On Astral Tides: From Humble Freelancer To Astral Emperor

I had felt almost no resistance as my blade had severed the head of the crazed Chinese Candidate, Cutting Twilight discharging a burst of spatial element, slicing through the barrier of wind and his neck in a surge of violet energies. For a brief moment I felt sick as I watched his head part ways with his body, the headless corpse standing there motionless before starting to collapse, red and silver spraying from his neck. Damn. I knew this was going to happen, that there’d be no way to get through this without killing. Even so, I can’t say I like the feeling…

My only compensation was the surge of aether that poured from his body, flooding me. It was thick, dense, and noticeably greater than I expected, and when my body began absorbing it, a message scrolled across my vision.

You have gained in strength. Your level has increased from One Hundred And Six to One Hundred And Eight. All of your Material statistics have increased by twenty-two. Aether has increased by fifty-four.

Two levels for another life, huh? Wait, I wonder what will happen to the Divine Favour… before I could activate my Eye, and before the aether was fully absorbed, the bone blade the corpse had dropped shuddered, as though it was alive, and the aether I was pulling in started leaving my body, and the message became disarrayed, question marks overwriting a lot of the words.

Is it… sucking back the aether? As my Eye flared amber, glowing brilliantly, Daiyu was watching on, worried, the little masked creatures hiding behind her, peering through her legs.

“I don’t think so…” I had the urge to destroy the blade, but considering how greedily it was sucking in the aether around us, I didn’t want to act recklessly. Besides, this is an opportunity. I owe it to the dead man, even if he was an enemy, to glean every last bit of knowledge from his death, give it meaning.

My Eye could see the aether being pulled from me. Some had already integrated within me, and as the mess of question marks vanished again, I had instead only gained a single level, ending up at one hundred and seven. The most startling thing was the Divine Favour that the corpse held. I could see it shining, looking a little like a turtle resting under the chakra network in his left foot, but it was beginning to fade, sparks of powerful adherence drifting off it, vanishing into the upper Astral. No, it’s not managing to escape…

My Eye could see adherence now, so I was able to discern the blade pulsing, as if it was alive, and sparks of the collapsing Favour were being absorbed. A shimmering ripple of violet energies coursed down the blade, and for a moment my Eye could see an overlay of dozens of these bones, and something fleshy and disgusting, a blob with many mouths, tongues licking greedily at drained energies, before the image was gone.

“Shit.” I didn’t like the implications of this, so I called on Foehn, and flames coursed out, washing over the blade. It fought, the flame energy of the Foehn being leeched away, dimming it, but I fed in more flame energy to the greedy fires, as well as pouring in a verdant wind, boosting it further. The bone sword quivered and screamed, blackening and charring, oozing a pestilent clear slime, which too sizzled and boiled, before the bone suddenly turned to ash, vanishing in a scatter of purple mist.

That was surprisingly difficult to destroy… As I did so, the suction stopped, and I was able to reabsorb the remaining aether, pushing me back to level One Hundred And Eight, though I was probably just barely at that level, rather than progressing well into it like I was before the bone blade had interfered.

“Are you well?” Daiyu asked with some concern, having seen me unleash flames against the fallen sword and burn it to ashes.

“Yeah, just… well, whatever that weapon was, it was alive.” No aether came out of it when I destroyed it, but there were what appeared to be remnants of spatial element… I wonder if it was transported away somewhere…

Behind us, a brilliant flare of red, green and gold exploded in the sky, and I smiled. “I guess that’s the fireworks to say Shiro’s arrived. I really want to link up with her, but…” I looked down at the corpse, Eye probing the decaying Favour. It was rapidly vanishing, showing no indication of allowing me to take it, such as when I shattered Kondou Kazuo’s Anchor. “Whether that’s because it was damaged by the blade, or…” I muttered, making a decision. I don’t regret experimenting on him, but I wish I’d tried to remove his Favour via Chirurgery first. It should be possible, but… shit, there’s not much time.

Gunfire, shouts and screams, explosions… all could be heard in the distance. Every minute of delay was potentially a disaster, but allowing this chance to pass me by was equally foolish. “Daiyu, keep watch. I want to try something…”

She nodded, and I accelerated my mind to its maximum, Split Thoughts enabling me to wield numerous blades of aether to try and carve apart the network around the Divine Favour, lifting it free. I quickly discovered a problem. The network was rotten and tore easily, being as the holder was dead, and that caused further damage to the dissolving Favour, adherence leaking. “Yeah, this isn’t going to be enough. I don’t have a lot, but…” using my own stocks of adherence, my skills far inferior to my grasp on aether, I started severing the connections that held it, though my clumsy skills wreaked further damage.

Wait a minute… I’m doing it wrong, I think. If my skills with aether are better, why not use the adherence to fortify the aether? As soon as I had that thought, I acted on it, merging aether and adherence, and soon I had managed to lift free the Favour, the shining turtle, now faded in places and leaking a mist only visible to my Eye, sitting on my palm.

Severely Damaged Xuanwu’s Turtle Blessing Of Might: Class: [???????] Type: [????????]. This Divine Favour was made of concentrated adherence, refined ether and ??????????, though due to several sources of severe damage, it is barely functional, and strives to return to Xuanwu. The ability to wield strength far in excess of one’s limits can no longer be used. As did all foes of Xuanwu perish under the mighty blows of sword and fist, so shall the wielder find the strength to crush all they find unrighteous.

Returning to Xuanwu? Does that mean that the Favours of the dead that aren’t taken via Conqueror go back to the God that granted them? That seems… wildly problematic. My gaze strayed to the silvery skies, lightning flashing and dark aurorae shimmering over Boundary Kyoto. I’d hope that doesn’t cause additional strain to the Boundary, but… “Well, looks like this was a failure, anyway…”

I clenched my fist, exerting all my energy, and the Divine Favour shattered. I felt strength enter me, and though I didn’t level again, I did feel stronger. The adherence from the destroyed turtle topped up my supplies, and in addition I had a couple more messages. Significantly less potent than Kondou’s Favour, but considering how much more of it was damaged and absorbed by that damn bone sword… I’ll take it.

Your Might has increased by fifty. Your Fortitude has increased by twenty.

Your Skill, Might of the Furious Earth, has increased from Rank 1 to Rank 2. As long as you possess earth elemental energy, you can further fortify either Might or Fortitude significantly, based on a percentage of your base statistics, as well as the amount of earth elemental energy you currently contain. Your affinity for earth element has slightly increased, and your ability to recover earth elemental energies and their composites has also increased slightly.

“Well, that wasn’t a complete waste of effort.” I muttered, feeling a noticeable increase in my strength provided by the skill. Turning to Daiyu, I gestured to the north. “It’s time to go. But first…” I looked at the little masked beings. “It isn’t safe here, you should seek shelter where the firework bloomed earlier. In the worst case scenario, you can flee to my Territory through the Gate. Though if you have the power to fight, I’d be happy if you joined the defences.”

They shook their heads, and while they were speaking in extremely archaic Japanese, the intent came through.

“No, we shall not abandon the sacred shrine.” They insisted, in a variety of ways that all meant the same thing. A refusal, huh?

“Look. Shrines and temples can be rebuilt. If you die, it’s over. Surely you see that? And I won’t be here to bail you out again. We have to press on.”

Daiyu nodded, reaching down to touch the little head of one of the childlike figures. “Indeed, he speaks the truth.” She could understand them as well, perhaps due to their divine nature. “When this battle is over, rebuilding will surely come.” She paused. “Just like the Incorruptible jade. I long to throw myself into the jaws of death, defeating my enemies, not caring whether I perish or not. But alas, such is not merely folly, but a betrayal of the hopes and dreams of not only myself, but of those who perished before me.” She looked at me then, understanding. “While I live, their dreams live on, no?”

“That’s right.” I approved. “And just like Koryu-ji, or any shrine that suffers destruction, we can rebuild it, bigger, better, nobler, just so long as we’re still alive to do it. Dying solves nothing.” My smile was sad. “We have to live, so that we can ensure what we care about, who we care about, is safe.”

At our words, the masked figures paused, looking at each other and chittering softly, before they all bowed once more and trooped off in a small column towards Haru-san’s Territory. Watching them go, I was reminded a little of the fairy tale my mom used to tell my sister and I as kids. Though there’s not seven of them… and dwarves do love mining, but they love making stuff more it seems…

“Come on. We have to go.”

“I have been ready for some time.” Daiyu sniffed. “I am right behind you…”

********

“This is madness.” The Major shook his head, and Lieutenant Nakano Banri had to agree. As gunfire was exchanged, the JSDF and Special Forces making great pains to keep things as quiet as possible, the invading Chinese forces seeming to delight in causing as much noisy chaos as possible, he spoke to his superior officer.

“No damn kidding.” His Type-89 assault rifle was light as a feather in his hands, but simultaneously seemed to weigh him down like it was made out of lead. Squeezing the trigger, which almost seemed to burn his finger, though he knew it was merely a psychological response, he unleashed a three-round burst, and the howling, wide-eyed Chinese soldier staggered and fell, bright spots of blood blooming on his dirty combat fatigues. Around them more were falling, but even as they were cut down, they were returning fire, a rocket-propelled grenade streaking towards a group of soldiers hiding in cover.

“Shit.” He cursed, but the Major was faster. Manifesting a spear, he hurled it, and it flew like a bullet, striking the incoming projectile. It detonated, shattering the hastily created lance, but it was enough to knock the surge of debris off-target, merely setting alight several parked vehicles nearby.

“Not bad,” Banri aimed and fired, and the shooter fell, bullets riddling his upper body and throat. “You’ve really got better at that, Sasaki-san.”

“Call me Major. We are in the middle of a mission.” He sighed, firing his gun, which was actually another manifestation of his ability. “But of course I got stronger. You think I can hear stories of little girls who can fight better than us, proud soldiers of the JSDF…” he paused to duck into cover, bullets spraying off the nearby vehicle, and Banri idly wondered how the citizens would explain the damage to their insurance company. He doubted there would be a clause for an invasion.

“… and not be ashamed? I joined the army to protect people like them, not to cower behind their skirts! Didn’t you do the same, Lieutenant? Besides, I know you’ve been training hard too.”

As several armoured vehicles rumbled into view, one exploded, a JSDF Type-10 Battle Tank, which had been hiding in a side street, opening up with its main armament, a fairly impressive 120mm cannon, and scoring a direct hit. The other vehicles scattered, but one more was taken out, several anti-armour rockets fired by the Special Forces striking with unerring accuracy. Banri smiled at that, knowing that they had Chirurgery to thank for their impeccable accuracy and speed.

“Though it’s still below ours!” Banri said.

“What are you talking about?” the Major asked, puzzled, as the last Infantry Fighting vehicle opened up with it’s main 25mm assault cannon, as well as hosing down the area with its coaxial machine guns, bullets ricocheting off pavements and walls, some piercing windows and other points of vulnerability. “Damn those bastards.” The Major cursed, quite unlike him. “I hope we successfully evacuated everyone from the surrounding houses. They don’t care if they kill innocent civilians! Bastards!”

“Time for the inferno…” Banri shouted, before realising they were supposed to be keeping quiet. Flushed, golden flames that lit up the darkness exposing his shame, he unleashed the torrent of burning energy. The IFV tried to turn, but a well-placed shot from the Major blew one tyre, and it skidded into the inferno.

“Yeah, I have been training. You don’t remember the wisecracks from the girls before? My bro has flames hotter than that.” He mimicked sarcastically. “Well, I joined the military to get chicks who liked guys in uniform, you know that. No noble intentions here.” He clenched his fist, flames dying off. The IFV was largely intact, though the armour had melted somewhat, but he knew there would be no survivors, those within either roasted or suffocated, if they were lucky. “Anyway, don’t be sexist. Girls can fight just fine. Some of the broads in the Rangers are pretty bad bitches, right?”

“I didn’t mean it like that, Lieutenant, and you know it. Shit, here comes another wave…” he brought his gun up, only to pause. “What the hell?”

Banri froze as well. “Uh… we’re definitely not in the Boundary right now, are we?” he said, likewise stunned.

“No, we aren’t. Shit. How is this possible? You think even Akio-san can do this?”

“I wouldn’t put anything past him, but… I sure hope not. This is sick, man. These Chinese, how far are they going to go? I mean, it’s not like they can win, can they? We outnumber and outgun them dozens of times over.” His assault rifle fired, bullets piercing the oncoming Chinese troops, but after they stopped, blood bursting from new wounds, or fell to the floor, they quickly scrambled into motion again, surging in a tide that seemed unstoppable.

“They aren’t trying to win. Their victory is when the morning comes and we have to try and explain all this. I pray no civilians are harmed, but…” the Major shuddered, gun sniping the zombie soldiers. One finally lay still, head completely destroyed, and with that, Banri hurled flames, incinerating several more, though the effort of conjuring them here rather than the Boundary was making him sweat and tremble, his stocks of aether and elemental fire diminishing alarmingly fast.

“… remember the rocket assault? Several buildings were hit before our air superiority could take them out.” He glanced to the distance, where thick black smoke was pouring into the sky, and military fire crews were on the scene, civilians off limits. “And there could be another goal. Tsumura-sama says that they are aiming for powerful people like us. Shit…” he morphed his gun into a long spear, and carved apart several of the rushing corpses. “… it might be worth losing a few hundred troops just to take out one Chosen now.”

“No shit.” Banri conjured more flames, only to let them die down as a volley of rounds from Special Forces snipers, more suited to taking out vehicles than people, slammed into the corpses, completely demolishing their torsos. Giving a thumbs up to the hidden allies, he sighed, reloading his rifle. “Though if that’s their plan, I wonder how they’ll fare again Akio-san? Poor bastards…”

“I’d like to see that.” Major Sasaki agreed. “But not everyone is as combat-capable. We should be all right, but there are a lot of key figures in Kyoto. National power is going to be determined not just by money and military might, but by people like us. We can’t let foreign powers deplete ours!”

The Type-10 fired again, and while several parked vehicles were destroyed, the tide of the fallen that were rising again were slaughtered with them, unable to cling to their false semblance of life as their bodies were obliterated.

“Hey, aren’t the Type-10’s made by Ichijou Heavy Industries?” Banri said suddenly. “Wasn’t the head of that company and his granddaughter at that big meeting? Isn’t Akio-san going into business with them?”

“If you have time to talk, you have time to fight.” The Major sighed. “Come on, we have to clean this up before the dawn, otherwise there’s no way the top brass can spin this…”

Banri sighed. “Got it. I’ll keep quiet. Shit, who’d be a soldier? I know that there was always the possibility of conflict, of having to fight and kill other people, but…” he let out a bitter sigh, sighting on one of the few remaining walking corpses, before squeezing off another well-aimed three rounds. “… I never thought I’d be fighting on home soil. Even though we are the Self-Defence Force…”

As the remaining zombies fell, Banri breathed a sigh of relief, until a gunshot cracked, and blood splattered, the Major staggering. Turning around, Banri noticed that a fog was rising, starting to obscure everything, the lights on their vehicles and even his night-vision goggles suddenly useless. “What now? Major, you okay?”

“Shit, I got careless. My shoulder is wrecked. Lucky my instincts made me move my head.” Major Sasaki called back, though his voice was shrinking, as if the fog was absorbing it. “Guess we… might … targets… as…”

“Shit, shit, shit!” Banri ignited his flames, the light it cast pale and wan, the fog almost seeming to be stealing it away. “This is bad, really bad!” Readying himself, he charged into the fog, from the direction he thought he heard the shot coming from…

********

Continuing north, we were heading towards the old Tsukuyomi-aligned shrines and temples. Ahead and beyond that was Saionji-san’s Territory at Kinkaku-ji, where we were going to link up with him, as judging by the sounds of explosions and the flashes of baleful lightning in the distance, it was a major focus of the fighting.

First though was the impressive edifice that was Myoshin-ji, the temple grounds here in the Boundary a resplendent series of gold, ruby and silver buildings, towering torii gates of scarlet and black everywhere, twenty metre-high cherry trees casting a storm of blossoms into the air, a wonderful sight in happier times.

Now though, such things were a mere distraction, as when we approached we immediately came under fire from a group of PLA troops armed with rifles, and several had set up machine guns. A storm of bullets was raining down, as well as some grenades, so I drew on my recently fortified earth energies, and a wall of mud and stone rippled into existence, stopping the onslaught.

“My thanks. Qi cannot stop steel. Not yet.” She muttered, looking at me inquisitively. “Though when you were shot earlier, I noticed that you barely reacted. Is that part of the Spiritually Pure Physique?”

“Not really.” I shrugged. “It’s simply a matter of numbers.” Vaulting up onto the mud wall I hurled blasts of wind outwards, breaking bones. A hidden sniper fired, and I staggered, blood blooming, but the heavy round had deformed and bounced off, gouging flesh but not breaking my bones. There. “This ability to move items to the Boundary and have them work is such a damn cheat.” I muttered. “Ixitt would kill for it, I’m sure.” I quickly spotted the sniper, who was perched in a tree, and hardening my heart, I swept him with blades of wind, the body sliced apart, branches and blossoms falling severed. Clapping my hands together to pray for forgiveness for defiling shrine grounds, I turned my attention back to the soldiers I had attempted to incapacitate, but they were shambling to their feet, eyes and skin pale.

“When will you learn?” Daiyu criticised me mildly, reaching out to touch my shoulder. “Huh, this does not look so bad.” She sniffed, relieved. “Every group we have engaged has risen from their deaths. Why would this be any different?”

“You’re right.” I sighed. “Even so, I don’t want to casually massacre them if I can help it. Though that seems a forlorn hope about now.” Flames flared, and the zombies burned, the quickest way I had found to deal with them. As they perished, only a few dull moans heard over the sizzling of the yellow flames, I noticed that the temperature was dropping, an icy mist forming up.

“Careful. This could well be one of the ones on our list.” I warned, and moments later a hail of icicles started raining down from the silvery skies, each a cold blueish-white and hard as steel, the trees around us collapsing, the lances of frost piercing deep into the ground. More and more were falling down, and I grabbed the protesting Daiyu under my arm, making a break for it.

As she squawked indignantly I apologised. “Sorry Daiyu’er, but if those hit us, we’re in for a lot of pain.” The ground suddenly froze, flowers and trees instantly frosty, and I stumbled, before regaining my balance and racing clear, only to run into a group of figures wearing similar robes to Daiyu, accompanied by a woman carrying a strange mirror as if it was a shield, her expression cold. There’s one of those blades hanging at her side. Some of those robed people have them too.

Daiyu squirmed out of my grip, landing on her feet. Brushing herself down, her skin mottled with frost, she looked at the oncoming troops, her expression tense. “Unconquered Heights and Brilliant Dawn Shield.” She declared, softly, but loud enough for everyone to hear. “What madness is this? Why are you here?”

The woman with the shield snorted, and looking at the strange reflection in the polished, glassy surface, I had a bad feeling. If she’s the power of reflections on the list, that’s probably the most troublesome power of all… “You want to speak?” she asked the Cultivators she was accompanying. “If so, make it quick. These two… the blade hungers.” She caressed the hilt of her bone sword with her free hand, her expression both tender and revolted.

“I will speak. I recognise you, Black Jade the Ever Beautiful.” One older man said, his age perhaps in his forties, his robes an earthy brown, with gold highlights on his sleeves and shoulders. He gazed at her with his cold brown eyes, his face covered in fading scars, and her lip curled in disdain, possibly at the nickname she had told me she hated.

“Why are we here? Because of your failures! How could you let yourself be caught out by the Sects who betrayed us! Thanks to you, the Party has gone mad, rooting out any and all who refuse to bow to them. No, not merely bow.” He spat, incensed. “Unless we kiss their feet, give away all our treasured secrets, labour as slaves, we are cast out, exiled. And then… worse…”

He paused, his gaze flickering up for a moment before he opened his mouth, and I saw a brief flash of glee. Immediately, I grabbed Daiyu and leapt, as more icicles hammered down where we were standing, these exploding into glittering, diamond dust shrapnel. Landing a few dozen metres away, I spun, Daiyu still in my arms, to see the figure of a man coming, bone blade in hand, his white beard and moustache not the sign of age, but an affectation, as he was quite youthful.

“You dodged that huh? Such a pain.” The young man, his hair dyed a pale white, grinned. His body was covered in blue ice, like armour, and I once more wondered why all of the Candidates here seemed to be so strong. It doesn’t make sense. And these are the losers of a struggle as well…

“Careful, they seem powerful.” The mirror-carrying woman said, her expression bored. “The blade is craving them.” She looked down at the slimy stain spreading on her clothes, tutting. “But more importantly… here we have one of the main reasons we ended up trapped in this misery.” She fixed her sight on Daiyu. “You shouldn’t have disturbed the hunger of that thing. It was sleeping off a feast, the dogs of the Ministry, and your antics, you foolish Cultivators…” she snorted contemptuously. “You woke it up!”

Daiyu looked at her, clearly not understanding what she was talking about. “Woke what? All I did was discover that the target we were after, for the good of us all, was already dead, along with its guards, their spirits drained dry of Qi…” she trailed off, her expression suddenly horrified, and I winced. I see. Yeah, I’m starting to get the picture now…

As the cold mist rose around us, Cultivators fanning out to cut off any escape, clearly unwilling to entertain more dialogue, I put down Daiyu. “Damn, I wish Shaeula or Hyacinth was here now, even Shiro. Well, I suppose I should be glad that the mirror-wielder ran into us. Yasaka-san freaked out when he heard just what she could do…”

“Heard of me? I won’t ask how. I don’t care.” She grinned, though her eyes were still sullen and bored. “Well, by this shard of the Mirror of Retribution, face your sins!” With that, she angled her shield, until Daiyu and I were reflected in it, and the strange, repulsive reflections we cast were as disturbing as they were ugly…

Behind us, the temperature was dropping further, and with that I drew Cutting Twilight once more. “Daiyu’er, we have to fight. Whatever they say, whatever you did… right now, we have to fight!”

With that she nodded, and together, we faced off against two other Candidates, the scattered Sect remnants with them taking up fighting stances and retrieving what treasured talismans and weapons they had escaped with, ready to crush us…