77. Silence

“My children who dwell on Atla,”

Thaseus swung his sword, cut from a common bamboo shoot months ago and shaped by his own Qi. The technique clicked into place, empowered by the collective of the North Star Guiding technique. He did not pause to look up at the sky, from which the voice came.

“I have failed you. I saw this corruption and stood before it, but I was too weak to protect you. My son, I sent you out of the nest in hopes that you would remain pure, but the rot has reached far.”

Taimei felt the collective come to her just as she finished forming the technique. With her Qi to show it the way, the collective snapped into place and it shone . The light was blinding to look at, and purifying, and it burned through a thousand of the lesser undead.

A thousand more took their place.

“While I ascended to plea to the Lord of the Realm for intercession.”

Polkluk gasped as he reached for the thunder of Tornolai’s storm instinctively, forgetting it was not there. He gasped as a stray arrow took him in the stomach. He retreated, pulling himself out of the collective to spare the others his pain.

“This is his answer.”

The silence that followed was deafening.

In the midst of battle, as men screamed and fought and died.

The silence was deafening.

Di Ram screamed out to fill the silence as his spear pierced through the heart of a gold-ranked threat. “Father! We need your help.”

The silence.

And then, the final strand connecting Atla to the heavens was severed.

And the stars went out.

~~~~~

I staggered under the weight that had just fallen upon me. I had known that this might happen. I had prepared for it. I had never hoped for it, but rather lived in dread of the inevitability that this would come to pass.

The Lord of the Realm, who had previously defended Atla against the attacks of Nadia of the Divine Fates Empire, had cut this world out of his protection. That he did so not out of malice or carelessness I had no doubt. He sought to preserve the rest of his empire by quarantining this one. It was logical. It was calculated.

It was heartless.

And just like that, the final strand of fate which would have led to my obedience to this man, this Lord of the Realm. This man named Loshi, who had ruled a dimension for thousands of years uncontested. The thread snapped.

And I was free to act a I pleased.

I dispersed the last of my avatars,

And I walked into the darkness of the battlefield.

I had hoped that the lord would fight this fight for me, because I knew that it would change me in ways that were so profound that I could not predict the sort of man that I would become.

But I knew one thing.

The world of Atla was poised to fall.

And it was a burden that I could not pick up by myself.

~~~~~~

Adan Pocef fought.

For days and nights he had fought.

He was barely more than a mortal, having only reached the energy gathering realm thanks to the wisdom and kindness of the great Little Bug. He grinned, dodging under one of the lesser undead’s attack and decapitating it with the short sword which Hien Ro had given to him the last time they’d parted.

“Don’t let her die,” he whispered, looking in the distance where the Peach Blossoms were fighting even now. No mortal could come close to that part of the battlefield, and even the silver ranked combatants steered clear. “I know that the cat is dead, but don’t let her be next.”

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The news of Xol’s death had spread through the battlefield hours ago, and then that Polkluk fought through a grave injury, and next that Lahri was blinded, and he feared to hear that the light of his life would be the next to fade.

“Hien Ro, you bastard. You stole my daughter for me, the least you can do is keep her safe,” he muttered, beheading another undead. That it was the corpse of a child didn’t bother him anymore. It wasn’t a child, but something other and alien and twisted .

“Little Bug, your disciples need you,” Adan said. “Oh won’t you save them?”

“Worry about yourself, old man,” a familiar voice said.

Adan turned and saw an impossible sight. The master cultivator stood next to him, dressed in the armor of a common soldier. The soldier who had been fighting next to him for days now, through the countless hours. The soldier whose life he had repeatedly saved. Who had repeatedly saved his life. In the din of combat, he had never before heard this soldier’s voice, but he knew it now.

“What are you doing here, Little Bug?”

“Saving your life,” Little bug answered. “Yara would never forgive me if I let you die.”

At that moment, one of the errant techniques of the Peach Blossoms impacted an attack from the enemy that was equal to it in every way. The energies clashed, and Adan prepared to die as he saw one ray of the explosion heading towards him.

Until Little bug, dressed as he was, stood between his squad and the blast. He held up a hand, and the attack dissipated.

“What?” Adan asked.

“This is as far as I can walk by your side, Adan,” Little Bug said. “Good luck. I hope you live to see your grandchildren.”

The figure closed its eyes, then opened them again.

“Oh,” He said. “Here I am.”

Then he flew off into the distance.

Adan watched him go for a moment, then the battle came back to him and he was too busy to think beyond the next block, the next attack, and the next ghoul.

~~~~~

Ko Ren felt triumphant as he dueled with the cursed Peach Blossoms. He had conjured together two of the gold-ranked puppets and controlled them now through dark magic that split his mind three ways. It was not a weakness, but rather a unification of wills that made him thrice as strong.

The petal blossoms, meanwhile, were wilting. Already his forces had killed one of them, and more were grievously injured. He stepped forward to slay them at last, and forever extinguish the spark of hope that lit the way for the rest of the defenders.

“It’s not too late,” he said conversationally, giving them a chance to surrender just as his puppet had given the thunder-warrior. “If you stand aside, I will grant you power. You will become my lieutenants as we conquer the world. Then, in the ashes—”

“There it is! That one is the main body!” one of the blossoms said, pointing at Ko Ren. Ko Ren felt a convergence of intent, and he barely avoided a technique which pierced through the night and continued over the horizon, a ray of light so blinding that it might have been made from starstuff.

He cursed and began pulling together energy from the two puppets, shaping it into a technique of his own. He aimed it not at the petals, but at the city behind them.

And just as he knew they would, they stood to protect it.

The brilliance of their violet Qi formed a shield against his black energy. The sprays of light that signaled death to any who would so much as came near it wrecked through the battlefield that had already seen thousands of such displays over the last two weeks. Worn and weary as they were, the blasted Peach Blossoms’ shield held through Ko Ren’s technique.

He cursed and began forming another one, not giving the petals enough time to--

Lightning struck him from the side. He turned, surprised to find that one of the petals had separated from the others.

Polkluk gathered his power, his solitary power, and hoped that his death would give the others an opportunity. He watched as the enemy turned to him and began forming a technique.

“Give them hell, friends,” Polkluk said as the technique flared towards him.

The other petals were out of position, separated from him and unable to pull him into the unity that would allow him to defend against a gold-leveled attack.

He smiled as he met his end.

The technique vanished mere inches away from him.

Space and time twisted, and the energies that were intended to wipe Polkluk from existence instead struck the puppet on the left, the surprise attack eradicating it from existence.

“You may rest now, Polkluk,” a familiar voice said. “Your master is here.”

Polkluk fell to his knees. “Little Bug?” he asked as the figure stepped up next to him. “Where have you been?”

“Here and there,” the young man—had Little Bug aged since they’d parted ways? He looked profoundly older. “I’m sorry that I left the ten of you to face this darkness on your own. Until the Lord of the Realm made his decision, I did not know which path I would walk. But now that he has made his decision, I have made mine.”

“Oh,” Polkluk said, not understanding. He felt exhaustion on a level so profound he didn’t have a word for it falling on him. “What decision is that?”

“I will ascend,” Little Bug answered.

Polkluk grinned. “Yeah, that makes sense. If I had a choice to live on this world or leave it, I think I’d make the same one.”

He fell asleep before Little Bug could clarify his intentions.

“I never said I was leaving.”

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