in here, somewhere, among the dead that had been burned by the fires of Heaven.
Burned by the fires of Heaven...
He swallowed despite himself.
The Fires of Heaven did not burn Good men...
He had made hard decisions in his life, and knew that he was no saint. His advisor Inkai, a Priest of Imprus who considered him the local king and so rightful ruler of this place, had told him his soul was a cool blue, the color of order, of discipline, and control.
That was not a color of Heaven, but he also knew that the true Fires of Heaven would not burn him like that!
All of them burned, consumed, destroyed by the Fires of Heaven! By Sacred flames!
What... what did that mean? The people who had undertaken lessons here were all finely vetted for their loyalty and patriotism! What did it mean when Sacred fires killed them all?
What did it mean about his daughter?
His stomach was twisting as he stared at the distant figure walking back into the flames, and then a towering pillar of fire punched down through the Haze above, slamming into the middle of the burning dojo with horrifying power and a searing feeling of purity and moral outrage, like the sun coming to the tainted and unclean Earth to scour it clean.
Despite themselves, many of the men behind found themselves going to their knees, witnessing such a resoundingly Hallowed magic descending from Above, and even Kentai himself found himself wavering in the face of such wrath.
The pitiful fires blazing in the ruins there were literally blasted away and extinguished by the divine flames, blown out like candles before a forest fire. The entire center of the building was instantly vaporized, burned to less than ash.
Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.
He found himself walking into the grounds, followed silently by his guards, watching to see what was going to happen here.
The tall man from before materialized up from shadows at the edge of a pit burned into the ground, a figure in a red dress slung over his shoulder, limp and helpless, pale of skin and dark of hair.
“Akari...”
His daughter’s red robe was seared, as was her hair and patches of her pale skin.
Pale skin. When did her skin become the white of a Cultivator? His hand creaked upon the hilt of his Blade, and his chi was disjointed as it swirled around him, trying to remain calm.
Someone else shot up into the air from the depths of the pit, followed by a series of glowing Disks... with people sprawled upon them.
Young people. Children...
His hackles started to rise as the woman there glided to the ground, and the half-dozen Disks came down with her next to the man, who unceremoniously dropped the woman on his shoulder to her knees next to him, jolting her back to consciousness as he held her up effortlessly by her hair... and a hand burning with Sacred flame, ready to be unleashed.
Silver eyes in black, each person’s slightly different, stabbed across the distance into his own, heavy with condemnation, and even the samurai felt their hearts skip a beat.
He knew her!
“My lord, we should attack...” Inkai began, and Kentai chopped his hand, cutting him off instantly.
All his instincts said that to attack was to die!
“Keep the soldiers out!” he ordered in an iron tone that brooked no argument. “If anyone fires a shot or launches an attack without my direct order, I will kill them myself!”
That order was hurriedly relayed, and the soldiers outside obeyed gladly. They didn’t want to mess with anyone who could do this to the Heaven-Breaking Dojo, either.
He stepped forward, past the scattered dead, looking at each and every one. He knew many of them, placing them by their weapons, their ranking belts, the embroidery on their uniforms, or jewelry or other ornamentation. They had all died quickly, by fire or erupting force, looking very unresigned as they did so.
Far more of them had creamy white skin then he remembered, including two that he had seen just earlier today...
The pair had stopped on the steps of the Dojo, the rubble and archway that had graced it seared away by the flames in an instant.
He saw a red ornament in her hair glitter, and the children on the Disks were suddenly covered in warm red robes, while her hands swirled with healing lights that swept across them.
Pretty much simultaneously, they all turned over, and vomited white and creamy filth onto the stairs, looking like some kind of viscous and clotted milk.
The resemblance to the skin of the Cultivators around them could not be mistaken. Nor was the fact that some of those children had the dark skin of the aborigines, not just half-bloods.
There were murmurs rising behind him as the sharper of the soldiers began to realize that something unclean was going on.
“Kentai, your daughter,” Inkai whispered softly, but the samurai just held up his hand.
His instincts said that this woman was the one responsible, and there was power hanging in the air; power that could kill them all if they were rash.
And he knew her. They all knew her. She had brought the whole world the Human Tongue, with an hour of her time and that video, brought across the ocean to them, replayed by everyone here.
This was Traveler!
He held up his fist and clenched it, and his guards instantly stopped behind them. He continued forwards under the weight of those eyes, and after a moment’s hesitation, Inkai stepped after him.
The children, a couple of whom could be no older than two, were laying on the Disks in exhaustion. The lines of deprivation were on all their faces, hints of some dark horror he was not aware of, and Traveler stepped out from between them.
“Father!” his daughter spoke up abruptly, managing to focus on him. “Help us! You must kill them all!”
Traveler’s eyes did not leave his as he stepped forwards. He acknowledged his daughter’s words with a glance, but did not stop his pace until he stood at the foot of the stairs, looking up at them.
They did not look happy, nor even satisfied. He could feel a cold, building fury about them, the air shuddering at the Wrath of Heaven. This was nothing that gave them pleasure. This was only a grim task that had to be done, and they were going to see it through...
“Why have you come here, Lady Traveler? Why have you done this?” he asked softly.
“Lord Kentai Yamamoto. Your reputation precedes you.” Despite himself, he stood straighter at the notes in her voice, responding to the air and authority that came with it. This was a woman with power, used to wielding power, and very comfortable at doing so, despite her seeming youth. She had the ageless beauty of the elves, so prized by so many, and a wisdom and power that made his soul shake despite himself.
“I am Lady Traveler, the Monarch of the Jet and Silver.” For whatever reason, he found himself instantly realizing that her status eclipsed his own by several levels, like he was a baron paying court upon a king, or a daimyo upon the Shogun. “I came to this place to deliver a great boon to its people, and instead found it in the grips of a great and horrible Evil.” Despite themselves, everyone looked around in shock. “You allowed Cultivators to spread among your people. You are very lucky I arrived when I did. I estimate within a month, they would have risen up and cut you down, reducing your people to slaves and your Powered to pills and elixirs... as they were planning to do with these children, and as they have done to at least forty other Powered.”
Kentai’s face went blank at the news. “Our missing people-?”
“Ritually sacrificed to draw their power out, enabling the Golden Orbs within the Cultivators to mature quickly and consume the souls of the hapless fools raising them. Their bodies were then made into pills to further aid their Cultivation.
“Or were you aware so many of them had advanced to Four, and so many to Six, and Seven?” she asked archly, her tone indicating that he was a massive fool if he did, and merely a great fool if he did not.
But it was her other words that chilled him most. “Consume their souls?” he repeated hollowly, not daring to look at his daughter.
“Father, you cannot trust her wo-“
“TRUTH.”
They all rocked at the sheer transcendent power of that Word, his guards falling to their knees as it smote their souls with the ugliness of the deeds they had done, what they looked like in the eyes of Heaven, laying bare all their faults and cruelties.
It was like being judged by Heaven...