71. Hunger

There was no arena on Atla that could contain their bout, so the duel between the Peach Blossoms and Tornolai the Raging Tyrant took place in the air, far above the unclaimed jungle above the densest regions of the Ker’tath jungle. Hundreds of silver-ranked watchers judged the match, each filing a report to their superiors at the conclusion, which would be summarized and condensed and fed back to their master tacticians and Di Ram himself.

Tornolai, while a powerful and unpredictable force, was no tactician himself, and he had gladly shirked the duty the moment the option was presented to him. But he was content to throw his muscle around in the directions that the schemers and the plotters wanted him to move the mountains and change the landscape, so when he had been gifted this opportunity he had gladly accepted.

He refused to be shown up by some little brats who thought that a formation was a substitute for true power. He would show them what it meant to be on the golden path!

The ten disciples hovered in the air nearby, waiting for him to begin. He stood in the air, his arms crossed, as he waited for them.

“To confirm, this is a friendly bout to demonstrate the relative power between the combatants,” one of the silver ranked judges said. “Lethal blows should be avoided, and injuries that do not heal in three days are to be avoided, and—”

Tornolai had heard enough of the rules. He pulled at his Qi and fired off a blast of energy at the leader of the Peach Blossoms.

His first element had been water. He had learned to swim deep in the oceans while holding his breath, and it was there that he had found the eels which had changed his fate. He had grabbed at one, intending to snap its spine and eat it, when it had electrocuted him.

He had hunted hundreds of the creatures as he sought to realign his Qi to lightning. With water and lighting in his Qi, he had managed a third element, and combined them into one.

Water.

Wind.

Lightning

Tornolai was a storm that walked like a man .

The clouds began to gather as he pushed out his Qi and began causing the environment to shift its natural flows to obey him. This was why he was called the raging tyrant, and as he watched the lightning rush towards the leader of his opponents, he continued to marshal his might.

The lightning blast was casually deflected by Hien Ro, who turned to his companions. “Lightning. Polkluk, would you like to take point?”

“Yes. It’s so rare to fight a lightning expert aside from Master,” Polkluk said, and the formation changed.

Tornolai frowned, because they hadn’t shifted or moved, and yet his sense of who was leading the group was fundamentally different. He saw now that who he had thought was the leader was merely supporting the tall young man in the middle, who even now was gathering--

Tornolai frowned as the storm began to fight back against his control. He was attempting to martial the powers of nature, but so too was the leader of the Peach Blossoms. He struggled for a moment against the pull, trying to reallign the energy with himself, but it would not give until--

The full lightning blast of the storm impacted his chest, pulled from miles around.

He staggered. He had not had a jolt like that since he’d first picked up an electric eel by mistake. He sagged in the air for a moment as he recovered.

“Not bad, you little brat,” he muttered.

Then he charged into the midst of the formation, determined to settle this the old fashioned way, even as he continued to struggle for the control of the skies.

Polkluk rose to challenge him, and Tornolai frowned as each blow, which should have crushed the silver path cultivator, was deflected, blocked, or dodged. And each blow that landed on his own body carried far too much weight, and a touch of electrical power as well.

The duel continued for five minutes between Tornolai and Polkluk before they mutually backed off.

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“You are holding back,” Tornolai said to his opponents. “Only one of you fights when you could be exploiting my openings and weaknesses while I was occupied with your lightning master.”

“This is a friendly duel,” Hien Ro said. “We would not wish to kill one of the most powerful assets of the Many Peaks Alliance.”

“Cocky little brat,” Tornolai muttered, but as he felt his own Qi shaking at the purity of the blows he had taken, he put one fist in the other palm and bowed over his hands. “I thank you for the bout and concede my loss.”

The Peach Blossoms each gave them their own signal of respect, and the duel was decided.

They flew back to the city, the roar of breaking the sound barrier echoing behind them. An hour later, Tornolai found himself surrounded by beautiful women who were massaging the injuries he had taken when Di Ram and Tonilla stepped into the room.

“Well?” Di Ram asked. “How strong are they?”

“As a team, they are worth five of me,” Tornolai said. “Individually? I cannot say.”

Di Ram nodded and paced while Tornolai oohed and awed at the massage he was receiving. He was surprised again by the clarity behind the blows he had taken. It did not quite match his own storm path, but there were insights in the fight which he could learn from.

It was never too late to adjust one’s heading, after all. Or to reconfirm it by studying the path not taken.

“What do we do next?” Di Ram asked.

“We defend our homeland for as long as we can,” Tornolai said simply. “Until the sun sets and the stars burn out.”

~~~~~~

The little boat pulled up to the dock. Its wood was not native to these shores, its appearance was dingy and poorly constructed. The idea that it was held together with Qi and hope would outrage anyone who knew anything about seafaring, and it would have been immediately turned into firewood.

But it had carried its passenger across an ocean to the new continent. A young man, seventeen or eighteen, despite having been born only thirteen years ago, stepped out, and the boat immediately fell apart.

Few in the port noticed him, but those who did met his eyes and felt the weight of ages in the light of the windows to his soul.

He stepped forth and made his way deeper inland.

Nobody noticed as he came to a crossroad and, rather than choosing which direction to take,

He took both.

~~~~~~~

Ko Ren stared down at the marching horde. His numbers were growing by the hour as undead flocked to the command sigils he had emblazoned on his own body. Sigils which gave him the power he had always dreamed of. He still ranked at the end of the golden path, but he was so much more than that.

“I am hunger,” he said, watching as a wraith of a woman stumbled and clumsily got back to her feet to continue the march through the wastelands. He had disrupted the gathering arrays here to allow them to march through the Qi desert, but it was taking time to cross the many leagues to the south, where the prey waited.

“I am the ravenous maw,” he said, staring at one of the amalgamations. It was strange, as he wasn’t quite certain where the abominations came from. They had simply begun appearing of their own accord within his ranks.

“I am the end of suffering and the joining of all paths into one,” he said. He glanced at their destination, his eyes piercing the distance and following the planet’s curve to the distant city of Resh Fali

“I am the end of hope and the one who remains in the ashes,” he said, solidifying his path yet further.

Six Dimensions away, the Necromancer watched with amusement. “Oh this is quaint,” he said.

“I am the one who tears down the foundation so that it might be rebuilt in mine own image,” Ko Ren said, feeling the power surge within him.

Within Ko Ren were two cores. One which he had cultivated himself over decades, almost two centuries of life.

The second had been cultivated with as much care and effort. By his sister, whose ghost he was finally rid of as he had consumed the last of her spirit.

The core that belonged to Ko Si resisted his words.

But the other core, the one that had belonged to him all along, stepped onto the golden path.

He staggered as his power reached new peaks. He was not a diamond path cultivator, but he was stronger than any golden ranked threat that had ever stepped foot on the world of Atla in living memory.

The Necromancer grinned. Then he turned his attention elsewhere.

There were, after all, six more continents to conquer before he could call this world his own.

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