Savage Divinity – Chapter 772

 

There’s nothing like impending death to really put things into perspective.

 

As a Natal Soul created all of three seconds ago, the prospect of dying doesn’t scare me as much as it scares my Prime self. It should, seeing how I’m a fractional replica of everything he was up until the moment of my creation, so similar in experience and thought process that we are functionally indistinguishable, but in the short time that has passed since, my newfangled perspective has made me change my mind about a number of things. Death is scary, but there are many things worse than death, like losing one or more of my beloved wives. This strikes me as a real possibility as I watch Mila risk her life time and time again in battle against the Demon that was once Gen, her colossal strength and superlative skills stymied by her Metal Blessed foe. My mission is to help her, so maybe I’d feel differently about death if I was about to give my life for Joe Schmoe instead of beloved Mila, but fun as it would be to find another iteration of myself to compare perspectives, time is in short supply.

 

That being said, I can’t go sacrificing myself just yet, because Mila isn’t the only one who needs my help. Prime Me could use a hand too, because he done fucked up big time. In order to help Mila, I am currently in the process of giving myself over to her, a merger that is going smoothly and without resistance because of the love and trust we share. In these final moments of my limited existence, I am given a glimpse into my beloved Mila’s soul and what I sense there is both beautiful and heart wrenching to behold. Unwavering trust and unconditional love, that’s how she feels about me, somehow able to sense my presence and respond to it while simultaneously fighting for her life. It’s one thing to know Mila loves me though words and actions, but another thing altogether to share and experience her raw emotions firsthand, and I count myself the most fortunate Natal Soul of all because of this.

 

No words could ever do it justice, the love my Mila holds for me, bright and boundless as the sun itself. Nothing I do could ever match it, but I try anyways, because she deserves everything I have to give and more.

 

Following on the heels of my beloved Mila’s heartfelt and passionate love is a surge of intense joy and excitement at the prospect of me being awake and conscious again. There’s so much more to parse through, like her mild irritation over my extended absence and a bit of amused pique at my dramatic sense of timing, but what stands out most of all is the massive wave of comfort and relief washing over her at the mere thought of my presence. She needed me and I appeared, and I can feel her fighting to clamp down her fear and desperation as she figuratively reaches out to me for support.

 

Not physical support, as in wishing I would swoop in to save her from her foe, but emotional support, an area in which I have a long history of falling short.

 

My beloved Mila is many things. Brilliant doesn’t even begin to describe her, for she is a woman who excels at almost everything she sets her mind to. Not only is she a capable commander and outstanding Warrior, she is also an accomplished Divine Blacksmith who’s crafted an arsenal of Spiritual Weapons unlike anything this world has ever seen. Spiritual Rifles are only the tip of the iceberg, as Warriors have been pestering her to craft them a Weapon like Paragon or Luo-Luo’s Sceptre for ages now, but even her traditional weapons are nothing to sneeze at. While I dream of being a hero, Mila was born to fulfill this role, and I have always been in awe of her talent, intelligence, and tenacity.

 

On top of all this, she is also a wonderful person to boot. Though not without her rough edges, Mila is a kind and compassionate woman at the core of it all, so full of love and affection for her family and friends. I could go on for hours singing her praises, but in short, my beloved is an amazing person possessed with a mature, rational, and pragmatic mindset that makes it all too easy to forget that she’s only twenty-one-years old.

 

Meaning that in spite of all her talents and accomplishments, she also possesses many of the regular faults and foibles a person her age might have, and I need to be more attentive of this fact.

 

Earlier, I chose to leave her be because she is one of the strongest people I know, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t need a little help from time to time, as evidenced by the heady mix of emotions she feels in response to my presence. I figured she didn’t need the distraction before riding into battle, but I didn’t see how badly she was hurting inside. She’s been through a lot lately and is struggling to come to grips with the fact that her parents are not almighty and invincible as she once believed, but only mere mortals like the rest of us. A fact which terrifies her to no end since she’s never once had to worry about her parents before, because in her mind, there was nothing they couldn’t accomplish.

 

But the battle in Tian Zangli proved her wrong, and now my wife needs someone to comfort and console her.

 

Which is exactly what I aim to do, because even though expending emotions will lessen the amount of Heavenly Energy I can transfer to her, there is a magic to love that I doubt anyone will ever wholly understand, myself included. There’s nothing more beautiful, more wonderful, more miraculous than love, and I do everything within my power to let Mila know the depths of my love, because she need this right now more than anything else I could give. That’s really all it takes, because she is only human and experiences doubt and insecurity like everyone else, but with love, all of it fades away.

So minor a gesture on my part, but to Mila, it means the world, just like it means the world to me when she flashes her bright, beautiful smile. It pains me to think that in her moment of need, I failed to notice and looked the other way, but better late than never. I’m glad I got this glimpse of her however, because now I understand her even better than Prime Me does. While he already knows about how she suffers from her talents as much as she benefits from them, he doesn’t see all the angst and anxiety she harbours inside from the heavy expectations she’s placed upon herself, to say nothing of all the more conventional misgivings she suffers from.

 

Somehow, I have repeatedly failed to notice that Mila doesn’t see herself as the heroic beauty she is. There are days when she wakes up and hates the tangled curls of her fiery hair, or how much her freckles stand out against her pale skin. Sometimes she wishes her nose was shaped differently or her eyes a little bigger, her legs a little longer or breasts a little bigger, because she sees beauty in others but fails to appreciate her own. She constantly worries about how she’s not as regal as Luo-Luo, understanding as Li-Li, devoted as Lin-Lin, or amorous as Yan, and thus she sees herself as the least of my wives. Crazy talk, I know, but this is only compounded by the fact that she’s worried I only married her because her mother compelled me to accept the betrothal before either one of us really knew what was happening. Nothing could be further from the truth, and deep down, Mila knows this as well, but that doesn’t stop these doubts from flitting across her mind whenever a flight of fancy takes her.

 

Because no matter how amazing and incredible my beloved Mila is, she is, after all, only human.  

 

We all need a bit of tender love and affection sometimes to help get us through the day, and it pains me to know I only have a limited amount of both to offer. My brief life is coming to an end, but I feel no regret as the last vestiges of me fade away into nothingness, because this is the only way Mila can make use of the Energy of the Heavens I’ve brought to her. My lack of regrets is not because this is literally my purpose, the goal for which I was created, but because I was able to discover Prime Me’s failings and do something about it, because Mila is a wonderful woman who deserves more than I could ever give her. 

 

My last words and testament are not delivered to her, but to Prime Me sitting comfortably in my Natal Palace. “Hey stupid,” I begin, letting him feel the full breadth of our failure in more than just words alone, while also passing on as much information as I can regarding what I’ve learned and experienced here. “More wives means you need to work harder than a regular husband, and not just in regards to the fun parts. Marriage is a partnership, so be a better partner, dumbass.”

 

There’s so much more I want to say, so much more I want to make sure he understands, but alas, this is all that I have left to give. A life well spent, in my opinion, and I rest easy knowing my brilliant, beloved Mila can handle the rest.

 

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The clouds parted in the stormy skies of Mila’s troubled mind as her beloved husband made his presence known with an outpouring of love and adoration.

 

Love she expected, for he’d expressed as much through Aura many a time before, but the adoration was new and took her completely by surprise. It wasn’t just affection and admiration, but an intense glorification of her and all her accomplishments, placing her upon a pedestal on high and worshiping at her feet. Well, not exactly so extreme, but something akin to it, and Mila realized that he wasn’t teasing when he called her a hero all those times before. The way he felt about her was similar to how Mila felt about Mama and Papa before Tian Zangli, as if they were larger than life and able to accomplish anything and everything they ever set their mind to, the conquering Warrior and distinguished Craftsman who could do no wrong.

 

What a fool, Mila’s sweet and beloved husband. Rain was the true hero of this era, yet somehow, he admired her talents and accomplishments while believing she was too good for him. Nothing could be further from the truth, and she was of a mind to prove it to him the moment this battle was over.

 

Emboldened by his love and nigh-fanatical faith in her abilities, Mila found her courage and confidence once more. The Energy of the Heavens surged into her Core and washed away her fear and fatigue, filling her with not just power and vigour, but also hope and conviction aplenty. Rain was awake again, and all was right in the world, or at least that’s how it felt from her perspective, his love and adoration giving her everything she needed to shake off the chains of dread, doubt, and despair weighing her down. She never felt stronger than she did at this moment, with the sun was shining bright overhead and her husband awake once more, so how could she bear to show him such an unsightly display?

 

That was the only way to describe her performance thus far, for ever since Demon Gen’s arrival, she’d done nothing but defend. A most formidable foe, this charred, skeletal frame entombed within Runic Armour, for that was all that was left of the sniveling Defiled coward. This Demon was a ghastly reflection of what he’d been in life, consigned to this fate by Li-Li when they clashed in the Brotherhood’s monastery, but while Mila could have run roughshod over the human he’d once been, the Demon was a most formidable foe, and a poor match for her to boot.

 

In terms of raw speed and skill alone, the Demon was no match for a Peak Expert on paper, but in reality, it was more than capable of killing one thanks to its Blessing of Metal. The scorched Runic plate armour still behaved as such, warding off blows from the three Demon Slayers sent to bring it down with ease, while its pillars of flame and elongated, dagger-like talons cut through steel, flesh, and bone with laughable ease. Two lives it claimed, and the arm of a third Demon Slayer, all in the span of less than a minute, and since then, no further Demon Slayers had been dispatched to support her by commander OuYang Min Jun. On top of this, the Demon’s Reinforced might was most daunting to behold, able to outmuscle and overpower multiple soldiers working in concert and send their broken bodies flying with a single blow.

 

To say nothing of just Mila alone. She didn’t much like being overpowered, but without a Peak Expert who could strike the Demon from afar, or one in possession of a Blessing themselves, she was the only person available who could keep it in check. Grandpa Du could kill this creature with a single swing of his sabre, while Mama and Nian Zu could crush it before it could react, but Father-in-Law Baatar might struggle to face it, as would other proven heroes like Yaruq, Naaran, or Ghurda, for they had no way to deal with its Runic Armour and Blessing of Metal. Alas, none of them were available at the moment, for most were not present in Meng Sha, while Yaruq was embroiled in a bitter struggle against some Mataram Half-Demon Champion. Much as Mila hated to admit it, she was not the Demon’s match, for it was too strong, fast and durable for her to defeat. Nor could she afford to take Zabu and lead the Demon about on a merry chase, lest it turn its foul attention on the soldiers and Irregulars behind her.

 

A small part of her wondered if Rain was the Demon’s match, but even if he were and he showed up here in the flesh, she would tell him to stand back because this was her fight to finish. Mila was no helpless maiden in need of rescue, so Rain could just watch and wait his turn as she did what she was trained to do. Mama taught her how to fight, while Papa taught her how to think, and so long as Mila remembered her lessons well, then victory was all but assured. A simple enough answer that skipped over all the important details, but she would figure it out as she went.

 

All this passed through Mila’s mind in the blink of an eye, and time resumed once more as the Demon’s raised arm came crashing down with a bone-shaking crack. The screech of tortured metal threatened to shatter her ears as its bladed talons raked across her rounded metal shield and pushed her back an entire metre through the sand. This was the way the battle had unfolded thus far, with Mila struggling to hold her ground as it advanced upon her with ill-intent, and its plan had yet to change. Leaving her no time to recover her wits, the Demon’s left arm was already raised high to deal another blow. Its talons glowed with a wicked light to match the hue of the rising sun, an orange-red glow that eerily reminded her of blood as it blazed with the heat of a steel forge. Leaving a trail of light and smoke as they passed through the air, Mila traced its arc and raised her shield once more to catch the second blow. It hammered home with a clang and a screech, every bit as powerful as the attacks which came before, but this time she refused to shrink back. Instead, she advanced upon her foe without fear or hesitation, gritting her teeth as she endured the full brunt of the Demon’s might and the piercing heat of its incandescent talons. Her bones ground together and muscles shrieked in pain as the impact shook her to the core, her skin searing and blood burning from the heat billowing off of its talons, but this time, she refused to yield or be pushed aside.

 

For her only hope of victory lay in front of her, so long as she had the courage to seize it.

 

A single step, that was all the ground she gained, but what a difference this single step made. Having expected her to fall back like before, the Demon’s own body was now blocking its avenue of attack, as she was too close for it to execute a proper swing. Circling around to its left, she raised and rotated her shield to fend off its grasping talons and prevent it from grabbing hold of the rim, only to bring her shield down on the Demon’s gnarled kneecap with all her might. An easy target, one poking out from between the Runic leg-guard and knee-guard, as the plate armour was fitted for Gen’s body, rather than the skeletal abomination he’d become. Almost all his muscle, fat, skin, and tendons had melted off during his transformation from human to Demon, and Li-Li’s impassionate description of how his frozen, woeful expression came to be still haunted Mila’s nightmares. That being said, despite its burnt and fragile appearance, the Demon’s bones were still protected by its external Domain, so her shield did no damage as it glanced off the knobby protrusion without so much as leaving a mark.

 

Hardly unexpected, but Mila’s goal had never been to damage the Demon with this blow. All she wanted was to shift its weight onto its left leg so that her spear could sweep its right foot out from underneath it. With a bit of added direction from a none-too-gentle shove of her shield and her boot planted behind its left ankle, Mila sent the Demon crashing to the ground with a hefty metallic clang. It dropped like a sack of bricks without grace or aplomb, and Mila inwardly grinned in celebration of her success, for she finally knew how to fight it. Much like her, the spindly Demon was deceptively heavy, which explained why its attacks were so simple and straightforward, because that was the best way to bring all its weight to bear. Had the Demon mixed it up with a few deadly thrusts or probing slashes interspersed between its heavy, hammering blows, then Mila would have long since taken injury, but the creature had underestimated her strength and endurance.  

 

That being said, even though the Demon was down, the battle was far from over. Shooting back to its feet in the blink of an eye, it glared at her with seemingly sightless eyes, molten, metallic orbs with the same colour and texture as the rest of its dark, semi-fluid form. Given how its half-melted facial features were frozen in an agonizing scream of despair, complete with two trails of tears streaming down its sunken cheeks, Mila wouldn’t have thought it was capable of expressing such rage and hatred, but clearly she was wrong. Much like its host, this Demon possessed an overabundance of pride, and now she would feel its wrath.

 

Or so it believed, but she had other plans in mind.

 

Even as her opponent shot forward to express the full extent of its rage, Mila’s hands and feet were already moving in accordance to her will. The Demon was fast yes, but only in quick bursts, a limitation she only recognized because she knew the downsides of being dense and heavy all too well. No amount of Lightening could make turning at a moment’s notice easy, which was why she continued to circle around it. Even if there was something else at work powering its movements other than muscle, Mila knew there was no way the Demon’s burnt, bony ankles could support its full weight without straining. As Rain so loved to point out, no matter how wonderous and mysterious the Energy of the Heavens might be, the known laws of physics still applied.

 

As the Demon pivoted about in an effort to turn and face her, Mila waited for the opportune moment to strike. She sensed it long before she saw it, the Demon’s shoulders tilting as it lifted one foot off the ground, and she lashed out with all her might. Not at its ankle again, for it was prepared for her this time, its hips lowered and knees bent to receive the attack, which was why she aimed at its head instead. She was reminded of the steel striking posts back home, and how rigid and unyielding they’d seemed in her youth, until one day they just started snapping every time she hit them. Though the Demon didn’t quite snap, it was every bit as unyielding as those metal posts, for the full weight of her thrust caught it clean in the eye and sent its entire rigid body toppling back down to the sands below.

 

Another advantage she was keen to exploit, the lack of stable footing underneath. On hard rock or packed dirt, there was no way the Demon would be so easily knocked down, but the shifting sands offered little support and purchase to even the lightest of Warriors, to say nothing of this compact and ponderous Demon. Again, it shot back up with ease, but Mila’s spear was ready and waiting with a low pass that caught both its feet before they touched the sand and swept them out from underneath it. Flailing about in the air, the Demon blindly lashed out in its rage, but the attacks glanced off Mila’s shield and she barely shifted in place. The Demon’s strength largely came from its Blessing of Metal, drawing power from the earth itself, so an errant strike delivered in mid-air was nothing worth noting.

 

Thrice now, the Demon had fallen, all in a handful of seconds, and while it might seem comical from an outsider’s perspective, Mila’s arms were straining to keep up. This entire time, the Demon’s glowing talons continued emitting a dry, fiery heat, one which failed to pierce through her Radiant Chi to injure her in any way, but was still unpleasant and uncomfortable to deal with all the same. It wasn’t like the blazing heat of a lit forge which sank into your bones and set your sweat to running in rivulets, but a sweltering, suffocating heat that set Mila’s skin to blistering and her lips to cracking. Any Warrior without a Blessing of their own would find it difficult to even stand in the Demon’s presence, which was why commander Min Jun had yet to dispatch another Demon Slayer to assist her, but aside from Tenjin and Lord of Thunder Lei Gong, she didn’t know of any other Peak Expert with a Blessing who could hold their own against this Demon, and they were obviously both busy with other matters.

 

No, this was the wrong way to go about it. Mama didn’t train Mila to endure and wait for help, she trained her to fight, and fight she would.

 

Unable to contain the Demon any longer, Mila put some distance between them and guarded herself against the obvious blazing pillar of flame, one which burst out of the ground from where the Demon was pointing. Truth be told, dealing with its fiery attacks was easier than engaging it in close combat, seeing how her Radiant Chi neutralized the flames with ease and the heat faded quickly without a conflagration to sustain it. More to the point was the fact that her Core was bursting with Chi, filled to the brim no matter how much she drew from it and expanding with every second that passed. Rain’s doing perhaps, similar to what he did to the Stormguard in JiangHu, but Mila trusted him with her life and put her curiosity aside to focus on the Demon before her.

 

She hadn’t seen it before, so overwhelmed by its might, but the Demon was unable to use its Blessing without waving its talons about, the same limitation Gen had in life. Why this might be, Mila couldn’t say, but perhaps it had something to do with the fact that Gen wasn’t actually dead, but merely a prisoner in his own mind and soul. Maybe that’s why most Demons grew more formidable over time, because newborn Demons were still struggling for control against their imprisoned hosts. This likely limited their strength as they ground away at their host’s will and identity through all manner of torture and torment, and seeing how the Demon’s personality was still so similar to Gen’s, it meant the coward was still putting up a fight. Mila had no sympathy for the traitor, but this was information she could use, for one must know the Enemy to defeat the Enemy. A paraphrased excerpt from Liu Xuande’s Art of War, and it came in handy here, because now she knew the Demon was not as formidable as she previously envisioned. Aside from heating up its talons and bestowing strength to its physique, there seemed to be nothing else the Demon could do with its Blessing of Metal, meaning that fighting the Demon was like fighting a different version of herself, one that was stronger, faster, and tougher in every measurable metric, while clad in Runic Armour and wielding bladed gloves instead of spear and shield.

 

A good thing then, because aside from Mama and Papa, no one knew Mila’s weaknesses better than Mila herself. 

 

The Demon’s silent rage set her skin to prickling as it arched its back in an inaudible roar of fury. Pouncing forward like beast, it lunged with talons extended in no discernable Movement of the Forms. Her first instinct was to meet the blow head on, but she knew better now than to try and match its strength. Sidestepping the charge, she lashed out with her shield and hopped into the air, pushing herself out and away from danger using the Demon’s own strength. For a moment, she wondered if it would go charging at the nearby Imperial soldiers, but its lifeless molten eyes fixated upon her as it circled around for another attack. Step and slide, step and slide, it slinked closer and watched her with wary, raged filled eyes. Though still humanoid in form, its movements reminded Mila of a wild beast, its back hunched and shoulders slouched as it stalked its way over towards her. The dagger-like talons glowed even hotter than before, only for four of them to shrink on each hand, while its index finger elongated until it was the size of a proper sword.

 

Hardly ideal that, since she was already having issues keeping the Demon at bay, and now its range was longer than ever. Stomping forward in a rush of violence and fury, it wielded its sword-like talons with an almost laughable lack of skill, delivering wide, exaggerated swings like the novice swordsman Gen would have been. Powerful though the Demon might be, Mila found it simple enough to parry its blows using leverage afforded to her by its wild, inept swings, though she found it more difficult to predict just where its strikes would land. Rain was better at this than she was, and the same could be said of Li-Li, as both had used it against her during their many spars. A frustrating tactic to be on the receiving end of, but Mila found it exhilarating to be on the other side of it all. A single blow from the Demon could end her life, meaning she had to execute her blocks, parries, and Deflections without fail, a thrilling and enlivening experience that sent chills running down her spine. When was the last time she faced a foe like this, someone stronger and faster than she was, yet less skilled? Not since she faced the Water-Blessed behemoth Rain liked to call Pudge, another formidable Demon currently plaguing Meng Sha, though it kept well back from the walls and the sea to launch its watery attacks from afar. This was a fresh and uncommon experience for Mila, because it was one thing to run roughshod over your foes, but this death-defying match was on an entirely different level, a trial and tribulation that was both terrifying and intoxicating at the same time.

 

Perhaps this was why Mila found it so exhilarating to be chained down by her husband, because it left her vulnerable and defenseless in a way she’d never before experienced…

 

Blushing at the wild and inappropriate thoughts which overcame her in the midst of battle, Mila cleared her mind of errant thoughts and gave herself over to this deadly exchange. Seconds passed, then minutes as she relished every moment of this novel experience and committed it all to memory within her Natal Palace. Enjoyable as it might be however, she realized she was only delaying the inevitable, seeing how she would eventually slow from exertion and dehydration both, while the Demon’s stamina was nigh inexhaustible. Eventually, its berserk rage would wear her down and she would succumb to one of its wild swings, meaning she needed to find some way to hurt it. Easier said than done considering she had yet to Develop a Domain, a necessary tool in order to pierce through a Demon’s physical defenses. The only good news was that Mila’s Core was still overflowing with Chi, but what use was it if she didn’t have any grand Chi skills to spend it on? She was Blessed by the Sun, so theoretically, she should be able to form some sort of attack using her Elemental Chi, but the only use she’d found for her Radiant Chi was to defend herself against other Elemental attacks.

 

No… that wasn’t entirely true…

 

The Demon’s sword-like talon scythed through the air, faster than Mila’s eyes could follow, but then time froze for all of a moment as a memory flashed through her mind in the blink of an eye. “You know, light behaves in a similar fashion,” Rain said, flashing his handsome grin as he snaked his hand around her waist, their bathrobes clinging loosely to their wet skin. They had just finished taking a bath, among other things, and their conversation had turned towards discussing the Mountain Collapsing Stomp, so Rain had tried to explain the concept using ripples of water in the bath. To this day, Mila still didn’t entirely understand it, which was why she couldn’t use it against the Demon standing before her, but it wasn’t because Rain’s explanation was lacking. In fact, he explained it even better than Mama and Grandpa Du, but Mila simply couldn’t wrap her mind around it, but this unexpected declaration had resonated with her in a way she’d never experienced before.

 

“Imagine a steady source of light, one suspended in the void with nothing around it. No candle, no torch, no lantern, just light itself, and no other objects whatsoever. From that source, light emanates outward in all directions, moving at the same speed without variation until it can illuminate no further, creating a perfect sphere of light.”

 

“Now imagine a shuttered lantern encompassing that source of light. Inside, the light still travels outwards in all directions, but now it also bounces off the sides of the lantern, and thus the luminosity within the lantern is much brighter than it would be outside of it. This is also why the light travels farther when you open the shutter, because the lantern aims more light in one direction.”

 

One could not ask for a more simple or straightforward explanation, but Mila had complained about how she couldn’t translate it into anything of practical use. An unappreciative response, she saw this now, but Rain merely hugged her tight and kissed her forehead with a silent chuckle. Though he advised her to focus on something else and come back to this later, she could tell his mind was still focused on finding a way to help her understand, and not just because his boundless curiosity drove him to question everything in existence. No, he wanted to help her in any way he could, and rather than accept that her comprehension was lacking, he blamed himself for failing to explain the concept properly.

 

What came next was an experience that defied explanations, one she still couldn’t quite put into words. She remembered it as a haze clouding her thoughts until she couldn’t think straight, except her mind was clear as a summer sky as she focused on the present. Her eyes turned to her shield, laying off to the side, propped against the wall and well within reach. She didn’t remember breaking off from Rain’s embrace, but she somehow had her shield in her lap, running her hands over the smooth surface as she gazed at her own reflection and reminisced of how she’d forged it in her youth. For her twelfth birthday, Mama brought her out hunting to secure the Spiritual Heart needed for her second Weapon, and the battle against the armoured lizard had been fierce and dramatic to the extreme, but that was merely the first step. When they returned home, Papa took her to his forge and made her study the Spiritual Heart for days until she could have carved a life-like replica out of wood from memory alone, with every crease and scale of the armoured lizard’s hide still clear in her mind to this day.

 

Normally, one would treat a hide before turning it into a shield, but a Spiritual Heart would not take well to tanning solutions. Nor did it need it, for even in death, the hide was supple and durable as it was in life, but even then, Mila was adamant to merge it with steel. There were some Spiritual Weapons that eschewed this step, because it wasn’t easy getting leather to take to molten metal, but Papa was the best Divine Blacksmith around and Mila loved working with metal, to the point where she would rather have traded the lizard hide for a metallic Spiritual Heart if pressed to skip this bothersome step. She remembered the long, painstaking hours spent crafting mundane models of the shield she envisioned, because even though she had all the proper measurements and calculations in hand, steel was not always so pliant and biddable. Six months she spent practicing her skills, six, long, arduous months until she was confident enough to craft her Spiritual Weapon in truth, and in her eyes, the end result was without flaw in every way, shape, and form.

 

A perfect circular rim had been the first order of business, because Mila could not stand the thought of anything less, and while some might think making a perfect circle was easy, those people had never tried their hand at it. Next was the shield’s convex surface, which was also similarly perfectly proportioned, smooth and rounded in all ways, without a single dip or divot across the entire face. The dark burnished steel seemed to drink in the light, distorting the image reflected within, but there were times when Mila swore she could see the world perfectly from its reflection, though no one else ever could. This had been the case then, when she sat in the bathhouse and stared at her reflection, with her bright red curls and freckled features prominently displayed within. She remembered ruminating over her memories of creating the shield, of how adamant she’d been about the type of steel and shape of the weapon, for it had to be perfectly smooth and circular with just the right amount of curvature to its surface and no flaws whatsoever, else it just wouldn’t be right.

 

Why was that the case? Yes, a rounded shield was better suited at turning aside blows when compared to a flat one, but the curvature hardly had to be perfect. A scaled shield would have been even better, as Papa suggested, using the natural ridges of the interlocking plates embedded in the lizard hide as a guideline, but Mila had rejected the idea without even thinking. Not for the sake of aesthetics, but because she thought it felt wrong, and Papa just went along with her because it was easier than arguing. Since then, Mila had chalked it up as a childish flight of fancy, unwilling to compromise on her initial vision of her Spiritual Weapon, but now, she wasn’t so sure.

 

Perhaps the Mother Above had guided Mila’s hand even then, bestowing upon her the Weapon she would need to best utilize her Blessing of the Sun, one she’d Awoken to before even binding her first Spiritual Weapon.

 

Returning to the present, Mila envisioned a wave of Chi emanating out from the exact centre of her shield, a wave which radiated out in all directions at a constant speed. It travelled faster than any human eye could hope to follow, but constant nonetheless. Why this might be, Mila wasn’t entirely sure, but Rain said it was constant and it just felt right. Upon reaching the rim of her shield, the Chi bounced back, travelling in the exact opposite direction from whence it came at the exact same speed as before. Were it not for the flawless curvature of her shield and its perfectly circular dimensions, her Chi would have immediately fallen into disorder rather than continue moving uniformly in all directions, much like how the circular ripples of water became muddled and chaotic after crashing on the sides of the square bathtub. Instead, her Chi uniformly pulsed throughout her shield more times in a blink of an eye than she had numbers to count with, but that was all it would do until she exerted her Will.

 

Just like that time in the bathhouse, the information flowed through Mila’s mind unbidden. Rather than Insight, wherein she took control of her actions and carried them out from start to finish, this was something more akin to Inspiration, in that she felt like a vessel for some Divine being guiding her movements, the Energy of the Heavens come alive from within. Mila had felt it before, when forging complex Spiritual Weapons like Unity and Paragon, but this time, she recognized the familiar presence intertwined within the Inspiration. This was a gift from her beloved husband, something the Brotherhood called Divine Impartation of Heavenly Energy, and though Mila didn’t entirely understand what was happening, she paid close attention to every detail and aspect. This gift had cost Rain greatly, as last time, he fell asleep for twelve hours and might well have slept for twelve more if left to his own devices, waking only when Mila shook him out of his stupor and emerging with a splitting headache that was so bad he even admitted he ‘wasn’t feeling great’.

 

Which in Rain’s terms was far more dire than it sounded, since a normal day for him involved getting beaten by steel paddles until all his bones were ‘mildly’ fractured. Mila would make it up to him later, and maybe even fracture some of his bones herself, but for now, she needed to focus.

 

The crux of this skill lay not in Amplification, but almost the reverse, condensing the Chi in her shield and gathering it all in one place until there was enough power to work with. Easier said than done, for she realized that even as she compressed her Chi towards the centre of her shield, it would continue to pulse back and forth without fail. This meant she had to compress it equally on all sides, a feat she performed with superlative ease thanks to her bout of Inspiration, but one she had no idea how to replicate on her own. What’s more, a single pulse was far from enough, for once the first pulse was condensed down into a dot smaller than the point of a needle, she set about unleashing a second pulse, then a third, fourth, and fifth. Like a torrent of water, she continued unleashing these pulses of Chi, thousands upon thousands such concentric rings discharged in the blink of an eye, only for them to be compressed and condensed overtop of the first even faster than she could follow.

 

All the while, the Demon’s extended talon hung frozen in the air before Mila’s eyes, for time was still fixed in place from her perspective, until all the Chi she collected within her shield could no longer be contained.

 

A beam of blinding light shot out at the Demon, the power of the Sun unleashed, piercing through its chest and the innate defenses protecting it to continue out into the horizon. Though light was formless and without any physical presence, the impact struck the Demon like a hammer and sent it flying back into the sea, its ponderous body catapulted away like a tree in a hurricane before crashing into the Defiled filled waters. Long seconds passed in shocked silence as Imperial and Defiled alike paused to take in the sight, unsure of what just transpired until the Demon’s transfixed expression appeared above the waves again. Glaring at her for all of a moment, it quickly retreated back to the safety of the Enemy back lines, but not before revealing a hole the size of a human head where its heart and lungs would have been. The beam of light had pierced through its armour and torso in one go, but alas, Demons were not so easily killed.

 

Just like that, Mila’s duel was over, and she could not help but sag in relief and exhaustion as the soldiers of the Empire chanted her name and redoubled their efforts to drive the Defiled from their shores. A second ago, her Core had been full to the point of overflowing, but now it was wholly emptied unlike ever before. That’s how much the attack cost her, and it left her feeling drained and weakened, but it was nothing compared to the heady rush of accomplishment and victory. Already, her mind was turning and reviewing what she’d just done, noting several things to keep in mind when she tried to replicate her efforts, as well improvements she could make. There was no need to spend all her Chi in one go, as it was clearly overkill against most foes. As for the issue of control, she recognized that the shape of her shield contributed greatly to the effect, as it would be all but impossible to replicate these efforts through sheer Will alone. Balance was the key to this skill, Balance in all things, speed, compression, flow, and so much more, but the lessons she needed to learn were all engraved in her Natal Palace somewhere, scattered amongst the tower bamboo shoots and hidden within the flowing rivers, embedded in the packed soil and carved into the smooth stone. That being said, she was lucky the Demon hadn’t deployed any Elemental Chi to counter her, or perhaps it had and she simply overwhelmed it with sheer volume and speed of delivery, given how the attack was created and deployed in a moment so brief Mila lacked the words to even describe it.

 

The Radiant Spear, that was what she would call this, a beam of pure light to pierce through her foes. There was still plenty of fighting left to be done, but Mila knew her limits well and whistled for Zabu to come guard her as she meditated to refill her Core. The quin trotted up and gave her a friendly sniff before presenting his side for her to mount, which already was more than she ever expected, but it seemed like her actions in battle had won his respect. That alone was a cause worthy of celebration, to say nothing of the cheers and recognition of the soldiers around her, but as wonderful as all this was, Mila’s eyes were drawn to the docks where her husband lay resting.

 

There was still work to be done, and she wasn’t even sure if he was wholly awake or simply contacting her from his Natal Palace, but at the very least, she knew that he was aware and at least semi-conscious again, which was more than enough for her.

 

Well… not entirely true, but it would have to do for now. They could make up for lost time later, when he was fully conscious and after the Defiled Army sitting on their doorstep was dealt with. An inevitability now that he’d taken the field, a fact Mila only just now realized she’d taken for granted, because if ever there were a man beloved by the Mother Above, it was her husband, Falling Rain.

 

Chapter Meme

 

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