Hadjar didn’t take offense. There really were no such people in Lidus. Nor on the Islands.
“You would’ve been charged at least three hundred Glory points for a lecture like this at the School, but we’ll call it part of my thank you. So, there are three classes of awakened spirits. The first one, the least powerful and most widespread, is a spirit beast. It gives a cultivator only a small increase in energy and power.”
Hadjar could’ve argued that the ‘small increase’ bit was underselling it, but chose not to.
“The second class, which is much rarer and requires a cultivator of incredible talent to utilize, is a class of weapons. It creates a strong bond between a cultivator and a Weapon Spirit. Of course, this awakened spirit strengthens its wielder several times over, and is much better that the first class.”
Hadjar remembered Sankesh and the Halberd Spirit. It really had looked and felt much more powerful than Ragar’s snow wolf spirit.
“And finally, the last and rarest among humans, but the standard for descendants of spirits — the spirit of the elements, or the spirit of the Way. A Way Spirit is often called the fourth class, but in the entire history of the Empire, the number of cultivators who managed to awaken a Way Spirit can be counted on the fingers of two hands.”
“So all descendants of spirits have the power of a whole element from birth?”
“More or less.” Dora said. “In general, our path of cultivation is almost indistinguishable from yours, human. A noticeable difference can only be felt at the Spirit Knight level. At that level, even a weak descendant of spirits always has an advantage over a human. However, as my father always says, everything depends on the cultivator. Therefore, you can never afford to look down on your enemy, because who knows what kind of monster might be lurking beneath the skin of a harmless sheep.”
Such a deep thought was strange to hear coming from a young girl. Of course, she was repeating her father’s words, but it was obvious Dora understood them.
Suddenly, Hadjar heard:
“Darkha-a-a-a-an.”
“Did you hear that?” He asked immediately.
“What?” Einen and Dora asked.
“Darkha-a-a-n.”
“There it is again!”
They all froze. The tall trees swayed around them. They were dark and looked as if they were bleeding black blood, stopping the sun from reaching the ground. The swirling, acrid gloom resembled ghosts wandering through the endless procession of sins from their past that were dragging them down. The cold wind caressed their skin greedily. Their hearts were pounding slowly. In every shadow, they saw a deadly enemy, in every sound, they heard the echo of death’s footsteps.
“There’s nothing there…”
Suddenly, they were struck by such an immense wave of power that even Dora was knocked out of the saddle. Something that would haunt Hadjar in his worst nightmares for a long time to come stepped out of the thicket to meet the three disciples.
“Descendant of the Enemy, how dare you tread upon this hallowed ground? I will destroy you!”
Chapter 444
The creature that had emerged from the darkness of the forest had few humanoid features. It seemed to be made of emotions that shone with a dark anger, longing, resentment, and rage. Instead of eyes, it had gray hollows filled with white shrouds in its deformed skull. The sharp fangs that dotted the dim oval of its mouth looked like babies and puppies screaming in agony. A long, cobwebbed tongue stretched out of the darkness of its quivering mouth. Crowned with a bone spike, it seemed to have a mind of its own, writhing like a snake and tasting the surrounding air. Bundles of gray flesh wriggled out of the creature’s back.
“By the Great Turtle!” Einen said, drawing his spear-staff. “May my ancestors forgive me, for I have seen the essence of a fall from grace!”
“Descendant of the Enemy!” The creature snarled and ripped at the ground with its steel claws. Saliva ran down its fangs, or perhaps they were someone’s tears. “How dare you show your face here? I’ll devour it, along with your soul!”
“Do you still not hear it?”
The creature didn’t rush in to attack them right away. It stalked around them in a wide arc. Their deer nervously stood on their hind legs. The cultivators leapt from their saddles, and the animals ran into the bushes with a startled snort.
“Only those who have a Name can hear and speak to spirits,” Dora said in a calm, even tone.
She held up her green hammer, an Imperial level artifact, and then touched her iron bracer. A whirlwind of power swept over her. A hundred tiny magic hieroglyphs flashed across her wrist, thrumming with power. The metal plates began to move. Like a swarm of ants, they crawled up the elf’s arms, shoulders, neck, back, and then reached her feet. In just a moment, Dora was clad in strong but flexible green armor. It covered every inch of her body, leaving only her face and white hair exposed, which fluttered freely in the wind. As if trying to imitate it, the silk of a green cloak billowed almost playfully behind her.
Hadjar had seen such an artifact only once before — the General of the Baliumian Army, Dragon Tooth, had had something similar. Except the General’s armor had been at the Spirit level, and this splendor made of a green material unknown to Hadjar was at the Imperial level. If they sold Dora Marnil’s gear, they could easily buy a couple of kingdoms, or even a small aerial vehicle designed for combat.
“You’d better get behind me,” the girl said calmly, as if they weren’t facing an unknown creature that didn’t belong to the material world and didn’t have power equal to a mid-stage Spirit Knight. “It’s just a minor local spirit. Judging by the nature of its energy, it rose up from some burial ground.”
“A minor-”
“Later!” Dora pushed off from the ground.
Hadjar had seen Spirit Knights fight. During the siege of the Kurkhadan oasis, he’d considered them to be monsters made flesh. However, the greater his own power became, the more clearly he realized that they weren’t terrible monsters at all. Rather, they were the weakest of those who’d been able to advance along the path of a true cultivator.
Dora... She was worthy of the ‘monster’ title. With just a single leap, she moved a dozen yards. Leaving only a haze of green light behind, she dealt a crushing blow to the creature’s body. It was blasted back like a cannonball, and where Dora had previously stood, there was now a crater that was at least half a foot deep.
The girl’s speed was so great that if it hadn’t been for their sharpened perception of true cultivators, they wouldn’t have even seen her move.
The creature, which had felled a couple of massive trees with its body, jumped back up. Such an attack could’ve easily broken through the defenses of Einen’s rainbow ape, but the monster only had a few broken ribs. However, less than a heartbeat later, with a nasty crunch, they moved back into place.
“Get out, descendant of the First Forest,” the creature hissed. Despite the fact that Dora clearly intended to kill it, the spirit wasn’t going to attack her. “I have no desire to harm you. Get out and let me deal with the descendant of the Enemy!”
“What’s it saying?” Dora shouted, shifting the hammer around and grasping the handle with both hands.
The swirls of green energy spun around her. The pressure of this power crushed the ground and small stones. The Hammer Spirit could be felt within it.
“It’s saying that it wants to use its appendages to examine every inch of your body.”
Dora’s eyes flashed and she charged in again. Einen, who was also watching the fight, looked at him reproachfully.
“You can’t even hear it!” Hadjar whispered.
“But I can tell when you’re lying.”
“This monster could easily send us to our forefathers!”
“There is no honor in what you’re doing!” The islander snapped.
Hadjar grimaced. He agreed with him, but at the same time…
“This isn’t our quest,” Hadjar reasoned, “so there’s nothing wrong with
her handling the trouble she’s gotten herself into.”
Einen didn’t say anything, but he clearly didn’t agree.
Dora swung the hammer over her head and brought it down hard in front of her. Hadjar felt the force of the blow from where he was standing. Green cracks started to spread outward from the point of impact. They surrounded the snarling creature, and then streams of green light burst out from them. They bound the spirit like heavy ropes. It raged and tore at them with its claws and fangs, but for each stream of energy it destroyed, two more surged out of the ground to replace it.
“Shackles of the Forest,” Dora shouted. Then she began to accumulate so much power that Hadjar doubted that, even if his friend’s Rainbow Ape had been twice as strong, it would’ve been able to withstand such an attack. A three-foot wide fire plume of energy swirled around the top of her hammer. It took on a vague shape. It looked as if something was trying to break through the power. Judging by the drops of sweat rolling down Dora’s temples, this Technique was hard for her to use. The power that she emanated was clearly beyond the capabilities of an Earth level Technique. By the High Heavens and the Evening Stars, she had a Heaven level Technique! A Technique scroll at that level cost as much as five Imperial artifacts!
“Forest’s Fury!”
Dora raised her hammer and pushed off from the ground, soaring into the air. The crushing power that came down on the screaming monster was so terrifying that it seemed to damage not just the crumbling earth, but also the air itself! Hadjar thought he noticed black holes in the ‘fabric’ of space. Dora was able to hold the flow of green energy trying to take the shape of something for only a brief moment. It was difficult to imagine what kind of destruction this Heaven level Technique would’ve been capable of if it had been used by a stronger and more skilled cultivator.
“Look into my eyes, descendant of the Enemy.”
The most terrifying thing was that, even while standing in the center of this avalanche of power, the creature only crouched slightly. The stones and trees around it were turning to dust, and the ground had sunk a few feet. However, it didn’t affect the creature in any way Hadjar could see.
No one in their right mind would’ve agreed to look into the eyes of a monster capable of resisting such power. However, Hadjar was called the Mad General for a reason. Without a trace of fear or doubt, Hadjar turned toward the creature. When the avalanche of energy subsided, it stood there, swaying. At first glance, the Technique hadn’t caused any damage to it, but with each heartbeat, Hadjar noticed cracks and scratches appearing on the spirit’s flesh. Like a broken porcelain doll, it was now falling apart.
“No spirit will ever accept you, descendant of the Enemy,” the dying creature hissed. “I hope that your afterlife is as terrifying as his, and that you end up suffering atop your own mountain of skulls. May-”
It didn’t get to finish. With a loud crack, its flesh exploded into a myriad of fragments, and a small, glistening stone fell to the crushed ground. It looked like a miniature crystal, ten times weaker than what Serra had given him once.
“That is an Energy Stone,” The panting Dora kicked the artifact toward Hadjar. He caught the trinket. It was no larger than a plate of rice.
The elf, putting two fingers to her lips, whistled, and the Three-horned deer came out of the forest as if nothing had happened.
“Let’s go,” she said. “This isn’t the first spirit we’ll encounter.”
While Hadjar was climbing into his saddle, he heard Einen’s quiet whisper:
“Just admit that you’re trying to justify our own weakness right now.”
Hadjar didn’t answer.
Chapter 445
“Spirits are divided into several different categories.” Dora explained as they moved in a direction only she knew. “There are simple spirits. They appear spontaneously, and are the children of the World River itself. They can be born out of anything, and they usually don’t live long.”
“A couple of thousand years?” Einen asked.
The question was a logical one, as cultivators lived very long lives.
“A couple of days. Sometimes longer, but rarely.” Dora was clearly pleased that she knew something the others didn’t. “Then there are minor spirits — the ones we’ve been fighting for the last few hours.”
‘We’ was just a gesture of respect, as phrasing it like that was a gross exaggeration. The creature that had looked like a nightmare come to life wasn’t the only spirit they’d met. Only Dora fought against the monsters. Hadjar and Einen tried not to get injured. The echo of the ‘Forest’s Fury’ had touched them once. That had been enough to send both friends flying a good ten yards through the air, and then they’d found they had terrible bruises all over their bodies, not to mention the fact Hadjar’s right arm had been completely broken. That’s how powerful Dora’s Heaven level Technique was, especially when used alongside a weapon of such crushing power as an Imperial level hammer artifact. Hadjar couldn’t even compare her Technique to anything. Perhaps, if an experienced Spirit Knight had used ‘Forest’s Fury’, they could’ve wounded Traves in his true, dragon form back when he’d been alive.
Well, even Hadjar’s Master hadn’t been invulnerable, and an ordinary Immortal would’ve probably looked at him like a hunter looked at a venomous, but simple snake.
All the Energy Stones that Dora got from defeating spirits, she gave to her companions as payment for helping her, a gesture of goodwill, or simply because she didn’t need them. They were small and cost no more than ten Imperial coins. It was a real fortune for Hadjar and Einen, and a trifle for the senior heiress of House Marnil. By the way, according to Einen, the elven clan had earned its fortune by supplying the capital with the rarest of plants, like a ten-thousand-year-old Lilac Flower. Alchemists were prepared to pay five-digit sums for a single petal.
“Junior spirits are the next rank. They come from old places, like this forest, or maybe a thousand-year-old bush.”
“Then why aren’t the gardens of clan Marnil, famous all over the Empire, filled with spirits?” The islander asked. He was strangely playful in the presence of the elf.
“Because no one, to this day, has been able to figure out the conditions needed for junior spirits to appear. Ancient and old places are just a basic requirement. Everything else is the will of the Great Forest and the World River.”
It turned out that the spirit of the Kurkhadan oasis, who’d been strong enough to grab and kill a messenger of the gods in one move, was just a junior spirit. Perhaps their power varied as much as the might of animals or people that followed the path of cultivation.
“If there are junior spirits, there are also senior ones,” Hadjar said.
He didn’t sheathe his sword. Not that there was any reasonable need for him to keep it out, but it was easier on his wounded pride and self-esteem. After all, it wasn’t every day that a girl of sixteen fought to protect the famous General.
“Yes, there are also senior spirits,” Dora answered. “But they’re as hard to find as the Immortals. They say that senior spirits are born only once every million years. In terms of power, they surpass even those who have achieved immortality. You won’t find any records of them even in the personal library of the rector of ‘The Holy Sky’ School.”
“How do you know about them, then?”
“Our people came from a senior spirit,” Dora responded, frowning. “Of course I know about them. In the Marnil clan, there are even some legends about the senior spirits. By the way, you know one of the legends yourself.”
“Which one?”
As he asked the question, Hadjar once again felt the unpleasant jolt that made it clear that he would be better off not listening to the answer.
“The legend of the Enemy, or as people call him, the Black General. However, he was a special senior spirit, because he wasn’t just a creation of the World River, but also of other senior spirits and gods. There was no other similar monster in the world. The power he possessed
was terrifying, and only the combined efforts of all the gods and all the senior spirits could banish him to the mountain of skulls.”
Hadjar started. He remembered his mother’s tale, which claimed that the Black General, who’d been a tree at first, had been born on a dead spot of ancient ground, and then the gods had breathed a human form and soul into him.
“Dora.” Hadjar cleared his throat. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but can you bring me a copy of this legend? Name any price, and I’ll pay it.”
“No need,” the girl laughed. “If you’re really that interested in it, I’ll write it down for you myself. This is no secret of our people. Rather, it’s just a legend that mothers tell their children, reminding them that we, the descendants of Spirits, should be afraid of the Enemy, but at the same time, be ready to fight against him.”
At any rate, it was now clear why the Spirits disliked the Enemy and his descendants so much. He was, in fact, something like an abomination in their eyes, and he’d also turned out to be a traitor to the family.
Hadjar saluted in the local fashion and bowed slightly.
Over the next quarter of an hour, they encountered two more minor spirits. They were quite similar to the first one, and only varied in color, the number of tentacles, and size. They were about as strong as the first spirit had been, and held a similar hatred for Hadjar. They didn’t resist Dora’s attacks. She crushed them, broke them, and they, not caring about their own lives, kept asking her to retreat. Apparently, the spirits couldn’t attack someone descended from their common ancestor — the First Forest.
“We’re almost there,” Dora said suddenly. “I can’t believe we made it. I honestly thought we were going to die along the way!”
Hadjar and Einen looked at each other and simultaneously wiped away the sweat that had suddenly covered their foreheads. Despite the oaths they’d made, all of them had managed to deceive each other a little. In the world of martial arts, with a few exceptions, no one could be trusted.
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