Banzan slams his mace into the scarred man’s skull, stunning him and giving Rotse an opening to tear out his eyes with her void claws. The scarred man doesn’t panic, getting just a bit faster with the damage, and laughing. He swings two arms shaped into bone swords at Banzan and cuts a line into the segmented stone that is his flesh, steaming blood escaping his body.

  That’s just how higher realm cultivators roll unfortunately, enhance the senses enough and eventually they can compensate for the lack of vision

  Still, it’s not as though aiming for the eyes is pointless, there’s plenty of techniques that’d be much easier to dodge if you could see them.

  Case in point, Banzan gathers soul Qi into his mouth and spits out a spike of granite that impales the immortal through his skull. He goes to follow up but is stopped when Laketh morphs his arm back into something normal and raises it in a show of surrender

  Alright, alright,” sharpening bones say, “couldn’t just let me have my fun? Whatever happened to proper duels?”

  “Oh?” Rotse tilts her filinid head, “and what gave you the impression that surrender was an option?”

  “The fact you’re fighting alongside this lug,” he points a thumb at Banzan, “let me venture a guess, you’re both working together to do what daddy emperor actually sent us here for.”

  “You say that as though we’re idiots for trying,” Banzan says.

  “That’s ‘cause you are, there’s only two of you and ten of us”

  “You did just surrender,”

  “Nine then,”

  “Seven,” Banzan says, “We killed Rothkar a little bit ago and Uai Ta is one of our number.”

  “Really?!?” Laketh says excitedly, “I don’t have to deal with that bastard for at least another decade! Oh heavens be praised, please tell me his death was brutal.”

  “His head is little more than viscera, Uai Ta cut through his skull fairly thoroughly.”

  “Beautiful,” Laketh savours, “where is she anyway? I have to offer my gratitude.”

  “She’s transporting two young ones to our disciples, so that they may be safe through the ensuing chaos.”

  “Oh? Must be pretty important if an immortal is their escort.”

  “One is the people's hero, and the other is hopefully the future marchioness.”

  “Hey! I met those two, you know one of them could sense my Mark?”

  “Which one?” Rotse raises a brow.

  “The cultivator girl, obviously,” Laketh snorts.

  “I’m pretty sure the gods wouldn’t care for her cultivation,” Banzan points out.

  “Oh? Are you a dialogical expert now? Going to recite to me how Sama’tothig’s presence is infusing this city?”

  “You tell me, you’re the one with her Mark.”

  “That’s not how it works,” Laketh grumbles.

  “Please, enlighten this one, that I might not fall to ignorance.”

  “Flowery language doesn’t suit you.”

  “Are you two going to banter until the city burns to the ground?” Rotse interrupts, “because while I wouldn’t particularly care, we are supposed to be helping.”

  “Right,” Banzan sighs.

  “Am I included in this we?” Laketh says.

  “If you want, I have nothing to offer you, but if you start another rampage I will kill you.”

  “Bold words coming from someone who needed another to beat me”

  Banzan rolls his eyes and flicks the man’s forehead with a granite hand. Laketh yelps in surprise and Banzan almost bursts into laughter at the sight, but maintains his composure, if letting out a slight wheeze.

  Laketh gives Banzan an indignant look.

  “I wish you’d flirt with me like that,” Rotse sighs.

  “You’re not my type,” Banzan says.

  Laketh raises his brows to the sky, “you two literally have over a hundred children.”

  “So?”

  -

  Tantra doesn’t really know how to feel right now.

  One of Rikidan’s most renowned immortals is doting on her like a mother hen, and taking extensive notes every now and again on the roots in Tantra’s face, seemingly more and more fascinated as time passes. Should she be flattered? Probably would be the right reaction to these circumstances, even meeting Uai Ta is a miracle in and of itself, but to have her undivided attention?

  Surely one of the gods is playing a prank.

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  Maybe she should be scared, after all she’s become intimately aware of what immortal’s are capable of, and it’s not out of the question that the woman would choose to dissect her if it furthered whatever she’s researching. She doesn’t have much faith in the Sentinels to protect her if that does happen, all things considered.

  Perhaps reverence would be the right response? There are more than a few cults centered around the woman, or who have her as a prominent figure. She is ancient after all, having survived Roguth’karr ravaging Testhim with his army of ghouls, and rumored to have predated the catastrophe by millenia.

  All she feels is numb.

  Everything they’ve done, everything they’ve fought for, crushed by the whims of immortals who shouldn't be here. What was the point of all the sacrifices made to get to this point if they were just going to drag the city back into chaos? It’s so stupid, it’s so unfair, and it reeks of the gods' interference.

  That would just be typical, wouldn’t it?

  Tantra’s tuning out the immortal’s words, is that rude? She’s not sure she cares, it’s some scientific jargon about how the roots are interacting with her brain, all Tantra needs to know is that she’s literally fusing with a technique.

  She’s never heard of such a thing, and neither has Uai Ta evidently, which means it isn’t likely to be a common occurrence. Perhaps she’s the only one this has happened to, who knows? Who cares?

  The lobes of her brain and the barbed roots digging into them are becoming one and the same, and Tantra doesn’t know what to make of that other than to shrug her shoulders. What’s one absurdity amongst dozens? She should probably be more worried, should probably care more, but she just doesn’t have the energy.

  She fought an immortal and survived, isn’t that something? Maybe she could boast to Yorin, he’d surely seethe with jealousy, the silly man being practically entrenched in an idealistic view of cultivation. She wonders what he makes of all that’s happened? Surely he’s seen things just as she has, what would his innocent mind make of it all?

  Tantra couldn’t find the logic to it, maybe he could.

  She hopes they’re still alive, they have to still be alive.

  Dying here is just so pointless.

  Strange, she’s never seen a meaningful death, so maybe the pointlessness is just a given, despite how much the epics espouse valiant last stands. Wouldn’t that be something? If death is meaningless then what is life? We’re all just part of a cycle, continuously being born and dying, each time with any lingering identity wiped from the face of the world, like cleaning out a stain.

  All the corpses she saw will live new lives, and that thought is a comfort, if a little sad.

  But she doubts she’ll see any more, Uai Ta has literally brought the recently dead back to life, infusing so much soul Qi that reality almost implodes. Interestingly enough her Qi smells like a herbal tea placed next to old parchment. She’s not the only healer in the manor, hundreds of disciples treating grievous wounds as cultivators from the other sects return from battle or injured civilians are brought in.

  Oh yeah, they’re at the manor.

  Did she forget to mention that?

  She did.

  Apparently Doman and Rimi were nowhere to be found, according to what remained of the servants the mob…slaughtered. That pisses her off some, who are they to leave after what they’ve done? They opened the floodgates of violence and now they just get to go? If she didn’t feel so numb perhaps she’d feel some kind of unbridled rage.

  “Tantra,” Synthia says, kneeling in front of her, interrupting the immortal’s rambling “the peasants say a man with purple robes and a green sash came through the gates not an hour ago.”

  Tantra shoots up like an arrow, accidentally headbutting the immortal but that’s fine, she probably didn’t even feel it.

  “Where?” Tantra demands.

  “Young lady,” Uai Ta says, “I am not done with my observations, sit back down, you’re little reunion can wait.”

  Tantra and Synthia both ignore her.

  Synthia nods to a peasant to their side who’s wringing his hands fiercely.

  “Right this way ma’am,” he says nervously, and Tantra follows him as they push through cramped corridors down to the east wing. A man with purple robes and a green sash, she doesn’t know of any other sect that sports those colors, so it has to be one of her friends.

  Tantra pushes with renewed vigor until she spots him, sitting against the wall as his eyes stare at nothing.

  He looks beyond haggard, like the world took his existence as a personal insult, like a man who’s seen too much.

  She can sympathise

  “Yorin,” Tantra says softly, breaking him out of his stupor.

  He turns to look up at her with dread in his eyes.

  -

  Two figures walk down a dirt path, one of them in black robes with a white trim, while the other is wearing an ornately decorated purple Toga. They walk in without saying a word, both basking in the sound of silence for the first time in months. It’s hard to sleep when there’s so much steel clashing, so many voices screaming. Doman’s not sure he’ll ever experience a good night's rest after hearing all the noises, and…seeing what he saw when they fled the city.

  What has he done?

  So much…so much.

  One deal brought down everything, he never expected it to get that bad, wouldn’t have dared even consider would he have known. If only he had known. Instead of the peace he sought for the city there is a river of blood, and his sister will sit as marchioness, Synthia. She’s the worst of them all, scheming is practically a part of her soul, what will Ralth look like now that he’s given the reins to that demon?

  He’ll probably never get to know, Synthia is likely to post a bounty for his head, likely more as revenge than any desire for justice, and he is deserving of so much of justice’s wrath. He convinced himself that so long as he held the power in the end, things would turn for the better, that the sacrifice would be worth the cost, that the future would be bright and filled with flowers.

  Now it means nothing, a price was paid and no services are to be rendered, all his ambitions of a better Ralth turned to dust and blown away with a gust of cruelty. The point of all the suffering lost to the noise of so many clamouring voices. They rose up against him, against his vision, and supported a snake to take his place.

  Why?

  He only wanted to help, how was he supposed to know it would get so bad? How is he meant to take responsibility for the rampaging of the sects? He is no cultivator, he’s just a boy, what was he supposed to do, ask them politely to stop? He has no power, not really, just a convenient figurehead for the Sentinel to pass on the duties of managing a city.

  He’s almost certain the reason the nobility exists is to deal with all the boring administrative work, too focused on their progress to care for all the needs of mortals.

  Who cares about peasants really?

  He cares, he cares so much, and they spurned him for it.

  “Rimi,” Doman says, breaking the silence, the woman turns to give him a soft smile, “train me to be a cultivator.”

  “Of course Doman.”