“Einen,” Hadjar stated simply. He didn’t have the strength to raise his hand, let alone cut his palm.
His friend nodded in understanding. Drawing his dagger, he ran it across Hadjar’s palm while the latter swore the oath. His blood flared with a golden flame and the wound healed, leaving another scar behind.
“Thank… you…” Anise croaked.
Coughing, she turned away, wiped her bruised lips with a handkerchief, and took another sip of the broth.
Hadjar now knew how the four of them had managed to survive an ambush from a Nameless level assassin.
“We can swear the same oaths.” Dora took out the dagger she used for cutting out monster cores. Everyone who’d once been a simple practitioner had one. However, for cultivators, these simple blades served a ritual, rather than practical purpose, as they could get cores without having to cut them out.
“You want me to swear an oath to a commoner?” Tom roared.
“Calm down, Dinos!” Dora shouted. “Hadjar is already more powerful than most mid-stage Spirit Knights. It’s only a matter of time before he earns a jade token. Master Orune will then take him as his personal disciple. After graduation, you’ll be equals!”
“A commoner is no match for an aristocrat.”
“Idiot!”
Dora threw her bowl into the fire. She didn’t realize that she came off as no better than Tom at that moment.
Hadjar and Einen looked at each other.
“Tom… please...”
Anise’s voice seemed to calm the angry young man. After a moment’s hesitation, Tom swore so loudly that Nero would’ve been delighted. Snatching the dagger from Dora, he cut his palm and vowed not to reveal the secrets he’d learn from Hadjar. Dora and Anise followed suit.
“Now tell us, barbarian,” Tom said, “Where did a Heaven Soldier get such a Spirit?”
Hadjar smiled.
“It’s not as complicated as it seems.” He summoned the Quetzal bird into the physical world. “It’s-”
“What a lovely chicken!”
Everyone turned to Einen. He cleared his throat and went back to bandaging Hadjar’s wounds.
“A Chicken Spirit… It suits you. The bards will sing songs about you two.”
“Oh, go to-”
All of them laughed loudly, sitting around a fire in the middle of the Wastelands, surrounded by ancient ruins bathed in the light of the stars and the moon. Sometimes, even cultivators needed to relieve tension with some laughter.
“I met a tribe of nomadic orcs in Lascan,” Hadjar began. He wasn’t going to reveal all his secrets, but since they’d sworn the oath, he owed them at least a couple.
Chapter 659
“T he way of the ancestors,” Dora repeated. “It sounds amazing.”
“It sounds crazy.” Tom snorted. “Everything he just told us contradicts the Imperial doctrine about the path of cultivation.”
“Don’t you think that what Hadjar did is beyond the scope of our knowledge?” Anise asked, finishing her third bowl of herbal tea. By now, the mess that was her broken channels had mostly recovered.
Tom nodded and shut up. He’d never heard of anyone who didn’t just borrow power from their Spirit, but exchanged it with them instead, merging together and doubling their power in the process. The way Hadjar had fought with his Bird Spirit made him as powerful as Anise. He envied him.
“I wonder if the orcs remember the way of the ancestors…”
“I know what you must be wondering: why didn’t they try to conquer the Empire?” Hadjar said. “They don’t need it. They roam, hunt, and live in peace with nature. They don’t need human cities and countries. To them, those places are hunting grounds.”
“In other words, they already consider this land their own, and its people their cattle.”
Hadjar hadn’t looked at the situation from that angle. He hated to admit it, but Anise had a point. Just as mortals let the animals breed in their forests, so too did the orcs let the humans fornicate on their hunting grounds. After all, humans wouldn’t go to war with rabbits.
“What did you do for them to honor you so much?” Anise asked. “Those feathers in your hair… Orc hunters have only one white feather in their hair.”
Hadjar wasn’t surprised to learn she knew so much about a race he hadn’t even known existed until recently. The nobility, unlike most people, received a good education. Even if those people had once lived in a Royal Palace. Hadjar used to be a Prince, sure, but he’d been born in a small border Kingdom. In Lidus, a Heaven Soldier was a mythical creature that could control the elements and fly. And the people there unfortunately didn’t know anything about orcs and elves.
“I took part in their celebration,” Hadjar said. It was a half-lie. “That’s where I got these.”
His companions weren’t stupid. They knew that Hadjar wasn’t going to share everything with them even though they’d been sworn to secrecy. In the world of martial arts, people respected each other’s secrets, so no one tried to force him to say anything else.
“Interesting.” Tom nodded. “The oath we took will save you a lot of trouble, barbarian.”
A man who knew the way of the ancestors wouldn’t be welcome in the Empire. Without the Wolf Broth, this path was closed to cultivators. To think that those who could walk it would be able to double or even triple their power... The Empire didn’t want anyone like that nearby, fearing that they’d cause more trouble than they were worth.
Hadjar looked at Einen. Unlike the islander, the other three often forgot their manners and sometimes interrupted Hadjar to ask him questions. Einen, who’d just finished tending to his friend’s wounds, looked as calm as ever. Hadjar looked at him silently. Using the sign language of the hunters that Hadjar had taught him, Einen gestured to him that it was too dangerous to talk now and that they’d catch up later. In private.
Hadjar didn’t know what Einen was hiding, but he trusted him. After all, no one but the islander knew all of his secrets.
“And now for the most important thing,” Tom whispered, looking over his shoulder as if he were afraid that someone might emerge from the darkness and hear them. “How do you know about the Last War?”
“The Last-?”
All three aristocrats hissed at him.
“Not so loud!” Anise also looked around. “It isn’t something one should be shouting about.”
Hadjar and Einen glanced at each other. Who, or what, could be so horrible as to intimidate a group of nobles?
“Guess I should be the one asking questions this time,” Hadjar drawled. “What’s so dangerous about it?”
“The mere mention of those times can end badly, even for a noble,” Dora whispered, turning slightly pale. “Information about that period was erased from all libraries, historical books, and scrolls.”
“Why?”
“Because that was the war that created the seven Empires,” Anise said harshly. “And summoned their masters.”
“The masters of the Empires?”
“Ssshhh!”
“Shut up, barbarian!” Tom hissed through gritted teeth. “If you breathe a word of this in Dahanatan, you’ll be taken to the interrogation room of the Imperial Chancellery. If you don’t want to live, just tell me. I’ll be happy to send you to your forefathers.”
Hadjar decided to let it go.
“That’s why we were so surprised that you knew about it,” Anise said. “Commoners shouldn’t know anything about that period.”
“Even most nobles don’t know about it.”
“Most?”
The three nodded in unison.
“Only the ruling families of the seven great clans have the right to learn and pass on this knowledge,” Tom said, puffing his chest out with pride.
“What are you talking about?” Hadjar asked, furrowing his brows.
The trio exchanged glances. They debated in silence for a while, until Anise said:
“All seven Empires are subjects of the Dragon L
ands. We serve monsters, the Lords of the Heavens.”
Kill the Dragon Emperor! Sounded in Hadjar’s head.
“Fucking damn it! I hate intrigue!” He swore.
Chapter 660
T he squad moved slowly toward the northeast. Hadjar hadn’t told them about the landmark that he’d privately dubbed ‘Falcon’s Head’ — and even if he’d wanted to tell them, it would’ve been very difficult to explain at this point.
Shielding his eyes with his hand, he looked around. There wasn’t a cloud in sight, and the sun was almost as hot as in the Sea of Sand. The landscape remained unchanged: ruins and sand covered with sparse, low vegetation.
“We’ve got trouble!” Tom raised his fist.
They were on a high hill overlooking an old, wide road. Dismounting, they fell to the ground and began crawling. Hiding behind the dry, reddish bushes, they took turns looking through Hadjar’s telescope. No matter how strong Spirit Knights were, they still couldn’t see three miles ahead of them.
“By the Great Turtle!” Einen breathed out and handed the telescope back to Hadjar.
Pressing it to his eye, he peered at the road. Through the cracked and slightly cloudy glass, he saw a group of cultivators fighting a pink-skinned, giant monster that looked like a mix of lion, bat, scorpion, and a child’s nightmare. Its black mane shot out yellow sparks that turned into lightning bolts and struck the cultivators scurrying at its feet. Those who weren’t killed by the bolts were immediately torn to pieces by the monster’s huge paws adorned with razor-sharp claws. Wide as a ship’s mast, they easily felled two or three warriors at once. Those that it didn’t kill, it swallowed without chewing. Instead of a lion’s tail, it had a chitinous scorpion sting that immediately turned those it hit to dust. The sand sizzled and evaporated in places where the acidic, green poison landed on it. The creature also had two gigantic wings, which it used to create deadly sandstorms. The wind would strip the skin off those unlucky enough to get in its way, leaving behind only a skeleton clad in armor.
“It’s a manticore,” Anise said, handing the telescope back to Hadjar.
“I’ve heard of those...”
He’d never fought against such a creature himself, only heard the stories from travelers and read about them in the bestiary that all students of the School had free access to.
“I didn’t know that Spirit Stage monsters dwelled in the Wastelands.”
“Thank the gods that this one is only at the first level of the Stage,” Tom said.
Everyone instantly felt as if a weight had been lifted off their shoulders. A creature at the initial level of the Spirit Stage was equal in power to the peak stage of the Nameless level. If the manticore had reached the middle level, it would’ve surpassed the Nameless level of human cultivation, and the fortress that served as the barrier between the Wastelands and the Empire would’ve crumbled to dust long ago.
The winged serpents that had now settled in the lands of the Dah’Khasses were that powerful. By the Evening Stars, getting hit by one of them was as terrible as being struck by a cannonball in the face. No matter how much human civilization developed, its primary threat were still bloodthirsty monsters.
“Let’s go,” Dora said and began to slowly crawl back to the side of the slope, where the horses were grazing and Azrea was stretched out, yawning. “We can’t help them.”
No one disagreed. These hundred or so cultivators and disciples from their School were doomed to die at the beast’s hands. No one could help them. Had access to the Wastelands been granted to all the students, including the personal disciples at the Lord level, several of them working together would’ve probably been able to deal with the manticore and save these unfortunate souls.
With their gazes still fixed on the distant scene of carnage, they descended the slope, got on their mounts, and rode away without hesitation. They raced in the opposite direction with mad urgency for about three hours. During that time, clouds appeared in the sky, threatening to merge into the dark, stormy kind. The landscape finally began to change: hills made up of dry, cracked earth gave way to small rocks, and then to red mountain peaks. Looming above the Wastelands, they reached for the azure sky, hoping to touch it one day.
“We’ve gone far enough,” Tom said and halted. Patting the sweaty neck of his tired steed, he jumped off it. “Let’s set up camp.”
No one bothered to argue. They’d let him be the leader simply because no one wanted to constantly argue with him.
Hadjar retrieved a waterskin and a bowl from his spatial ring. He filled the latter with fresh water and placed it in front of Azrea. The rest followed his example and set out food and water for their mounts. Perhaps the animals hadn’t taken over the world because, unlike cultivators, they needed nourishment. Even at the highest Stages, their instincts always prevailed. Try as they might, they could never reach the same level of sentience as humans.
Hadjar approached Einen.
“How far off course are we?” He asked in the islander’s native language.
Einen looked up at the sky. Picking up a small stick from the ground, he held it out in front of his eyes, made a couple of gestures with his fingers, and thought about it for a while.
“We’re about 125 miles east.”
“125 miles.” Hadjar repeated, looking in the direction where the Falcon’s Head should be.
“We need to explore these mountains,” Tom said once he was finished with starting the fire. Sitting down, he held his hands out over the flames. A cold night in the Wastelands could easily kill a mortal or a practitioner, but not a cultivator. For them, it was only a minor inconvenience. “Something tells me that we might find a couple of clues here.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Dora said.
Anise, as usual, supported her brother’s decision. Their relationship seemed strange to Hadjar, but he didn’t want to stick his nose where it didn’t belong. Instead, he looked to the north and the three snowcapped peaks lost amongst the numerous red spears.
“Shall we vote on it?” Tom suggested.
Hadjar felt like they needed to head toward the Falcon’s Head, but he was outnumbered three to one. He hated intrigue.
Chapter 661
“A re you meditating?”
Hadjar was sitting by the fire, smoking his pipe and looking up at the snowcapped peaks.
“No. I decided to keep watch.”
Anise sat down on the sand beside him. Her thick hair smelled of jasmine and barley — it was a pleasant, sweet smell. He didn’t know the names of the jade stones framed in gold and white that adorned her luscious locks, but they also looked beautiful.
“You’re on guard duty?” Anise laughed. “Do we really need that?”
Unlike the other squad members, who used it in their Techniques and in their everyday life, Hadjar couldn’t use external energy at all. Spirit Knights didn’t need someone to keep watch as they could sense danger even if they were in deep meditation. Of course, there were exceptions, but for such cases, they had protective spells.
Their camp was currently surrounded by several magic barriers and a signal network that stretched out for about 1500 yards around its perimeter. Sometimes, if one was paying close attention, they could see the hieroglyphs and runes twinkling beneath a thin layer of golden sand, entwined in intricate patterns the meaning of which Hadjar didn’t know. Due to his handicap, he didn’t have the ability to learn the magic arts of alchemy and artifactoring. The latter was especially troublesome, as he could’ve made significant progress in it by now thanks to his neural network, which would’ve put him one step closer to his goal.
“It’s a habit...” Hadjar shrugged, then gritted his teeth in frustration.
According to the life story he’d invented for himself, he was the Prince of a distant Kingdom. Being a prodigy by his Kingdom’s standards, he’d decided to go and test himself in the Imperial capital. Traveling through the Sea of Sand, he’d met Einen, whom he’d then befriended and went on many adventures
with. The only real lie there, he figured, was that he was seventeen, and not twenty-eight.
Wrapping her blanket tighter around herself, Anise turned to the mountains.
“While you were gone, I collected some stories,” her voice sounded different somehow, “about the Mad General.”
Hadjar had had no doubt that she would continue her inquiries into his past in his absence. Maybe out of pure academic interest, or maybe because she had a goal only she knew about. He didn’t know what her motives were, and even if he did, he doubted that he’d be able to do anything about it. She would keep digging.
South Wind had once told him that there were three things in this world that couldn’t be trusted: snakes sleeping on your chest, beautiful women, and aristocrats. Hadjar didn’t know about the first two, but he knew the last bit was true. One couldn’t compare the nobility and their odd ways to that of the commoners’ far simpler outlook.
“In taverns and around campfires, legends are told about an invincible General named Hadjar-”
“We’ve already been over this,” Hadjar interrupted her. “My name is one of the most common ones in the region.”
“They say,” Anise continued calmly, “that he was so clever and skillful that he could sneak in anywhere undetected. That he, along with his loyal brother and the witch from the Sea of Sand, defeated a horde of nomads. That he fought a Spirit Knight and survived. That he met demons. That he slept with a wolf woman from the Islands. That he could command the very wind. That he fought the ice giants and defeated the mad Patriarch of ‘The Black Gates’ sect. That he had a white cub, which sometimes turned into a huge tigress-”
“Do you really believe all of that?”
Dragon Heart: Land of The Enemy. LitRPG Wuxia Series: Book 8 Page 11
