11. Purpose
They were the siphons used to latch on to my reservoir, the focal points which had been used to create the five massive crystals that had been the focus of the fate-changing relics, the shards of which were even now changing hands as successive generations of fated children inherited them from their elders. They had each reached the mythril path, but were now facing the end of their natural lifespan. They came to me together.
Three of them bristled with power, as though they had been preparing for a final confrontation their entire lives and were bringing everything they had to bear upon their mortal foe. One sat in silence. The final one bowed reverently to me, a supplicant to a sacred deity.
“ Oh great ancestor. We have come to apologize and make amends for the wrong that was done to you two thousand years ago. Please, spare us your wrath and forgive us for our unknowing role in the wicked ritual which prevented your ascension,” the ancient woman said.
I snorted in amusement. “Is that what you think I am? Your ancestor? Child, I murdered you in a past life. You were a boy in a village, and I was a soldier. I found you hiding in your home, and I crushed your head in with my ax. I needn’t have done that, I would have faced no consequence had I allowed you to escape. It was wantonly cruel of me. But my people were at war with yours, and it seemed the proper thing to do at the time. That is the link between your soul and mine. Or it was, until the debt I owed you was stolen from me and placed in those fel objects.”
I turned to one of the men. “You were my wife, once. We were ill matched and I drove you to commit suicide. And you, you were my child, which I drowned in a ditch because I did not want the responsibility of motherhood. I am no sainted ancestor. I am but a mortal spirit who has awakened to his past lives. And in many of those lives I was not particularly righteous or kind. I came into an abundance of providence, and I was using it to make amends for the sins of my past lives. When that providence was stolen from me, so too were my debts. I have tried to explain this for centuries to your predecessors, but my words fell on deaf ears.”
The woman who had spoken was crestfallen. “Then, the fated children, who can draw from the objects without consequence? What are they?”
“ They are the souls of those I wronged,” I explained. “They face no consequence for taking from the well that you have helped build because they are the rightful creditors of the debt which was taken from me. You, and the fools which performed that demonic fate-stealing ritual, have become the reservoir from which the well draws. In each of your following reincarnations you will face ill fate and bad luck as the providence which might have seen you happy is siphoned away into the objects. It shall continue to do so, with interest, until your debt is paid in full.”
“ Is there nothing we can do to be spared this fate?” she insisted.
“ Do good deeds,” I said, shrugging. “Cultivate your soul and face the final tribulation with an abundance of providence. Perhaps then you will be able to clear your debt. But the heavens are a jealous banker, and they will not release you until restitution has been made.”
“ Liar,” one of the warriors shouted. “You are a demon, you have admitted as much already! Release us from this curse you have inflicted upon us, or face the consequences.”
I sighed. I owed them nothing, but I examined the link between them and the cursed stones for a moment. “The link you have with the objects are different from those of the other ritualists. I do not believe you incurred nearly so much debt as they, since some of what was stolen was intended for you to begin with. Linked you still are, and shadows of the ritual remain clutched upon your souls, increasing your debt for every moment you are alive. The sooner you pass over through the veil of death, the easier your debt shall be to repay.”
“ You see! Even now he whispers his lies to us! Face me demon!”
He and the other two warriors began their assault. It lasted for six days, and it was marvelous. They sprayed the realm of death with endless energies. With deep comprehension of mysteries. With powerful dao and fearsome techniques.
But everything that was flung at me passed into the realm of death, and it died in doing so. In the end, they were withered and exhausted, having spent the last of their energies in fighting a ghost. One by one, the three warriors were drawn into the land of the dead and swept further and further away from the bridge to the land of the living, screaming obscenities at me as they were taken away by forces beyond their comprehension.
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“ I believe you, elder,” the silent one said finally. “I shall return to the land of the living to spread my wealth to the unfortunate, to change the fates of the downtrodden. Then, when I have nothing left to give, I will willingly enter the samsara and face the consequences of this life in my future reincarnations.”
The previously silent one returned to the world, leaving me only with the one who had spoke first.
“ I do not believe you,” she said finally. “You are truly a demon, I see that now. You wish to devour my soul to strengthen yourself! Well you will not have it! I shall never cross over this threshold, I shall use my power to live forever and for all eternity you shall go hungry! I shall--”
She continued on like this for some time, but I had heard it all before.
“ I believe I shall enter Samsara,” I told her. “My curiosity of the effects of that little ritual you were involved in has been sated. I have no more reason to linger here.”
I turned, and I walked into the land of the dead, leaving her cursing at the vanishing shadow of a ghost.
My journey through the land of the dead was brief, for there was little to delay me along the way as I journeyed to the shores of rebirth. It was as though a vast ocean, with gentle waves lapping against a peaceful shore. I stripped off my robes, leaving them behind, and I stepped into the waters, and I--
I lived the mayfly lives.
When it came to the life of the gestator child, the one who had lived in the city that had been destroyed by the alien energies lacking of spirituality or mercy, I recoiled.
I paused in the land of the dead, terrified at the horror that had ended my previous life. Such wanton destruction! Not since the dread god had I imagined such evil. A weapon of indiscriminate slaughter such as only a mythril path cultivator could unleash, and yet it had not an ounce of spirituality behind it. It made my ghost shudder, and although I mourned the loss of life I had witnessed, I was also grateful to have escaped that reality.
Out of curiosity, and to take my mind from the destruction I had witnessed, I returned to the empire of the fate thieves and peaked out to see what had changed. Perhaps fifty years had passed while I had been in the samsara, and the empire had not changed for the better. Although it clung to calling itself by the same name, it had fallen and broken into dozens of kingdoms, each spanning many worlds or even entire sections of galaxies in the five realities in which it had spread during its height.
The empire was in the middle of a civil war. In the center, the empress, the final siphon, was spreading out, killing the fated children and confiscating the shards of the fate-changing artifacts for herself. Worse yet, she had turned to demonic methods to extend her own lifespan beyond its natural limits. She had accused me of being a demon, but she was the one who had anchored her spirit unnaturally and was now possessing the body of an innocent victim.
She must have been waiting for me, for mere moments after I returned my attention to that corner of the cosmos, she appeared before me again at the link between life and death.
“ Take that you monster,” she taunted me. “I know what you are doing. You have seen that you cannot simply wait until--”
“ Goodbye, Nadia,” I said, and I turned to walk away.
“ I shall not let you live! You shall not grow to adulthood, I shall not let you come into power, no matter how many worlds I must destroy in order to prevent it.”
I paused and turned back to her in horror. “That was you? How?”
“ I possessed the captain of the human ship,” she said proudly, madness gleaming in her eye. “I drove him mad, and he fired that wonderful weapon for me with the slightest of provocation. He was executed for it, but what matter is that to me?”
I closed my eyes and nodded. “I was content to allow you to kill me as many times as you wished, Nadia, but for that crime I cannot abide any longer. For your own sake, I shall drag you back into the samsara. I shall see you in my next life, child. I am sorry for what madness has possessed you.”
She cursed and screamed at my back, but soon I was too far from the world of life to hear her. Once again I came to the ocean of rebirth, and once again I--