“Pitiful... Puny... Pathetic.” Nagal mumbled as he stared with unblinking eyes at the crowds of Cultivators on the cliff top overlooking the water planet Ceylon’s westernmost sea. All were present to participate in the Vigil of Struggle and determine the Blessed One’s next chosen being to advance on their path. The Vigil was a meeting of equals that occurred once every thousand standard solar cycles. Here, challenges could be made and accepted. Lives might be lost if accepted, but the Vigil’s victor would be allowed passage through an Aspect doorway to access their next Attunement. It would be a tremendous step forward on the triumphant Path of One.
However, the Cultivators arrayed before Nagal were not in any way his equal. He was far and away the strongest of all in attendance. Nagal’s eyes saw only incapable feeblings. All here would be easily crushed by him if they followed the traditional methods of individual combat the Vigil stood for.
And they all know it too! Still, they would deny Nagal his rightful place as the Blessed One’s chosen. No! It was unthinkable. I will deliver them all to the fate they deserve. The same fate that any who might attempt to steal from a Dragon deserve—a quick and painful death.
The Vigil formally began as the first of Ceylon’s twin suns reached the horizon. In the waning light, five spirit beings approached Nagal.
Their leader was the Helical Solar Knight, Rykin. Force Essence swirled in his Core as he swaggered toward Nagal. A Solar Knight’s traditional weapon—his plasma lance, swung over Rykin’s shoulder with all the ceremony a laborer used to tote a length of lumber. Nagal couldn’t help but note the destructive intensity of the lance’s glow steadily increased as darkness started its slow, patient crawl over the cliff top. The nearing time and Rykin’s confident stride broadcasting his supreme confidence in his own strength and their greater numbers were nearly enough to make Nagal laugh aloud.
Fools!
The three spirit beings immediately behind Rykin were leaders of the other groups assembled against Nagal. Haughty and knowing glances were cast by each as they neared. The largest was Trastor, a Beast Affin with two horns that rose from the midline of his face and forehead. His thick arms were crossed over his massive chest. The pachyderm skin of his face barely shifted as he leered at Nagal over Rykin’s armored head. Orange-tinted Essence spun through his Meridians indicating his Earth Attunement and his strength and vitality would be greatly increased.
The second being was a human, Cezzura. The diadem fixed on her forehead indicated that she followed the failed Path of the Biologics with their utter focus on physicality not on Cultivation. Not being Cultivators, she and her followers had no place here, but as they served another as hired mercenaries to stop Nagal, they had been allowed. The perfected musculature under Cezzura’s skin rippled fluidly with her every move, while a feral smile widened on her angular features as she stalked up to him. It could not be denied that she, and the twenty of her soldiers present, were a force to reckon with.
From past experience, Nagal knew that she and her team would be able to fight in perfect union and be able to achieve combat speeds rivaling even singly-Attuned Force Cultivators.
The third advancing enemy was the Rakshasa leader, Nishachar. The Rakshasa, Adharmic children of some long-forgotten Creator god, were all born with Life Attunement. The blue skin of their six arms were all heavily marked with deep, dark-green tattoos along with a series of branding stigmata, giving the tattoos a texture that spoke of life, movement, and animation.
The inscriptions seemed to move on their own and cast shifting shadows over lanky frames. The Rakshasa all moved with a deceptive slowness. Nishachar and his followers’ speed, reflexes, and strength would be greatly increased when they used their Life Essence to accelerate their internal metabolisms, reinforce their musculature and tendons, and push their bodies beyond their natural limits. As a group, the Rakshasa’s skills were likely limited to internal changes such as altering density to achieve flight, increased energy consumption for instantaneous bursts of healing, speed, or momentary leaps in strength. Such boosts in their physical capabilities were far beyond the usual Attunement increases a Cultivator got when advancing their Cultivation. With such broad possibilities, Nagal was interested to see what Nishachar and his followers would bring to the battle.
Considering the whole group, Nagal doubted any present were proficient enough in their Attunement to project Essence outside their Core and Meridians. Beings who could do so at the first Attunement level of Spherical Cultivation were prodigies and geniuses.
There are no geniuses here.
Quite the opposite, in fact. The group here attempted to overcome their lack of strength with numbers.
It was a losing game.
The fourth and last challenger was Valai—a fellow Naga and former comrade in arms, he walked well behind the Force Knight. Valai led the other Naga at the Vigil. Separated from the other four challengers by several meters, Valai seemed to attempt to show that he was not actually part of the opposition. He slid on his abdomen toward Nagal with a stern expression but a neutral body language.
“Harumph.” Nagal snorted at the ridiculous line Valai tried to walk.
You are with the Dragon… or you are not.
Like all Naga, Valai and his followers were Attuned to one of the seven Spherical Essences from birth. As with virtually all Naga born on Ceylon, Valai’s followers had started life with Water Attunement. They had massively increased agility along with augmented strength and defenses while in and near the water. The clifftop they stood upon was close enough for their inherent benefits to accrue.
Valai, as Nagal had done long ago, served the King of the Depths. In his name, Valai warred against all who challenged Naga sovereignty under Ceylon’s murky seas. In Nagal’s time, Valai had served as Nagal’s lieutenant and had never failed to quickly execute his orders. Nagal had even personally marked him for distinction in his duties on several occasions.
Rykin stopped three meters from Nagal and rested his gauntleted hands on the pommel of his lance as he stared up the meter and a half difference into Nagal’s eyes. The other leaders filed in behind Rykin as he voiced his challenge.
“Nagal! This is the Vigil of Struggle where Cultivators gain their second Attunement. You already have yours. Leave peacefully. Or...” Rykin looked around and received confirmatory nods from the group with him and their double-score of followers fifty meters in the distance. “We have agreed to unite and eliminate you first. Then we will hold the Vigil as the Blessed One intended it be.”
It was clear for all to see that the three directly behind Rykin, along with their followers, were shoulder to shoulder in agreement. They were ready to attack as one to honor the Knight’s statement. Even Valai’s ten Naga were all faced directly toward Nagal and ignored the others.
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Smoke started rising from Nagal’s scales as his Essence cycled for battle. The ember-glow of flames flickered in his nostrils as he tensed to attack—
Valai jumped between Nagal and Rykin with his four arms held out to stop the masses from advancing. His previous lieutenant ignored the others and spoke only to his Naga followers.
“Brother naga! Hear me as your leader! It is wrong to attack Nagal together with these lesser beings. If necessary, we will challenge him one at a time, as is right. The great King of the Depths asks that you intercede on his former commander’s behalf ! Do not suppor—gullacchhh!”
Nagal’s massive jaws snapped out and clamped over Valai’s throat from behind. Valai’s eyes glazed over as he tried, and failed, to turn and face the attack. All present, including a stiffening Valai looked on, stunned at Nagal’s betrayal of one speaking in his defense.
Nagal was not surprised at their naïveté. All those who followed the King of the Depths were weak and of no consequence. Even the king himself was nothing to Nagal but a thing to be removed if Nagal ever returned to Ceylon.
Moaning piteously, Valai tried to cycle Essence and heal from the vicious attack, but Nagal had seen enough.
Time to end this foolishness.
Nagal thrashed his head like a whipcord and felt as much as heard the tearing crunch of Valai’s head and upper shoulder as it was shredded from the rest of his body.
Blue-green blood turned into steam as it showered on Nagal and boiled on his superheated chest-scales. Blistering heat flowed off Nagal in waves as the remaining four confronting him were momentarily stunned into defensive positions at his unexpected and surprise attack. Each reflexively looked over their shoulders to see if betrayal was also coming for them.
His distraction accomplished, Nagal surged into Rykin’s tightly gathered group with a herculean sidewind. A savage grin appeared on his snout as they shattered like glass rods under him, and the clifftop was filled with the sounds of crashing armor and broken bones.
Nagal manically screamed over their scattered bodies. “You dare tell me to leave? I do not fear your challenge! I walk the steps of the Dragon and welcome all rivals!”
The four that remained called their followers as they leapt into action.
With Force Attunement, Rykin was the fastest by far. He leveled the blazing tip of his lance at Nagal’s chest and cycled his Essence for increased speed. The plasma-infused tip burned with the heat of a dwarf star as it thrust faster than any of the Knight’s allies could see.
Cezzura and five of her fastest underlings moved next. The followers leapt the fifty-meter gap in a single bound and attacked as a coordinated group. Three came at Nagal high and three low. Bladed fist weapons edged with depleted uranium were the Biologic Assassins’ weapon of choice. Each attacker’s speed-blurred swipes covered every centimeter of Nagal’s exposed scales in wide-swept and aggressive hacks.
The Rakshasa Nishachar had armed himself with six daggers and whirled like a spinning top as he launched himself at Nagal with a speed- accelerated metabolism. Purple Essence-Inhibiting poison dripped from the blades and the Rakshasa’s rotating momentum sent a high-pitched hum through the air as he flew toward Nagal.
Trastor, the slowest, but by far the strongest, lowered his head and enhanced a horns-first charge to savagely impale Nagal.
Nagal watched the coming attacks and promised each a quick journey to naraka through the hungry gleam in his eyes. All of their furious movements, all of their flurry of enhanced activity was nothing to him. Their greatest strikes were nothing but the slow and unsteady steps of one born misshapen... the plodding steps of an enfeebled elder.
From early childhood, Nagal knew that his birth as a being with dual Cultivation was a once in an iterational event. The seers had spoken so on many occasions. Instead of a single Attunement, like every other naga child, Nagal possessed Earth—a true anomaly—and the very rare Fire Attunement. The gap in strength between single and dual Attunement was vast. Mere numbers could never hope to make up the difference between them. The outcome of this fight would be no different if his challengers had made it five hundred to one. With a body twice-amplified by Attunements, Nagal’s strength, vitality, speed, and volume of Essence were an order of magnitude greater than the wastlings who dared to stand before him. He felt no pity. They should have known or at least been warned by their leaders against confronting Nagal. As they were too foolish to know or too arrogant to take the warnings... Nagal would remove them from his road.
To Nagal’s eyes, his attackers moved as if through thick mud. Slow and ponderous, their strikes were those of hatchlings against a well-armed and fully scaled warrior.
First things first.
Nagal’s torso coiled sideways to avoid Rykin’s burning lance’s slow advance. True... the weapon could have damaged even Nagal’s scales... if he was slow or foolish enough to let it hit him. Nagal was neither. With blurred speed, Nagal grabbed Rykin’s head with both of his upper hands and squeezed, increasing the pressure on Rykin’s head while the Knight’s weapon passed harmlessly through empty air.
A harsh growl came from behind rows of Nagal’s pointed teeth and Rykin’s eyes opened wide with fear as the strength behind the naga’s bare palms began to crumple his helmet’s plate-steel.
“You honestly thought you were a challenge to me?”
Rykin began to scream in a steadily increasing pitch that stopped only when his helmet collapsed, and his skull burst with a meaty pop of fountained gore.
Nagal turned his attention to Cezzura and her five assassins. They were not even leaving scratch marks with their twenty-five-centimeter blades. Futilely, they swiped at Nagal’s scales as he grabbed four of their heads. One with each hand as though he were plucking anemone from a reef. Moving faster than his enemies’ eyes could track, Nagal cracked them together like eggs and tossed their limp bodies away. He grabbed the last two Biologics by their necks with his upper two arms while his lower two arms swept up the Knight’s dropped lance to swing it through Nishachar’s ponderously whirling form. The weapon seared through the Rakshasa’s left flank, up through his neck, and out above the topmost arm of his right shoulder. The two pieces of his body continued through several more rotations at differing speeds. The poisoned daggers the Rakshasa had held flew out in every direction from now dead hands.
Finally, Trastor had made it to the fight. Nagal dropped the lance and used his tail to swat the sluggish Beast Affin’s mass to the right.
Crushed by the blow, Trastor tumbled end-over-end until his horns dug a meter-deep trench into the ground and finally stopped his involuntary passage. The Rhino Affin’s torso and legs bent backward to form a crescent moon over his buried head.
Nagal raised the two Biologics he still held up to his face. Even then, they still pointlessly struggled in his grip. “You thought you could intimidate me?!”
A series of snapping pops rang out as their cervical spines were pulverized in Nagal’s clenched fists and he let their dead bodies fall to the ground in an unmoving tangle.
Trastor pulled himself from the ground and stumbled forward, obviously unaware all of his allies were dead. Smirking, Nagal grabbed his two horns and whipped the Rhino Affin head sharply to the side with both right arms, snapping the man’s thick body like a pennant in a stiff wind and killing him instantly. His neck and back had been fractured at every vertebra.
The Rhino Affin’s corpse dropped to rest at Nagal’s feet as he turned to look on at the fallen ‘heroes’ stupefied followers. Nonplussed faces stared out at him, a clear testament of how easily Nagal had slaughtered their leaders in just a handful of moments.
Imbecilic.
They might have lived if they had used the time their leaders had bought them to flee. Instead, the Beast Affins, Rakshasa, remaining Biologics, and Naga were in the process of forming up defensively. Most likely to follow the useless orders their dead leaders had given them.
Looking on at how insignificant they were, Nagal was almost of two minds. His objectives had already been accomplished. He was certain there would be no more Challengers tonight.
But Nagal knew there could be no room for compromise as he hissed to himself. “No one takes from a Dragon’s hoard...”
The glow of his chest scales increased to a blinding intensity as he opened his mouth. A torrent of flame shot out and enveloped the whole group and the entirety of the clifftop. Everyone and everything was charred to ash in less than a second.
The twin-yellow suns of Ceylon rose above the horizon and illuminated the vast sea’s surface in warm yellow light. The black and shifting depths lightened their hues from dark and royal blues, through aqua-marine, to finally settle on a glowing cyan. Golden flecks of the dual suns’ light filtered through Ceylon’s never-ending waves as they carelessly broke upon the high cliff’s walls.
Nagal, the lone challenger remaining, Cultivated his gains from the night before. Focused only on his advancement, his eyes took in all the beauty, but saw none.
Behind him, at the cliff’s precipice, energy coalesced in steady translucent waves. From this, a rising susurrus grew like broken clam shells ground slowly upon a shallow reef.
Then, as if the universe was turning a page, space and time folded around an invisible point and stretched into a ten-by-ten-meter doorway. From outside of physical space, churning swirls of Reality’s deepest blue glowed so vibrantly they outshone the Water Giant’s dawn.
Through the arch, Nagal could see tall, white spires surrounded by minarets with conical tops. Some were capped with broad rounded domes that tapered to needlepoints. Others were as narrow as spears. All were colored with faded hues of red, orange, and yellow. A gas giant with bands of pink and orange stood in stark relief as a colossal backdrop to it all.
Nagal sidewinded toward his reward over the broken and charred bodies of the defeated. As a Conqueror, he took the measured, confident pace of the victor. No respect was due to the fallen here. The defeated’s own actions had proven them unworthy of any. Nagal would be glad to forget their names.
If more threats waited beyond the Aspect doorway, Nagal didn’t care. To Cultivate was to struggle with one’s existence in the balance. Any who thought differently would not advance further in their Culti-ations than these feeble few had.
Nagal stepped through the portal of the massive stone arch at the top of the cliff and the rich blue of Order enveloped and carried him forward on his path.