Blood & Thunder: Compiled 4

Necahual watched carefully as Yi Zhen spoke to the men and women who stood like soldiers. There was something strange about this land, some underlying aspect that he was missing. His ability to sense the teotl in others was… lacking, to put it kindly. Most of his ability to judge which of the Five Suns an individual was at was mostly through indirect means: observing their feats and comparing them to the standard capabilities he’d been exposed to.

What he’d noticed thus far was a simply astonishing quantity of people who hadn’t even found their First Sun. When he and Yi Zhen had departed, he hadn’t noticed, simply trying to remain focused on the task at hand. He’d realized shortly after arriving at that village that none of the villagers had found theirs, but at the time he’d assumed that they were unable to, a collection of people that were cursed with lives of mere flesh and bone, finding refuge with others like them. It was unfortunate, but understandable, and making the best of life even with their handicap was to be respected. But as they passed through more villages and stayed the night at this small fort, he was noticing a continued lack of teotl amongst the inhabitants.

It was worrying. He’d seen no signs of Grand Wards, so how were people supposed to protect themselves from Titans? He’d have to ask Yi Zhen later, for now it appeared that she was finished speaking with the soldiers, who waved the two of them in.

Soon after, Necahual and Yi Zhen were sitting at a table, bowls of some sort of soup in front of them along with a pair of pointy sticks stuck into the soup that had Necahual very confused. The sticks were clearly not edible, so why were they there? Yi Zhen provided the answer, unintentionally, but taking them in hand and using them to pick up the thin, almost rope-like lengths of wet, limp bread before bringing them to her mouth.

Carefully observing how her fingers held the sticks, Necahual mimicked her. It felt awkward and he’d much rather have a stack of tortillas, but he managed. The soup was rich in teotl, but that was all that he could say for it. It lacked any sort of chili heat, the rope-like bread possessed an unpleasantly strange flavor profile, and the meat brought to mind off flavored venison.

Catching Yi Zhen’s attention, Necahual gestured to his throat and ear. She understood what he was asking and after a moment asked, “Yes?”

“I was hoping to ask some questions before we turned in for the night,” Necahual said. “The first of which: why have so many not found their First Sun?”

His guide/watcher blinked, surprise and confusion warring in her eyes, before she asked, “They are mortals, without access to the resources of a capulli.”

Now it was Necahual’s turn to blink in confusion, “Of course they lack the resources of a capulli to allow them to find their Higher Suns, but why do they remain as infants?”

Yi Zhen’s eyes narrowed, her mind visibly working to try to identify the gulf in their understanding. Her eyes widened as a thought occurred to her, and she hesitantly asked, “Do all in your homeland find their First Sun and cultivate teotl?”

“All who are physically capable of doing so, yes. It is only reasonable to ensure the prosperity of the Empire if even the lowest of slaves can harness their teotl.”

She stared at Necahual, her eyes wide and her mouth dropped in shock, the information so surprising to her that she couldn’t maintain the composure that Cultivators were known for. Necahual, for his part, was just as confused. It made no sense, to let the farmers and other laborers fumble about like children trying to perform beyond their capabilities.

“If the majority do not find their First Sun,” Necahual began, moving on to a separate question, “how are the communities kept protected from Titans?”

Grasping the topic like a drowning man grabs a rope, Yi Zhen answered, “They contact a capulli to deal with them, like we did.”

But Necahual shook his head, “I’m not talking about the basic titans, I mean those that have found their Fifth Sun.”

To his surprise, she scoffed, “There are no Titans so powerful. No one has found their Fifth Sun in…” she trailed off, her eyes widening in realization as she stared at Necahual. “How many are there, in your homeland?”

Necahual took a breath, before releasing it, “Eight, that I know of for certain. I have heard rumors of another four. They are kept at bay by the Grand Wards, which have withstood a concentrated attack by three such Titans at once: Etali, Nezahal, and Zetapal. An attack from land, water, and sky, when I was a child.”

She stared, before asking, “How do your wards hold back such powerful foes? For a ward to stand against one such a Titan, let alone three, would require multiple men that had found their Fourth Sun at the bare minimum.”

“That is one method,” he acknowledged. “But doing so would require either constant influx of teotl, or would need to be activated, and such a delay would leave Tenochtitlan vulnerable. I do not possess the knowledge for how it works, but I do know that by tying the ward’s power to the altar at the Grand Temple, and the regular offerings, enable it to function constantly and without continual tending.”

[hr][/hr]

Yi Zhen and Necahual didn’t talk for the rest of the evening, during which she reflected on all she had learned of her companion while he soaked the fang he had taken from the snake titan and added it to his trophy necklace. They rose early and set out first thing in the morning. The soldiers at the fort provided a direction to search as well as the location of their targets’ last known location and more information on the capabilities of their prey. In addition to the Hungry Specter Qin Liang, there were two others in the group of bandits that had found their First Sun.

After three days, Yi Zhen and Necahual found the bandits. The camp of twenty, including the three with teotl, were camped in a forest a short distance from a farming village. Even without understanding their words, Necahual could tell: they planned to attack the village.

[hr][/hr]

Wei Lan held back a yawn as Qin Liang gave a “rousing” speech to the brainless buffoons that considered him a great leader. What a joke, he was in charge because he was the strongest in the gang, that was it. Gods, even Yao Ya had bought into the cult worship shit Liang spewed. The speech was reaching the crescendo when Wei Lan felt something, at the same time that Yao Ya’s posture stiffened.

Wei Lan was the first to spot it, a small, bird-like animal gliding from the trees over the camp, but positively bursting with qi. She grabbed her bow and knocked an arrow as it started flapping its wings madly, all four of them?

[Form of the Bound Beast]

The bird-thing vanished, and Wei Lan loosed her arrow at the spirit beast that had appeared where the strange creature had been, the lightly reinforced arrow bouncing off hardened scales. The Seven Venom Serpent’s tail lashed out, sending the mortal bandits flying through the air to slam into trees, stones, and tents with enough force to shatter bones, while its head snapped towards Qin Liang, fangs dripping with the poison that gave it its name.

[Step of the Haunting Specter]

Qin Liang had a panicked expression on his face as the spirit beast’s head passed through his body, his form no more material than a breeze. As the spirit beast pulled back, its features twisted into something approaching confusion, Yao Ya ran to her tent, grabbing her smoke bombs and jian. The mortal bandits all ran up to the spirit beast, striking at its hide with their weapons.

The spirit beast ignored them, rightfully so. If her qi reinforced arrow, lightly though it may have been, couldn’t so much as scratch it, then base steel would be useless against it. Wei Lan raced away from the camp, heading towards the trees, so as to secure a higher vantage point. Leaping up to the top of an oak, she pulled another arrow from her quiver and took stock of the battle. Yao Ya had thrown several of her smoke bombs, but the sheer size of the spirit beast meant that Wei Lan still had an easy target to aim f-

[Form of the Bound Beast]

The spirit beast disappeared, and Wei Lan lost sight of her target. Frowning, she closed her eyes to focus on her Qi Sense. Gathering a bundle of her qi, she compressed it within her chest as densely and tightly as she could, before releasing it. The qi burst out of her in a spherical wave, bouncing off other sources of qi and giving her a mental image of her surroundings, even if she couldn’t see them.

The technique didn’t have a proper name yet, and wasn’t refined enough to be used without too much build up time. Knocking her arrow, Wei Lan drew it back and concentrated her qi, aimed not into the cloud, but at one of the woks hanging in front of a tent.

{Void Venom Sting}

Her arrow turned a solid black, losing any indicators of depth and texture, and she fired. The arrow, like a void in the world, flew through the air, deflecting off the wok into the cloud of smoke. It sank into the flesh of the strange beast in the middle of the smoke cloud, biting deep into the meat of its feather covered tail.

The beast let out an almost reptilian shriek, and both Yao Ya and Qin Liang raced in, the latter still utilizing his technique to avoid injury. Wei Lan focused her qi again, as she drew another arrow in preparation.

[Declaration of Nobility]

There was a burst of qi, from within the smoke cloud, and the mortals amongst the gang fled. Wei Lan was too far away to feel the full force of the technique, but her concentration was disrupted, and her qi bubble burst early. Just in time to detect a woman with a blade as long as Wei Lan at the base of the tree she was standing in.

[Ocean Sword Art: Indomitable Crashing Wave]

With a swing of her arm, the unknown cultivator slashed through the base of the tree, utilizing the momentum of her swing to continue her spin into a kick that set the tree to falling. Wei Lan gathered her qi, and focused it into her back and legs, before pushing off from the falling branch.

[Dance of the Wasp]

The movement technique was simple, but it was one that Wei Lan had practiced and refined for nearly two decades, and it was the first true technique she had developed. With a burst of speed, she vanished from the falling tree, landing lightly, almost daintily, on a slender branch on the opposite side of the clearing.

Yao Ya’s smoke was clearing, and Wei Lan was afforded a proper look at the new form of the spirit beast. It was bipedal, with a mix of both feathers and scales, three fingered hands, a tail nearly as long as its body, and most notably sickle shaped claws on the interior toe of each foot. To Wei Lan’s surprise, Yao Ya was on the ground, motionless, with a rapidly growing puddle of blood surrounding her. Qin Liang was panting, holding onto Yao Ya’s sword.

The beast locked stares with Qin Liang, as the bandit leader snarled, “I won’t let a jumped up, demonic chicken be the one to bring down Qin Lian, the Hungry Specter! Feel the power of the technique that slew a cultivator in the Initiate Realm!”

[Knapping of the Teotl]

The beast’s shed blood slithered across its body, coating its fangs and claws like red crystal, dotted with black flakes from the demonic qi that had been infused into the arrow still embedded in its tail. Qin Liang cupped his hands in front of him, readying his technique, but the beast leapt before he could finish it.

Wei Lan expected the beast to pass through him, as every attack, even her own, always had regardless of how much qi was infused in it. To her surprise, as well as Qin Liang’s, the crystalized blood found purchase, seemingly unaffected by the technique he used to become immaterial. Fangs bit down on Qin Liang’s shoulder, and with a toss of the beast’s head the bandit leader was thrown to the ground. A taloned foot came down next to his shoulder, and the covered sickle claw came down, easily punching through ghostly flesh and piercing his neck.

Blood spilled, flowing like a river as Qin Liang’s hands came up to try to stem the blood flowing from his neck. The beast let out a rattling hiss, before turning to face the cultivator woman entering the clearing.

“There was one other, I am attempting to track their flight,” the woman said, her voice resonating with qi.

The beast hissed, before shifting into a man. He was dressed like a southern savage, but the fact that the different beasts were all some form of technique made Wei Lan’s next course of action obvious.

[Dance of the Wasp]

Appearing in front of the man that slew both Yao Ya and Qin Liang, Wei Lan kowtowed before him.

“This Wei Lan offers herself to your service.”