He told the dragon about his battle with Colin, about meeting the Lord of Nightmares, Helmer, about the battle with the nomads, how he’d become a General, how he’d done everything in his power to save his friend, how he’d dishonorably captured a whole city, how he’d besieged the sixth pavilion of the sect, how he’d decimated the White Apes to survive the invasion of the beasts.
He talked about Azrea and Nehen, about how he’d killed someone whose brother had been killed by Hadjar in the battle. He spoke about how a million and a half Baliumians had joined his army to fight against their own countrymen, how he knew that their victory at the Black Gates would leave Balium defenseless, and how Lergon, the Baliumian officer, also understood this.
Hadjar kept talking and drinking wine. He sometimes had trouble thinking, his eyes would get heavy, and his head seemed to be stuffed with cotton. He wasn't drunk, he wasn't sober—he just didn't know what to do.
His life had been simple and clear before. He’d had a sword and a goal he wanted to achieve using that sword. Now he was responsible for the lives of millions of people. Their destinies, their families, their lives… all of it was his burden to bear.
“Hadjar Duran, you have accomplished more in three years than many mortals manage to do in their entire lifetime.” Traves waved his hand and a chessboard appeared in front of them. “The first time you should’ve met with me was after reaching the level of a true cultivator, but... at the time, you were only at the level of the Bodily Rivers. I had planned for our second meeting to happen when you reached the middle stage of the Heaven Soldier level, but... You are only at the Transformation of the Mortal Shell stage right now.”
Hadjar looked at the chessboard and couldn’t understand why the dragon had created it in his illusion.
“I can't give you any advice, Hadjar Duran,” the dragon in human form continued. “For I am no more than the shadow’s shadow of a dead dragon, a lesser being than the spirit you met in the tomb of the Immortal. I am only the guardian of my memory, the examiner, and, if necessary, the executioner.”
The executioner?
For some reason, Hadjar didn't like the way their conversation was going.
“You remember my Palace and library that I showed you when we met for the first time.”
Hadjar wanted to point out that they’d first met in an underwater grotto, but he chose not to nitpick and simply nodded.
“I told you we'd meet four times. In the first meeting, you passed the test of spirit and I gave you the meditation Technique and the sword Technique. Now it's time for the second test, Hadjar Duran. The test of your mind. If you pass, I'll let you choose another Technique that isn't bound by my vows. If you fail this test…” Traves' eyes became amber, almost gold, and completely inhuman. Hadjar had been haunted by the memory of them for years. “Then I’ll take my heart back from you and your journey will end in this illusory valley. Now, make your first move, Hadjar Duran.”
Chapter 162
“Plan the first move,” Hadjar ordered.
He waited two seconds for his neuronet to click, but... the neural network didn’t click, even after the second or third time he gave the order. Hadjar did not panic and wasn’t even that surprised. He realized that he would have to rely on his own wits in this situation.
He didn't know why the neural network wasn’t responding. He didn't know why it wasn't obeying his orders, but at the moment, he didn't care. Traves sat before him, in human form. Hadjar quietly adjusted his position on the carved, wooden chair he was sitting on and looked at the chessboard again. The dragon had chosen the black chess pieces, leaving the white color to his opponent.
Hadjar gave the order to the neural network one last time, making sure that the computing chip truly wasn’t able to break through the illusion. In this battle of wits, Hadjar could only fight using what was rightfully his, no external help allowed.
Hadjar took the pawn facing his opponent’s queen and then an uninvited scene appeared before his eyes. Hundreds, thousands… No, millions of soldiers were saluting him and were ready to rush into battle against the same endless amount of enemy warriors. All of their lives and all of their destinies depended on the determination of their General at this particular moment.
Every second Hadjar spent lowering his piece, the pawn became heavier, the cry of the soldiers became more belligerent, and indecision festered in his heart. Finally, Hadjar moved it two squares forward.
He’d been taught well in the Royal Palace. He’d repeatedly played chess against South Wind, who, using it as a sort of model, had taught the Prince the basics of army management, tactics, and strategy.
Traves moved a pawn forward, accompanying his action with the words:
“You're playing without a strategy.”
Hadjar had felt very different when he’d been playing this game with his first teacher. In those days, he hadn’t felt the huge army of soldiers ready to give their lives at the first order of their General when he moved a pawn. Sacrificing the figures back then hadn’t felt like sending hundreds of thousands of people to their deaths.
His pieces fought against Traves’ own. They set traps for each other, and even after seeing them in advance, they still rushed into the enemy’s ambush at both of their orders.
Nothing leads to victory faster than a trap destroyed from within. The moment when the enemy expects that their foe is hopelessly ensnared and their deaths are inevitable is when they are even more vulnerable than the ones who actually fell into the trap.
Hadjar sacrificed a knight to win some space on the board. He heard horses neighing as they were killed by a volley of guns. He heard people dying in agony, staring at their own severed arms and legs. He knew their pain, felt their fear, but still wouldn’t have made any other choice.
He needed that space to maneuver. He sent pawns forward, hearing foot soldiers dying in close combat. He did this only to make a move with his rook and the remaining knight.
Traves easily sacrificed a knight of his own. Now Hadjar was the one who’d sent his soldiers in to trample and destroy the defenseless cavalrymen that had gotten stuck in a trap.
They fought and fought. Two generals, both safely removed from the battle, sitting at a table made of wood and copper. They drank wine and threw away other people's lives as simply as the gods did with their own.
Hadjar didn’t know how Traves had lived his life. How many enemies he had defeated, how many of them he’d sent to the forefathers, how many centuries he’d spent wandering on the path of cultivation and why he had been chained up in an underwater grotto. The only thing Hadjar came to understand during their battle was that Traves had never been a General.
He hadn’t led any armies. He hadn’t held the threads of their fate. He hadn’t taken responsibility for his decisions and their deaths. He hadn’t signed orders to execute someone with his silence and hadn’t inspired hope with simple words.
Different paths in life had led to this chess battle. But... Hadjar was ready to fight, betting his life on the outcome. He felt the sacrifice of every pawn. It was like cutting off his own hand. His soldiers, his army, were part of him. And he was willing to sacrifice everything for them.
Just like his soldiers were ready to give their lives for him because they knew their General would never sit back in a tent.
The mad General Hadjar wouldn’t remain on the sidelines. His dragon roar would shake the battlefield. He would charge ahead of his army and pave its way to victory with his own sword.
Hadjar took the king piece and sent him into battle.
He fought Traves, and the valley turned from emerald to crimson. The world had become a battlefield above which hungry ravens circled. It smelled of death and blood.
Hadjar had gotten used to it.
He’d gotten used to the stench because…
“You win, Hadjar Duran.”
The black king fell over with a crash and rolled across the board. It was now a lifeless piece of wood, which it had be
en all along.
They looked into each other's eyes. Man and dragon. Dragon and man.
“Just like last time, you weren't testing my mind at all, were you?”
Traves nodded.
“My tests, like life’s own, are never what they seem to be at first glance.”
Hadjar looked at his figures. He only had a few pawns and two rooks left. He‘d been able to checkmate the enemy king with their help. But that hadn’t been the point: the screams of the dying, the blood… the death. Hadjar had forgotten what he was fighting for. And only now, after the battle between black and white, had he remembered.
He remembered what he’d fought and bled for, something that was even more important than his own life and the lives of his soldiers.
Hadjar didn't know if Traves had already been planning to bring his mind here before or if this had been done to help him, but he bowed to his master nonetheless.
“Thank you, venerable dragon.”
Traves nodded and waved his hand. The table and chairs disappeared along with the chessboard, and the emerald valley covered in blood evaporated. They were once again standing in a Palace so luxurious that mere mortals could never hope to build something like it.
“As I promised, Hadjar Duran, I’ll let you pick out another Technique.” Thousands of scrolls appeared in front of Hadjar. Knowledge about them flowed into Hadjar's mind in a never-ending stream. There were Techniques in here that could make his body as strong as a Spirit level artifact.
Techniques that would allow him to move as quickly as the wind, to control fire and magma, to hit his enemy at a distance of a hundred steps or more. There were Techniques that would grant him flight, ones focused on emptiness, even time and space itself. They contained the answers to many mysteries, promised him unparalleled strength and freedom. But all of them lacked what Hadjar wanted most—a way to get to the Sword Spirit.
Traves admitted that he’d never been strong in the way of the sword and that his most powerful Techniques were associated with illusions, which were what the dragon was most skilled at.
And only one of the thousands of Techniques offered Hadjar a way to walk further along his chosen path.
“Do you really want to choose this one?” The dragon asked.
Hadjar was holding out the scroll titled ‘The Chosen Path’. It was a Technique that enabled a practitioner to change their energy. Gradually, over thousands of years, thanks to this Technique, the energy in a person’s body would begin to transform. It would move away from the crystal clear River and approach the Spirit that the practitioner had chosen.
“If you start learning this Technique, there’s no going back,” Traves said, cautioning Hadjar. “There are so many mysteries and paths of cultivation in this world, Hadjar Duran, that even my teachers didn’t know about all of them. If you choose the way of the Sword now, you might soon discover that you don’t have enough talent to continue on that path. I urge you to reconsider your choice.”
Hadjar understood the dragon’s concern. He knew that by starting to use the ‘Chosen Path’ Technique, he’d deny himself any other options. He’d never be able to achieve any success on the other paths. He wouldn’t be able to control fire or wind, he wouldn’t get to master illusions and time.
He’d be alone with his blade for centuries, for thousands of years even. Either he’d achieve greatness, or he’d perish as quickly and ingloriously as many other mortals had before him.
Seeing the iron will in the man’s blue eyes, Traves sighed and nodded. “So be it. You’ve passed the test. There are two more. They’ll be more dangerous and even more difficult. Only if you pass them all will I tell you the price you need to pay for my heart and free you from the threat of me ending your life.”
Chapter 163
Traves touched Hadjar’s forehead and he disappeared, leaving the dragon standing alone in the vast, endless plain. Traves’ eyes looked into the distance. They pierced time and space. The shadow of the shadow of a once majestic Lord of the Heavens contemplated recent events.
His revenge was approaching, but along with it, as Hadjar Duran became stronger, the end of his artificial half-life was drawing closer as well.
With a sigh and a sad smile, Traves turned around and disappeared among the white clouds.
At that moment, Hadjar fell into the depths of the River. He sank deeper and deeper, farther than he’d ever gone before. The pressure kept increasing. He could feel every cell, every hair on his body being struck by thousands of heavy hammers trying to crush him, annihilate him, turn him into the dust an impudent man like him deserved to become. Someone who dared to explore the secrets and mysteries of this world far too early deserved no better.
Tens of thousands of silhouettes, exuding the energy of ancient Spirits, flashed in front of Hadjar’s eyes. He saw a priestess sacrificing herself to the fire; a huge warrior wielding a gigantic hammer.
He saw the dance of razor-sharp, silk ribbons; a staff that created a tsunami with one swing, one that crashed against the mountains and even reached the distant sky above.
These sights didn’t trouble Hadjar at all. He swam past the countless colorful Spirits who kept promising him power and might. The farther down he went, the simpler the Spirits became. The warriors and priestesses disappeared, leaving only flames and water behind. Blacksmiths disappeared and only their hammers now flickered in the depths of the bottomless River of world energy.
Hadjar ignored them all.
His essence craved only one thing. Feeling his mind and body weakening with every movement he made, the General tried to get closer to the silhouette of the Sword. Distant and elusive, it didn’t try to move toward him, but floated away instead. Every time he forced himself onward, it would move backwards.
The spirit was like starlight, just a fleeting vision, like the first love you could never recapture again.
It was simultaneously so close and so far away, unattainable, pure and strong.
The energy waves it emitted cut through not just Hadjar’s skin, but also his very mind. Like a woodworker, the spirit was cutting off everything superfluous and unnecessary, turning the warrior into something greater.
Hadjar gave himself to the feeling, plunging into the depths. He reached out for the steel light. He bled, but didn’t lose blood. He was giving up fragments of his memories. He forgot his mother’s laugher, the games he’d played with Elaine, the feeling of his friend’s strong back against his own, Nehen’s smell and eyes, Azrea…
Hadjar screamed, but his cry was no more than a delusion in this merciless River of energy, where there was no past, no future, no present. Only eternity. Hadjar dissolved in this ‘eternity’.
His hands trembled, his body convulsed. He was no longer submerging himself, no longer reaching for the distant and powerful spirit.
Hadjar was drowning.
Plummeting and losing his very essence along the way.
He tried to breathe in a little bit of ‘air’, but instead felt only the caress of the hungry and cold abyss.
“You’re unworthy,” the Sword whispered, “You’re unworthy…”
Hadjar knew it was telling the truth.
Along the way to the peak of the Black Mountains, where the sect’s Snake Gates were located, he’d lost everything he could be proud of. He’d lost the honor and dignity that Haver and the Master had instilled in him. He could no longer see the clear and wide path that South Wind’s wisdom had led him to.
His mother’s words sounded like an alarm: “The martial arts world won’t make you happy... Run…”
“Run,” echoed in his fading consciousness.
“Run from yourself. Run from your enemies. Run from the Heavens and Earth.”
“You’re unworthy,” came the echo of the Spirit of the Sword’s voice, “you’re unworthy…”
Hadjar’s body twitched for the last time and froze.
He drowned in that River, buried under the weight of a vast and uncaring world.
&
nbsp; And yet…
The roar of a dragon shook the river! Small ripples appeared on its surface, as if a stone had been thrown into the depths of a well. But even these ripples were enough for the waves of energy to spread across the sixth pavilion. The energy that could cut through the Heavens. The dragon’s roar, full of rage and anger, echoed it.
Hadjar rushed forward. He ordered his memories and feelings to return and they obeyed. He ordered his hands to take up the sword and Moon Beam appeared in his rough palms once again.
The Mad General swung his blade and, with the confident gait of a fearless warrior, started fighting the very essence of all swords. Their spirit. He couldn’t win. He couldn’t even survive. Nevertheless, after each new death, after each wave of the energy that turned him into dust, he ordered himself to get back up and keep going.
He got up.
He kept going.
Hadjar didn’t know how long this lasted—thousands or millions of years. He died, was reborn, and refused to back down. It was just him, his sword, and the foe in front of him—the distant Spirit of the Sword whose power he was going to take for himself.
The people in the outside world covered their heads with their hands. They tried to hide from the raging wind that had suddenly started howling. They felt the energy of the Sword. Only two people understood what was happening.
The imperial librarian looked up from a letter. He looked toward the General’s tent and shuddered. The unstoppable warrior in loose clothes appeared before his eyes. He stood among mountain peaks falling to the ground, cut off with a single slash of his simple, dark blade.
The sect Patriarch opened his eyes. For the first time in a hundred years, he stopped his meditation. A predatory smile appeared on his face. Drums thundered, the gods and demons cried out—his Enemy was here. The one he would meet in glorious battle that the bards would sing about. His Enemy’s fate would be used to frighten young, disobedient children. The Patriarch issued orders.
The librarian tried to calm down. Both of the true cultivators knew what this all meant.
Dragon Heart: Iron Will. LitRPG Wuxia Series: Book 2 Page 45
