Savage Divinity

Chapter 368

Faced with the Crone’s crushing Aura of berserk hatred and savage fury, Du Min Gyu’s defences crumbled apart without a hint of resistance. Hammering home before he even registered her screams, her Demonic Aura rendered him unable to breathe much less keep himself afloat, and he plummeted from the skies like a bird struck in mid-flight. Crashing to his knees, his bones cracked and organs shifted from the impact, but he barely noticed the pain as horror surged through every fibre of his being, overwhelming even the terror inspired by the Defiled Ancestral Beast. He could not go back to being a cripple, not when he’d been so close to reclaiming all he’d lost after so many years of hardship and suffering. Better to die here and now as a warrior, and it was this thought which allowed him to throw off the shackles of fear and regain his senses as his Aura rose to fend hers off.

All in all, it was a delay measured in fractions of a second, but this infinitesimal setback cost him dearly as Du Min Gyu missed out on the Heaven Sent opportunity to kill a defenceless Defiled Ancestral Beast.

Coming to her feet, the Crone croaked, “That. Hurt.” Those two simple words cost her more effort than she’d spent all battle, which proved Jorani’s mysterious Runic Device more powerful than the combined attacks of two Peak Experts. Another pleasant surprise from the self-professed street rat from Sanshu, but Min Gyu had no time to speculate where he’d stolen such a Device from or if he had more hidden in his sleeves. Even if he did, Jorani clearly lacked the Chi to use another, his Core drained dry just to power the first, and with his broken legs and shattered hips, Min Gyu was in no shape to head over and take one from him.

Thankfully, immobility was but a minor hindrance to the Sanguine Tempest.

The Crone barely finished speaking when his first Wind Blade smashed into her neck, aiming to take her head during a moment of distraction. Lurching aside at the impact, the Crone’s defences kept her skin intact, her body encased in a layer of hardened Earth-Chi as she staggered away. A shame, but a Wind Chakram required precious seconds to form and time was what he lacked the most of, for he had to act quickly to support his ally, already in position behind the Crone and ready to attack. The Crone’s Aura had stopped Min Gyu for all of a heartbeat, but the southerner moved so quickly, it seemed like he hadn’t been affected at all.

Small wonder he recovered from having his Spiritual Weapon destroyed, Broken Blade Pichai was a man possessed of unwavering courage and indefatigable tenacity.

Feet planted and weapon ready, the southerner swung his gargantuan scimitar and caught the Crone mid-stride. Visually, it looked no different from his other strikes, a fundamental horizontal slash derived from Tiger Form – Swiping the Rushes. Derived might even be too strong a word, for the attack was identical to the Movement in every way, but Min Gyu had never seen it executed with such flawless control and precision. The attack started at Broken Blade Pichai’s toes which gripped the ground and started a chain of reactions flowing up his body. His heels lifted, ankles turned, calves flexed, and knees bent, a series of small, almost imperceptible motions which seamlessly merged like drops of water inside a surging river as he eked out every scrap of power his body could provide and directed it into his attack. The raging torrent grew as it travelled up his spine, through his shoulders and out his arms, gaining strength from thousands of sources which resulted in an attack Min Gyu could only describe as the pinnacle of Martial Mastery.

One Slash to Reap the World. One Slash to Rout the Heavens.

Blood spurted as the scimitar bit deep into the Crone’s upraised forearm, the first wound she’d taken throughout their entire exchange. Embedded in muscle and bone, the Crone screeched in agony as she ripped the weapon from the southerner’s grasp and shoved him away with an open palm, his shimmering, multicoloured breastplate crumpling like paper beneath the blow.

Unsure if his ally still drew breath, Min Gyu thanked him for the precious few heartbeats his efforts had bought them, for the Sanguine Tempest had not sat idle while admiring the Broken Blade’s strength. Holding his battle fan with one hand, Min Gyu steadied himself with the other, raising his upper body with sheer bull-headed obstinance and little else. Flowing from his core and into his spinning fan, his Chi coursed out into the world and resisted the compulsion to return to the Heavens in order to do his bidding. Rotating air grew into a Howling Gale as the world bent to his iron will, forming no mere disc of cutting wind but an entire twisting tornado centred about his fan. With a wave of his arm and a monumental effort of will, Min Gyu directed his attack at the Defiled Ancestral Beast. The sharpened point drove home and struck her from the side, slamming her into the ground with a spray of blood. The cacophony of whipping wind drowned out her screams and a cloud of dust obscured his vision, leaving everyone in suspense as to the ultimate fate of their fearsome foe.

Collapsing to the cobblestones, Min Gyu pressed his cheek to the cold floor and prayed their efforts would bear fruit. After their last strikes, he had nothing left to give, barely able to cut the flow of blood to his lower half and keep himself from bleeding out, while Broken Blade Pichai had yet to stir after taking a blow to the chest. Head light and vision fading, he forced his eyes open and focused on the spot where he’d seen the Crone fall, watching for signs of life or movement from within the settling cloud. His blood pounded in his temples as he watched and waited, counting the heartbeats to calm his nerves and keep himself awake.

One. His breath caught in his throat at a glimpse of movement, but it was merely the fluttering of a stray piece of cloth.

...

Two. Still no movement to be seen and his eyelids grew heavy, the darkness threatening to close in around him.

...

Three. The stillness between each beat felt like an eternity, but the heady rush told him there was still life in him yet. Most of his lower body would have to be regrown, but he was no stranger to the process, and this time he was mere hours away from the greatest gathering of Martial Experts the Empire had ever seen.

...

Four. Surely there would be plenty of competent Healers there, enough to pick from so he wouldn’t have to go begging Medical Saint Taduk for yet another favour. Though the Bekhai had yet to call in his chit, Min Gyu was not a man accustomed to being indebted to others. Taking on a second debt without settling the first would be too shameful to bear, for he would be so deeply in their pockets he might as well call himself a Bekhai lackey.

...

“Where was I?” Min Gyu muttered, having lost his count. Oh no, how many more heartbeats just passed while he was trying to remember? How long had he lain in wait, seconds or minutes? Had he passed out? Though unable to move his head, a quick scan of his surroundings told him not only had the dust yet to settle, but the Death Corps were still scattered about, obeying his orders to stay out of the way. Belatedly thinking to ask for help, he opened his mouth to speak just as the ground trembled beneath his cheek.

Turning to the Crone, he watched in muted horror as she emerged from the earth which shielded her from his final attack, stone and soil parting around her like water breaking on the beach. Her tattered robes were soaked in blood and shredded beyond repair, but thankfully still clinging to her hunched frame. Wrinkled face twisted in rage, she didn’t rise from the shallow ditch so much as she was lifted out, a mound building beneath her feet and hoisting her up on a pillar of earth until she stood on level ground. Though covered from head to toe in cuts a plenty, Min Gyu was saddened to see his final attack had done less damage than Pichai’s, her cuts and abrasions from his Howling Gale superficial while Broken Blade Pichai’s attack chopped right down to the bone.

A silly time to compete with his peers, but Du Min Gyu had always been driven by competition.

“Hateful insects,” she hissed, her clouded eyes burning with madness and violence. “You dare?”

Unable to resist, Min Gyu snorted in laughter. “And you thought us incapable of harming you.” With a self-satisfied sneer, he added, “Ant and fly we may be, but you yourself stand only a little higher.”

Before he could come up with an apt comparison, the Crone shrieked, “I am a Divinity, a god among mortals! I have withstood the passage of time for millennia on end, and will stand for millennia after your bones turn to dust in the wind! You inferior creatures dare lay hand upon me? You will not die, not today, not until you are made to suffer and divulge the names of those you hold dear. You will pay for this, in their suffering and your own, for -”

Roaring in wordless defiance, Eccentric Gam leaped out of the earth behind her and smashed his fist into the back of her head. Knocking her down with a single blow, Gam was not yet finished as he pounced atop her, driving punch after punch into her prone form, even hitting her with the bloody stump where his other hand used to be. Each blow sounded with a meaty thump, the sound of metal striking flesh as Gam hammered the Crone into the earth, but to his horror and dismay, Min Gyu discovered things were not as they seemed. Despite the unfavourable position, it was the Crone’s skin which was the metal and Gam’s fist the flesh, her body once again enshrouded by a layer of defensive Earth Chi. Undeterred, Eccentric Gam carried on with his self-destructive attack, pounding the Crone’s body deeper into the earth to no avail.

Why wasn’t she fighting back or even struggling to turn around? By the Mother... Her hardened skin was not her only defence, she was also shunting the force from Gam blows into the soil around her. No wonder she took so little damage! The only reason Broken Blade Pichai could cut so deep was because Min Gyu had sent her staggering first, the blow catching her with one foot off the ground. A joint effort, so objectively, he’d won in their exchange. Then again, he only had time to form the Howling Gale because of Pichai’s efforts, so he couldn’t claim sole credit for that either.josei

Fine. Whoever kills the bitch, wins.

Snarling like a wounded animal, Eccentric Gam reached the same conclusion Min Gyu had and lifted the Crone out of the ground by her neck. Though his knuckles were bloodied and broken, he didn’t hesitate to drive his stump into her face. Accepting the punch with a smile, the Crone lightly planted her foot on Gam’s mangled chest and somehow redirected the force of the punch towards him, her head barely shifting at the impact while Eccentric Gam doubled over in pain. “Hiding in the Earth from my magnificent self?” she taunted as she broke his hold on her, throwing his earlier words back at him. “Seeking Death.”

Backhanding his Wind Blade aside, the Crone fixed him with a glare as her Aura settled around him once more, shattering the last of his meagre resistance now that his Chi was all but spent. “Wait your turn fly, I’ll deal with you soon enough.” Turning back to Gam, she kicked twice and shattered the half-fox’s knees, forcing him to the ground with a thud. Without uttering a sound, Gam raised his head and spit at the Crone, or gave his best effort to do so with a broken jaw.

Eccentric Gam was an undisciplined, cantankerous, cretin of a soldier, but a warrior Du Min Gyu would proudly fight alongside, no matter the circumstances.

“Still resisting?” the Crone jeered, patting Gam’s ruined chin with a heavy hand but barely eliciting a wince from the stalwart old fox. “So senseless. Even if you had another ten-thousand years of practice, you still couldn’t kill me, you pathetic half-breed.”

“Hmph.” Though speaking mostly likely caused him indescribable pain, Gam carefully enunciated his words. “Hairless bag,” he began, stopping to catch his breath. “The. Treaty. Stands. Break it. Or Fuck Off.”

Mother above... Three Peak Experts lay battered and broken, yet the Treaty still held? What sort of mad terms had the Empire agreed to? Then again, thinking back on their battle, the Crone never attacked them directly aside from a single palm strike directed at Pichai, and that was more of a light shove than outright attack. Not for the first time, Min Gyu felt the constraints of his humble origins. Though technically a military family, before his unprecedented rise to power, the highest ranking officer in the Du Family’s history had been Min Gyu’s great-grandfather, a Colonel whose rank had been conferred posthumously. The Du family lacked the stable roots of older, more entrenched noble families, as evidenced by the shameful behaviour shown by his surviving relatives. Thus, he had no wise and powerful Elders to sit him down and explain the not-so-hidden secrets of the Empire, leaving him to muddle through the double-speak and make inferences all on his own. His knowledge regarding Ancestral Beasts and the Treaty was limited to their existence, since few cared to speak to him regarding such matters, even in his prime.

Unfortunately, it seemed like neither the Crone nor Gam intended to shed light on the matter. Running her finger over his cheek, the Crone peeled off a layer of skin and flesh and ate it with a smile, slurping it up like a stray noodle. “Are you so eager for death, half-breed? It will not be so easy. You killed so many of my babies, each one hand raised with great effort and difficulty.” Sighing in regret, the Crone took a second strip from Gam’s face, this time from the other side, and once again spoke while still chewing away. “If only it were as simple as spreading my legs for a man, like your whore of a mother did. Then again, perhaps I misspoke? Which one was which, half-breed? I could hardly fault a human woman for wanting to lie with a Divinity.”

“Ha!” Gam laughed in outright defiance even as the Crone peeled a third strip away. “Have you looked in a mirror lately? Finding a willing man won’t be easy as you’d think.”

Sucking air through the gap in her teeth, the Crone jabbed her finger into Gam’s clavicle and finally elicited a response from the half-fox. A truncated cry of pain sounded out before being choked away, Gam refusing to give the Crone any satisfaction. Leaning in close to Gam’s face, the Crone bit off the still dangling strip of flesh. “This physical form is merely... a minor setback. Now that I’ve grasped the Truth, it will only be a matter of time before I rediscover how everything works. I did so as a beast, a creature barely capable of rational thought, so I most certainly can do it again.”

“Disgusting.” Spitting ineffectually once more, blood dripped down Gam’s chin as he faced death without fear. “You may have once been a Divinity, but now, you are Defiled filth.”

“Believe what you will,” the Crone said, visibly angered by Gam’s statement, “But I am still a Divinity! Nothing you say can take that away from me, nothing. I once touched upon the secrets of Creation itself, only to be denied true Godhood by the jealous Heavens, but you?” Scoffing in disdain, she carefully peeled another strip of skin from the side of Gam’s face, exposing a long patch of flesh from temple to throat. “You’ve inherited the worst of both bloodlines, the frail ego of humanity alongside the irrational intuition of beast-kind, and combined, they make you less than either. You might have eventually found True Power as man or beast, but a piddling half-breed like you will forever be denied it. The only merit you can claim is your infertility, proof even the villainous Heavens don’t want more of your kind around.”

“I disagree.” Leaning on a staff for support, an ancient, matronly woman strode out from the crowd of silent Death Corps soldiers. Though she seemed frail and wore her robes in haphazard disarray, Min Gyu was still awestruck by her stately beauty, her exquisite features refined by the touch of time, rather than diminished by it. With a strong jawline and chiselled features, she lacked the soft curves of a traditional beauty, but was no less attractive for the loss, possessing flowing, silken locks of dazzling white hair which hung freely down her back, and flawless jade skin which shone in the starlight. Who she was or why she was here, Min Gyu couldn’t say, or at least, not until she walked by and he saw the white-furred tail dangling beneath the hem of her robes. A half-fox companion perhaps, here to lend aid to their cause. Heaven knows Gam knew enough of them, currently teaching the fifth of his lazily named half-fox disciples.

Wait... Was there a Gam One or did the Eccentric consider himself the first and name his Disciples starting with Gam Two?

The blood loss was making him daft. Min Gyu had to warn the beauty to flee, but the words froze in his throat once he saw Gam’s expression. Despite staying strong through the Crone’s beating and torture, Gam now looked like he was on the verge of crying, his lips quivering and eyes brimming with tears. “Mama,” he said, slumping down in relief. “You came to save me.”

... Mama?

It couldn’t be...

Frowning as she glanced over her son’s injuries, Gam’s mother replied, “A coincidence perhaps, or a twist of fate. Little Five’s contest brought us nearby when I noticed all the commotion and ran ahead for a peek. A good thing too, you got yourself into a real mess now, didn’t you? Look at your face, so mangled and ugly. You really so eager to die?” Behaving like a chastised child, Gam opened his mouth to refute, but his mother would have none of it. “Hush now, Mama has business to attend to.” Studying the Crone as one would study a filthy beggar in one’s path, she wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “There are many limitations to half-beast progeny, but we can debate the benefits and drawbacks at some other time. First I’d like to ask you one thing.” Straightening up, she slammed her staff against the ground and a ripple of dirt carried Gam away to safety behind her. “Who the fuck do you think you are, bullying my boy like this?”

Growling in a beast-like manner, the Crone scrambled away from Gam’s mother and stood ready to defend herself. “He killed my children,” she hissed, her voice nearly a plaintive whine. “He deserves death a thousand times over.”

“These things?” The earth rumbled and spit out five Demon corpses, each one a mole-like abomination. “He was right to kill them, ugly, disgusting creatures whose corpses taint the earth. If you don’t want to end up dead like them, then fuck off before I shove this staff up your ass and fly your corpse like a banner." 

It was easy to see where Gam learned his manners from. A shame such a lovely beauty was ruined by her crass demeanour, but if Yan were here, she’d likely be beside herself with laughter.

Unmoved, the Crone bared her teeth. “You think I fear a dying old woman? Perhaps I’ll cripple you and feast on your corpse while your boy watches. A fitting punishment for his crimes.”

Snorting in disbelief, Gam’s mother shook her head. “My boy and his cronies must have knocked something loose in your head if you think you’re my match.” Smiling radiantly, Gam’s mother crooked her finger and added, “But please, make a move. My boy tells me you haven’t broken the Treaty, so I can’t kill you yet, not with so many witnesses around.”

“I won’t tell.” A deep, baritone voice echoed out from outside of Min Gyu’s vision, and he was unable to muster the strength to look around. “I’m bored of looking after brats all day and it’s been ages since I seen a good fight.”

“You woke me for this?” A second voice spoke up, irritable and cranky. “Kill the hag and be done with it. I’m going back to sleep.”

“I suggest we take her alive,” came a third voice, and this one sounded familiar, but Min Gyu couldn’t place it. “A simple enough task with so many of us here. I’m curious what her goals are and a few days under my knife might loosen her tongue.”

“We cannot.” From the lyrical lilt of his accent, Min Gyu identified the fourth speaker as a Southerner, though he still couldn’t see anyone. “The Treaty must be upheld lest chaos and destruction ensue.”

“Enough yammering.” Gam’s mother put an end to the debate. “She’s already gone. Any of you want to chase her that’s your business, but me, I’ve got a boy to tend to.”

Thank the Heavens. Though unsure why so many Ancestral Beasts were present, this was a matter to puzzle out later. The danger was finally over and Min Gyu allowed himself to relax. Right before he closed his eyes, he caught a glimpse of Gam’s mother, or rather, her shapely posterior as she squatted down to treat her boy. Struggling to remain conscious for a few moments longer, he burned the sight into memory before peaceful oblivion came to claim him.

How disgraceful, the Sanguine Tempest Du Min Gyu behaving like a lusty teenaged boy.

But such a lovely posterior, how could anyone resist?

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