II-117 Knights

When you take a wound—a deep, deep wound—it is important to face it as a warrior and not a fool. It will bleed, it will fester, it will turn into a scar and limit your mobility in ways you cannot afford.

I, when I was young, thought that ignoring it—pretending it wasn’t there—made me strong, that I endured better than most. But a bleeding wound is a bleeding wound, and eventually it seeps through.

And so, to be a warrior means to suture it: to face the true pain, to properly pull things back together, and to let it scar properly.

What helps the most is if you have someone there for you, though. A warrior need not be alone. In fact, it’s best that you are not alone. It gives you something to fight for—more than the vagaries of hate or the ephemeral nature of higher ideals. It gives you something day to day, moment to moment, every second. It gives you something to smile about again.

You may never be right, but you won’t always be miserable.

-Wei An Wei, the Realmbreaker

II-117
Knights

The Drowned Sky Sect was burning. Its fields were burning. Its people were burning. Its great mountain hold was burning. Wei rushed, storming down the path faster than time itself, more powerful than a dying star. He didn’t know why, but he had been given a second chance. He’d woken the morning of the attack and prepared himself.

This time was going to be different. He called upon his System, and it answered, the world turning black and white around him

This time, he would save his home.

Wei arrived, slicing and destroying demons, sealing the holes. But more and more came, and the fires only grew. It seemed like no matter how many demons he slew, no matter how many he broke, more came. And the tower—it descended. He struck at it, but even still he wasn’t enough. Even with his realm, he wasn’t enough. And so he accepted. He accepted this pain and promised to save whom he could, and to lead them in taking the tower.

He descended, smashing through the walls of his mountain hold, blasting through dense meters of stone, steel, and rubble until he arrived inside—to only find everyone slaughtered already. Mouzi, slaughtered. The other masters, slaughtered. The disciples he grew up with, slaughtered. There was a trail of death leading all the way to the mansion—the mansion in which he grew up, the mansion where his mother, where his father… the mansion where everything changed for him.

Wei rushed in, blasting through the doors, and he looked around. He saw the branches of Everblossom blooming around him, and he didn’t remember this happening. Reactively, he placed a hand on the wood, and this time he felt only a dead vibration, pulsing stillness, hardening itself. He entered the courtyard, crossed through to the room where he’d found his mother’s head last time, where his father was about to complete his great betrayal.

Wei flared his scythe and summoned his realm. He wouldn’t be that boy again—scared, miserable, broken. He wouldn’t be. He entered, and inside he saw all the enemies he’d made thus far: the Inheritors, gazing at him from one corner of the room; the Unfallen, glaring at him with their hollow eye sockets—hollow and lifeless but burning with ill energies, keeping them in existence; vampires, bloodsuckers born of the Dying Queen’s blood. 

And he saw her, holding Agnesia, burrowing her fangs into the princess’s neck. When she was done, she pulled away, squeezing a fistful of blood down into Agnesia’s open wound. Thus, the princess opened her eyes, and it was pitch black. He saw her turn to gaze upon him, and her expression was misery.

“I needed you,” Agnesia said, as she staggered toward him. Wei’s gut churned and twisted. He tried not to throw up. He failed. Wei emptied the contents of his stomach right there, folding over as she drew closer. “I trusted you—to protect my mother, to protect me. I thought… I thought you were strong enough.”

She wept; she summoned her draconic avatar, and it burst through Wei’s home, its wings incinerating all in grieving flames. Wei clutched his scythe as his flesh and skin began to melt. “Agnesia, stop! Stop—

“I thought you were enough!” the entire room declared as one, burning.

The Dying Queen wiped a crimson tear from her face. “I thought you were enough,” she whispered—

And Wei woke, screaming.

He shot up, his Realm of the Harvester expanded around him. Scythes consumed the world. Everything became black, white, and blades. The tropical island upon which they dwelled was gone, replaced by the inner manifestation of waves and killing intent—his Concept of the Harvest.

As he looked around, searching for enemies, he felt a strong arm wrap around him. A hot breath brushed across his ears. Soft, bare skin pressed against his back, pulling him closer and deeper into warmth and comfort. And as his breathing calmed, as his sense returned, he found his hand shaking.

“It’s okay, Wei. It’s okay. It’s just a nightmare. I have those, too. It’s okay,” Agnesia’s gentle voice whispered—but his hand kept shaking. He hated himself in that moment. More than any moment before. He couldn’t—this wasn’t how he wanted to be. Not after what they just shared.

He was supposed to be stronger than this.

Wei turned and regarded Agnesia. There were no bite marks on her neck, no scars on her skin, no blood pouring across her body. She looked pristine, normal—her hair still that purest white mixed with hellish black, her eyes still… still…

“I… I….” He clenched his fists. “I am—”

“Shhh,” she said, cupping his face with her hands. “Shhh.” And she soothed him.

For a moment neither of them spoke. When they parted again, he closed his eyes and whispered his apology. “I’m… I’m sorry.”

“No,” she said. “Don’t be. Stop being sorry. It’s not your fault—whatever you’re dreaming about, whatever you thought you did wrong, it’s not.”

He looked away, shaking his head. “It’s shameful. I was… I need to have better control.”

“Oh, shut up, Wei,” she said, her laughter like a set of wind chimes. She held him, pressed his head against her neck, and he breathed her in. He felt her warmth rush through his body—warmth he’d tried to ignore, to deny, for so long. He liked it. He thought he didn’t deserve it. He couldn’t get enough of it. And he needed more.

“I dreamt of you dead,” he said. “I dreamt of you taken and twisted—by the Dying Queen.”

Agnesia went still, then breathed out. “I had a few of those dreams, too. I had many when she took my home, when she returned with my brothers, and she turned my youngest siblings. I woke screaming and crying many times.”

“And?” Wei asked. “How did you… did you master it?”

“There is no and,” Agnesia replied, her voice tired. “I have those dreams still sometimes, but I’m better at facing them now. And I had one dream of you.”

“What dream?” Wei asked.

“It was the night we moved into the Unblossomed. When we first arrived here—the night I remembered talking to you about mother, about what had happened in the Hearted Realm. I remembered dreaming about you falling in the room, along with my mother, and me being alone… truly alone. And there was a coldness in me. Without you there.”

Wei sighed and shook his head. “I am… I am…”

“You are… you are…” she teased, and he blushed.

“Stop that,” he said. “Stop that you… damned girl.”

“Don’t call me girl,” she sneered, lifting him off his feet. And despite his protests, Wei quite liked it.

“You know how frustrated you make me sometimes,” she said, her eyes not blinking as they met his. “How arrogant you are—and how endearingly arrogant. I don’t think I’ve met a more arrogant man in all my years. And no one more deserving.” She pecked his cheek, and both of them blushed.

“But you don’t need to turn your pride, all that pressure, on yourself,” she added. “There are things we cannot control. There are things beyond us. I don’t like facing that either, but that is the way of the world.”

“No,” he said. “You can’t allow it.”

“You can’t allow yourself to be hurt?” she asked.

Wei looked away, hating himself for his weakness. His Shell—if it was there—remained silent and distant, not interrupting this moment. “I can’t. I don’t know. Something inside me is trying to crawl out. It feels like a ball of pain. I don’t know if I can survive another wound.”

“Like losing your home?” she asked.

“Like losing my home,” he admitted. Wei took a minute, swallowing a lump in his throat as the memories came rushing back. Memories he didn’t want to face. “Like watching my father murder my mother. Like… like your mother. I couldn’t protect her.” Wei shivered, and something escaped him—a sob slipped from his throat. He tried to hold it back, gritting his teeth, forcing his Ambition to endure, but she held him tight and broke him with words.

“Bleed now. Be hurt now. No one can see us here. No one will hate or mock you for it. And even if they do, I will not allow it. I will not forgive them. Let your pain out. Let me bear your weight for once.”

And the tears ran. And Wei hurt. And she held him, not letting go.

He didn’t know how long they stayed like that—long after the hiccups subsided, long after the tears stopped flowing. His realm was gone, back within him. The waves had crashed. The sun was still shining. And they lay there—an island on top of an island—just listening to each other’s heartbeats.

He played with her hair as she stroked his back, and as he leaned against her, he heard her mutter, “When I was a girl, I was so envious of my brothers. They got to be knights, and I had to wear those miserable dresses, learn courtship rituals, be a proper maiden… But there was one thing I liked. One forbidden pleasure: I was enthused when they told me a lady got to choose her knight. A lady got to bestow her favor on someone she cared for, someone who’d fight for her.”

He leaned back and smiled weakly at her. “Is it customary for knights to cry on their ladies? If so, perhaps consider me?”

She grinned, and his heart leapt. “Wei, you’re more than I could have dreamed of in a knight. But… I think—I think I’m going to make you a promise now, if you’ll make me one.”

“Anything,” he said—and the words slipped out too quickly for him to take back.

“I know you would agree,” she said, “but I’ll give this to you as well, so we are both beholden to one another. I will be your knight—in these times, when you are weak, when you are flagging, when the doubt in your heart is high. And if you would be mine, I would be honored.”

“More than honored,” Wei said, his throat swelling. “I will be whatever you need me to be. No one will ever hurt you again. No one will strike at you. And those who let wounds on you—I will kill them. I will kill until there is nothing left of them. Until every blade of grass that ever touched them is severed at the wound.”

She laughed. 

“What?” he asked, only slightly offended.

“I like it when you get this way,” she said. “Angry, wrathful, possessive.” She ran her fingernails down his back. A shiver of delight rushed through him. “It’s very… very you.”

He smiled. “Then let me show you something else that’s quite like me.”

Once more, they learned to emulate the waves.

***

“So,” John Bishop said, eyeing both Wei and Agnesia as they returned to the entrance of the grinding camps, “you two—uh—work your anger out of your system?”

Bishop was grinning at them, a twinkle in his eye, arms folded. Wei had a hard time meeting the man’s gaze.

“Yes, we were,” Agnesia replied.

“She is very powerful now,” Wei said. “It will take time for her to improve her tactics but…” Agnesia wrapped and arm around him and smiled. Wei went stiff, but then relaxed.

“I was trying to—” he began.

“I’m not scared? Are you?” She looked at him.

“For what it’s worth, it was obvious as shit what was going to happen.” Bishop shrugged. “So. You two get it done?”

“Something like that,” she said, beaming proudly. “It’s a work in progress— a bit like me and him.”

Agnesia grinned down at Wei, and he did everything he could to maintain his dignity. Bishop’s eyebrows shot up nearly to his hairline.

“That being said,” Bishop continued, pushing himself off the wall, “I am pretty bloody fast now.”

Agnesia preened without a hint of embarrassment. Behind her, her draconic avatar loomed like a titan waiting to strike—but then it receded into shadow and vanished entirely. No one would know that within this girl was the power to crush mountains and shatter armies—unless they carefully observed her essence.

“Well,” Bishop said, “I’d tell you two congratulations, but you picked a hell of a time to do this.”

“When isn’t it a hell of a time?” Wei whispered, his face turning bright red. Bishop simply shook his head.

Instead of mocking him further, John Bishop came by and slapped Wei on the shoulder. “But you know what? Maybe this’ll be good for you. Yeah, might help you turn that aggression somewhere else—be less of a murderous psychopath.” He looked behind at the entrance to the death camp as a scream came from deep within. “Any chance we’re going to decommission this place now that, you know, you have—uh—something else to focus on?”

“Absolutely not,” Wei said, narrowing his eyes. “I still have other sect members, and they need shards too.”

Bishop looked down at the ground and slowly shook his head. “Kid, the way you’re going scares me.”

“Don’t worry, Bishop,” Wei said. “I’m going to make sure that everyone I kill has it coming.”

“And because we’re in the Claimed Hells, yet practically everyone you kill here has it coming…” Bishop nodded. “Including even me, maybe.”

Wei eyed the man. “Master Bishop, you are among the last people I would ever dream of killing. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you. You’ve practically been one of the few—” Wei paused. “Well, there was that incident in which you blew up all those slaves and sacrificed their lives as a diversion during that incident with the Collectress. But… well, these are… there are needs for a mission, yes?”

“Yeah,” Bishop sighed. “What is there to say? Welcome to the war, kid. It’ll take its piece out of you. It’ll take more soon.”

Wei nodded. Agnesia’s expression turned forlorn.

“Kalrus is waiting for you, though,” Bishop said, an inquisitive look passing over his face. “He said something about a missile and maybe a large gun for a larger girl.”

Agnesia grinned. Wei grinned harder.

“Gun?” Agnesia said.

“Missile?” Wei muttered.

They looked at each other, then started running into the grinding camps like excited children. As Bishop watched them go, he let out a slight breath. “You know,” he muttered, “this would be really romantic and touching if they didn’t do a series of mass murders as a first date—goddamn that’s a lot of dead in the past few days. Jesus Christ, kids, what the fuck happened to drinking some beer and going to a club?”