The power of bloodlines is a strange thing. Most take it to be a shortcut to power gifted to those people who have ancestors that crossed the salt, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. The truth is that only those who craft their own bloodlines in Dissolution are truly powerful, because they don’t need to adapt their path to their bloodline. The bloodline is handcrafted by and for them to cover all their weaknesses and enhance their strengths. And, even among bloodlines, some have greater talent in creating them, perhaps none more so than the Darkened Moon as it was his bloodline alone that allowed him to stand tall beside the other Ascendents of his Age. – Scholar Lun Daifan of the Arachar Archive
* * *
Searing pain on my right arm jerked me back to reality…or, at least, the one I had chosen. The vision was done. The sun shone bright in the afternoon sky, and I was pleased to see Hanako and Xinya rushing ahead of me down the street.
“What mighty cultivators we are,” Tenri laughed as he adjusted the bags his wife had passed on to him.
I looked down at my arm where a thin red tally had carved itself into my arm. Things weren’t desperate yet, with only one tally, but time was of the essence now.
“Tenri, we need to get to the south gates, now,” I said. He frowned in confusion.
“Why? What’s wrong.”
“We’re under attack.”
Tenri immediately straightened, recognizing the serious tone of my voice. I beckoned Hanako and Xinya over.
“Xinya, run as fast as you can to the inn and tell Pollen and Pharyx to meet us at the southern wall. They should prepare for a fight,” I instructed as quickly as I could. “Hanako, sound the alarms. Everyone needs to go to the North end of town as quickly as they can.”
Without waiting to see if any of them were doing as I asked, I turned and began sprinting to the south. The ground was just starting to shake with the thundering hooves of the stone oxen.
Did I not unravel far enough? I thought to myself as I raced down the streets and turned the corner to the southern entrance to Saikan. There, I spotted the first steel-horned bull racing through the open gates, ready to smash everything in its path.
The attack had only just begun. There was still time to change things!
Once, during the peak of my reign as the Avatar of the Moon, I came across a scholar who had written a thesis on the source of power for each of the Ascendents of the age. He posited that the Sun Queen’s strength was in overwhelming force and a fair hand. The Crystal Lord of the Indomitable Mountain got his power from his unbreakable defenses and inhuman resilience, and the Ocean Lord’s strength was in his chaotic volatility and ability to alter gravity and control all motion on the battlefield. On all those counts, the scholar was perfectly correct. However, he concluded the paper by saying that the Lunar Prince’s power came from his incredible luck in battle. That is entirely incorrect.
I’m not lucky. I’m just really good at cheating.
In a fight, Flash Forward warns me of attacks before they happen by scanning all possible realities based on my opponents’ actions. I then guess the most likely outcomes and ensure that I am out of harm’s way by the time they arrive. It’s a game of statistics where I know all the odds and the deck is stacked in my favor.
However, on the extremely low chance that I lose or events are too complex for a Flash Forward to display, my other blooded technique comes to my rescue. Flash Back allows me to unravel events in progress, shattering reality itself and reverting it to a previous state. From that previous state, I can try again.
This is the true power of the Moon. The Full Moon dictates what is and what could be. The New Moon dictates what is not and what cannot be. Most moon artists never reach that level of understanding, but I am not most moon artists.
In this new reality, Yaoxan’s attack on Saikan was still in progress. Pharyx was still alive. Pollen wasn’t injured, and Xinya wasn’t captured. If we were clever and quick, we had a chance to change fate’s design before my power ran dry.
“The flanks are their weak point,” I told Tenri.
“We need to get the gates closed,” he countered. “Every town in the Shore has an array system built into their walls to increase their strength against attacks.”
Yaoxan’s attack depended on surprise, then. I grinned. It was really too bad that I was his enemy. His plan would have worked against any other opponent.
“You take the gate, then, Master Administrator. I’ll take the rest.”
I drew an arrow back on my string. Void mist sprang to life along the arrowhead and shaft, and I released it. It flew at the beast, only to be knocked aside by its flailing horns. However, the force behind the blow was not lost on the raging bull. It turned to me and bellowed challenge.
“Come on, then,” I called. “You’re not even the blood-thirsty one.”
The bull huffed and charged. Its hooves crushed the street stones as it thundered forward. As the distance closed, I drew two more arrows from my quiver and knocked them. They flew forward and buried themselves in the monster’s chest. It’s fur cracked, just as it had in the reality that no longer was. This time, however, I would need to finish the job myself.
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Injury did not slow the enormous bull as it charged forward. I stepped out of its way just in time, ducking under one of the steel horns. Metal qi swirled around it as it tried to swing its head into me, but its momentum carried it out of reach too quickly. I spun, firing two more arrows into its flank.
Cracks spread, and the void began to eat away at the monster’s defenses, but it was as if the ox didn’t even realize it had been shot. It only grew angrier. The red in its eyes burned hotter. It bellowed, slamming it’s horns into a nearby soup cart. Wood rained down as the cart was exploded by a sharp lance of metallic gray qi extending just a few inches beyond the monster’s horns.
“You’re not going to back down in the face of superior force? Fine,” I muttered. There was no point in hiding my lunar affinity in this fight. The Lunar Hunt already knew I was a moon artist. What did it matter if the people of Saikan knew as well?
Glaring at the ox to challenge it, I pulled one last arrow from my quiver. They would become a precious resource with all the forces waiting outside our gates. Besides, I would only need one more to finish this.
With my advancement to Iron, my qi had mixed and grown. This pathetically weak body had a slightly greater capacity for qi which opened up a great many options. Techniques that were too costly or dangerous, like Flash Back, or required greater control were now at my disposal once more.
The bull charged, furious that I dared to challenge it. However, its eyes widened in surprise when I ran at it in turn. The distance between us shrank at an alarming rate. At the last second, I slammed both feet down, vaulting high over the bull’s head at the same time I drew my string.
The arrow charged with brilliant white moonlight as I loosed it. In the blink of an eye, the lunar qi flared, and anyone with enough cultivation to see through the blinding glare of light and power would see the arrow split into a dozen shining copies. Those copies fell as deadly rain, piercing the bull’s back and spine in a dozen places. The cracks caused by one arrow were widened by its reflected brethren until each one sank to the feathers in the beast’s spine.
Its feet fell from under it, and it crashed into a heap of flesh and fur. I landed behind it, flicking over my shoulder a strand of hair that had fallen out of place during the jump. I took a brief moment to revel in my achievement. It had been a long time since I’d used Heaven’s Rain, one of the blade techniques that made my sect famous all those years ago.
However, there wasn’t time to pause for long. The bull had fallen, but that left Tenri and the gate. The wood artist had slammed the great red doors shut, but the onslaught of the remaining bulls was endless, and it took all he had to hold the gates in place.
“Get the array active!” I shouted as I took his place, pressing my back to the door. An enormous THUD nearly pushed me back, and I saw whisps of metallic qi leaking through the cracks in the wood.
Tenri didn’t argue. Before he left me to hold the line, he tossed several qi-infused seeds around the base of the door. Prickly brambles with sturdy stems grew from the ground, providing a small amount of support to the doors as I struggled to keep them closed. Then he rushed into the nearby watch tower.
Several moments later, several of the town guards rushed from the tower door, carrying an enormous wooden beam to block the doors. Saikan employed a small contingent of permanent guards, but their job was largely superficial. None of them were cultivators, meaning they could really only defend the town against mortal bandits. However, in a region where every settlement is required to have at least one cultivator to administrate, banditry was kept only to the roads between towns, places where the jurisdictional boundaries made it difficult to police. These men did their best to assist, but, at the end of the day, they were more about keeping the peace than fighting back against invaders. They could no more stand up to the stone bulls than walk on the moon.
Blow after blow pounded into the door behind me. I gritted my teeth and planted my feet as best I could against Tenri’s brambles to keep from being pushed back. With each THUD, the doors creaked and complained. The bramble stems protested before snapping under the strain.
The door creaked, and I pivoted to push my shoulder into the wood. The guards set their heavy wooden beam in place before scurrying away. I didn’t blame them. This door would not hold much longer.
Just a little more! I urged the door silently, but, without the array, it was already cracking and splintering under the strain.
Without warning, a beautiful silver circle burned to life in the wood. Qi symbols and guiding characters wove together into a defense array that covered the entire gate before extending into the stone on either side.
Tenri appeared in the side door a moment later, beckoning me closer. Worry creased his brow, and his glasses were smudged from several failed attempts to clean them.
“You’re going to want to see this,” he muttered.
Warily, I released the door. Another THUD slammed into the wood, but the array flared with angry silver light as it drew its power from the air. It held firm, and I breathed a sigh of relief before rushing after Tenri. Together, we sprinted up the stairs to the top of the walls where a dozen guards were cowering.
I looked over the side and was surprisingly relieved. By my count, there were thirteen remaining oxen, including the blood-thirsty one, and only a few dozen cultivators. Though they were many, I wagered only a few of them were Iron. I’d counted four during the scene that Flash Back had erased, which included Shen Yaoxan himself.
“That’s a lot of power,” Tenri muttered.
“Not really,” I answered. “Shen Yaoxan is leading them, so none will be higher than Iron.” That much was obvious. No Silver would bow to an Iron leading the battle, not unless they were an important political figure, which Shen Yaoxan was not. “His attack relied on surprise, which he no longer has.”
“Yeah, and when this is over, you’re going to tell me how you knew this was coming.” Tenri sighed and removed his glasses to clean them again.
“Gladly, but for now, the bulls are our biggest problem. How long will the array hold?”
Tenri replaced his glasses. “At this rate, maybe a few minutes? It draws qi from the ambient lunar aura present in the Moon-Soaked Shore, but the array itself can only take so much damage.”
“And here I thought you people didn’t like moon techniques,” I said with a scowl.
“Would you pass up the opportunity to power your defenses with a limitless power source?” he answered.
My scowl deepened. At the end of the day, it was my qi that largely made up the ambient moon aura that permeated the shore, and this array used that power just like the Labyrinth did. Though arguably useful, it still left a sour taste in my mouth.
“We need to deal with the bulls first, then,” I declared.
“Fancy a hand or two?” buzzed a familiar voice. A moment later, a giant wasp and bee landed on the edge of the wall before reverting into their humanoid forms. Pharyx’s lance was already shining with power, and Pollen had several paper talismans already in hand.
“Saikan owes you both a great debt,” Tenri said with a bow.
“Why don’t you save the ‘great debt’ speech for after we save the town, hmm?” the hornet answered with a smile.
“Then we better get to it!” A wicked smile crept across my face. “I think it’s time to remind Shen Yaoxan why he should have tucked tail and ran while he still had the chance.”