Path of the Berserker Book 2: Chapter 35

AN ODD MIXTURE of apprehension and exhilaration filled as I stepped upon the skiff.

For one, it was only my second ti of having the privilege to ride upon such a device, the first ti being when that bastard Hong Feng was carting my ‘dead’ body out into the wild. But more than that, this would be my first ti to see the very symbol of my planet’s oppression up close.

The damn giant pagoda in the sky.

I could still visualize the first ti I saw them.

As a child.

An eight-year-old staring up at a thing the size of the moon as it descended from space to bring the horrors that would slay my family and destroy my entire world. And now I was going to visit one of them to go shopping for hidden knowledge.

If my spirit had been conflicted before, it was downright schizophrenic now.

I honestly didn’t know how to feel as the skiff took off and the ground below began to shrink and disappear. A new flashback ca, and I realized that this was not my second ti riding a skiff but my third.

My true first ti was back when I was eight, watching my family for the last ti as Lady Silver Tear’s skiff took off, leaving my parents and big sister for dead. An emptiness filled as the mory took hold, reliving the spiritual root of my Dao. The pain and anguish. The resentnt and hate. Lady Silver Tear and her clan—Fia’s clan. They were the ones who had destroyed my entire world.

“Are you alright?” Mu Lin asked sitting next to . “You look like you’re about to be sick.”

I laughed to play it off with [Indifference]. “Just afraid of heights, I guess.”

“You’ll get used to it,” she said with a smile. “And trust , when you see the city for yourself. You won’t want to leave.”

I heard her words, but even they couldn’t prepare for when the skiff finally docked and I stepped onto the terra firma that was the Imperial City of Jurin Province. The air slled cleaner and fresher and a gentle breeze blew constantly against my face. The ground itself resembled brushed brass or worn gold, giving a regal yet ancient feel to the place.

Tall buildings lined the central street we were upon which stretched upwards to form the walls of the pagoda itself. It was hard to adjust to the scale of it all. From the ground the place was imposing, but here it was almost majestic.

Tad spirit animals walked along side cultivators as pets within the crowd—large cats and foxes mostly, but I saw one or two birds perched on people’s shoulders as well. It was like being transported to a fantasy world even more bizarre than the one I had just co from.

The streets also looked far less busy than the ones below, and the cultivators I saw were all dressed to the nines in fine robes. They glanced at Mu Lin and I briefly, so of them giving us glares of disdain. I then noted that we seed to definitely be in the minority as Terrans. While below the population was fairly mixed with a blend of Terrans as well as people from other far-off planets, here the population was most distinctly Yee.

They whispered to one another as they spotted us from afar, so even pointing and laughing.

“Does everyone treat you like that here?” I asked.

Mu Lin rely shrugged, nonplussed. “You get used to it. Co on, this way,” she said, heading off down the brass street. “Xi Xha is going to et us at the grand library, it’s on the third floor.”

Old feelings of resentnt began to resurface as I glared back at the people staring at us.

One guy even stopped to make a mocking gesture by placing his hands to the side of his head to make a set of bull’s horns. He stuck his tongue out at and then started to laugh. I had the urge to go smack him right in the face, but then noticed a little girl next to him go through the sa motion and copy the gesture, mocking from afar. The father and daughter duo shared another laugh, but I brushed off the generational disrespect with a stoic façade of [Indifference].

“Guess they’re not big fans of the Iron Bull,” I said.

“Oh, no one here is,” Mu Lin said. “Everyone is pissed off as hell that you won that match the other day. They had a rally and everything.”

“A rally?”

“The three Silver Leaf sisters,” Mul Lin said. “They organized this huge…” She paused for a mont. “I don’t even know what to call it. A public chastisent maybe? They were really pissed.”

I stared back at her perplexed. “What do you an?”

“You know, they were shouting stuff like, ‘you people should rember who the ruling clan is’ and ‘Sha if you ever support an outsider like the Iron Bull’.”

I felt the target on my back grow tenfold. “Damn it, Mu Lin! Why didn’t you tell that before you brought up here?”

“Oh sorry!” she said with a laugh. “I kind of forgot. I don’t really follow all the arena stuff. But Xi Xha says you’re kicking ass in there so good for you.”

The glares and jeers made far more sense now.

I shifted to walking with [Mask of the Despised], flipping the collar of my overcoat about my neck. Never had I felt the na of the technique have such clear aning and purpose before. I was literally walking through an entire city that had been guilt-tripped into hating the living shit out of .

I proceeded with apprehension as we ca to a set of lifts that connected the ground floor to the next. The lift platforms were the size of small courtyards, able to fit hundreds of people at a ti and around the base of the pagoda, there were at least ten of them all moving up and down in rhythmical intervals.

I imdiately shifted to the back corner of the lift platform we were on, avoiding the crowd of Yee cultivators as they piled onboard. As the lift ascended towards a ceiling made of crisscrossing walkways, which I assud was the base of the next floor, a bright light began shining through them.

As we passed the walkways, the sky opened up into an interior space that literally blew my mind. The entire inside of the giant pagoda was hollowed out like a massive atrium, stretching hundreds of feet into the air. Along the sides, the various floors of the city encompassed it with whole city blocks, forming various neighborhoods and districts that were connected by walkways spanning hundreds of feet to one another.

But even more awe inducing than any of that was the massive yellow crystals floating at the center of the atrium, its brilliant glow forming a sun in the faux sky. I shielded my eyes from it and faintly sensed sothing akin to Frenzy spilling from its rays.

This had to be it, I thought. The source of the barrier.

But was it truly exuding a kind of Frenzy just like Threja’s sword?

It wasn’t exactly the sa as Frenzy, but I could sense it.

Whatever it was.

“What is that?” I asked.

“The mother crystal,” Mu Lin said. “The heart of the city. It’s what keeps us afloat. If that thing goes the whole city cos crashing down. Not to ntion the barrier goes poof for everyone below.”

I’d gathered that much myself, but I was after a bit more information than that.

“Do you know what it’s made of?” I asked.

“Um… Aetherite, I think?” she said as if rembering sothing from a textbook.

“Which is?”

“I can’t rember,” she said. “So rare substance that forms in hell planes or sothing like that. I don’t know. I’m probably rembering it wrong. I haven’t studied that kind of stuff in ages.”

“Hell planes?” I said, thinking on it so more. “Do you an Hell Worlds? Like the worlds around the Cursed Stars? Where the legionnaires go?”

Mu Lin stopped dead in her tracks and looked back at perplexed. “Yeah… that’s… exactly right. Holy shit, Chun. How the hell did you even know that?”

The facts all seed to fall in place at once. Was this the stuff that allowed the legionnaires to survive on those hell worlds? A natural barrier to counter the effects of the Cursed Stars?

It would make sense.

“Is that why they go to those planets?” I asked. “The legionnaires. To mine the Aetherite to make these crystals?”

“I don’t know,” Mu Lin said, looking at bewilderedly. “Maybe, I guess?”

It wasn’t a confirmation, but I received a confirmation from sothing else.

Deep in my soul, my Fla flared—a new truth unlocking insight into the unknown.

New thoughts stirred, but I seed to have more questions than answers now.

Did the Aetherite form in response to the effect of the Cursed Stars?

Or did the Cursed Stars form in response to the Aetherite?

“The mystery that is Chun,” Mu Lin said with a laugh, breaking out of my thoughts. “The weird and obtuse stuff you seem to know is beyond . Now co on, if you want to know more weird crap, you’ll need to talk to Xi Xha, not . The library is close now.”

We traveled up another floor, with trying to dodge more stares, but I was starting to get glares despite my [Mark of the Despised] technique as the crowds thinned. I guess there was only so much the technique could do when you were seven feet tall. And walking next to a barely five-foot-tall Mu Lin probably didn’t help with the optics either.

We finally arrived at a massive structure that looked to make up part of the outer pagoda wall itself, like a giant cathedral made of polished brass. A small figure in a hooded robe rushed towards us, and the smiling yet worried-looking face of Xi Xha peered out from beneath the hood.

“Master Chun,” she said with a small curtsey of a bow, almost as if she didn’t want anyone else to notice. “It’s wonderful to see you again.”

Xi Xha was just as pretty as I rembered her, even though I hadn’t seen her in ages. Dark hair with bright green eyes, but she was sans the normal black and copper-trimd robes that Mu Lin now wore. I raise a brow at her in question.

“Are you wearing a disguise?”

She smiled awkwardly. “A thousand pardons. When Mu Lin told you were coming here, I didn’t know quite what to expect. Your reputation here is quite ill favored at the mont.”

She glanced about and I could sense there were several people looking at us already.

“Co,” she said. “We should head inside. There will be less people there.”

“Well, I think my job here is done,” Mu Lin said with a grin. “You two sharing the sa space still gives the icks, no offense.”

I laughed, but Xi Xha bowed to her while blushing. “My thanks to you, Mu Lin. I’ll see you later.”

Xi Xha then led the way as Mu Lin departed, ushering us through the security check at the door to the library. The Imperial Guard on duty scoffed when she looked at my ID card and gave Xi Xha a healthy scowl as well.

“Don’t stay here long,” she warned and then motioned for the two enforcers with her to open the library doors. As they ushered us inside, one of them, a tan-skinned man who looked native to so other world, gave a wink and a smile.

I guess they all aren’t against up here, I thought. But damn was it polarized.

The interior of the grand library was as impressive as its exterior, with Qi lighting casting a warm glow over row upon row of ceiling high shelves packed full of manuscripts and texts. There were few people within, most of them venerable scholars who wore the sa copper-trimd robes that Xi Xha normally did.

Once we got in between a set of bookshelves deep in the center of the library, she seed to relax so.

“I think we’ll be safe back here,” she said, drawing back her hood and giving a broad smile and an unobstructed view of her gorgeous face. “So, I haven’t heard from you in a while. How have you been?”

“A bit busy as you can imagine,” I said honestly. “Building a new sect from the ground up plus fighting in the ring. I can barely find ti to cultivate much less anything else.”

“I see,” she said with a smile. “A pity. I was hoping we could perhaps catch up after this.” She made her intentions clear by pressing her body close to mine and I couldn’t help but feel the temptation rising in my loins. “A drink or two down below perhaps?”

Ever since being with Silver Light, I honestly hadn’t felt the urge to be with Xi Xha again.

Although there was no reason that I couldn’t.

Fia and I had nothing between us.

Especially now.

But that sa lancholy filled as I thought of her again and Xi Xha perhaps saw it on my face.

“No chance?” she said, and then playfully she added. “Unless you’re that pressed for ti that you’d like to skip the drink and go for it here and now?”

The way she said it was only half joking and I could tell if I kissed her now, we’d be in way too deep to stop. She looked back at almost expectantly, mischief in her eyes. I steeled myself with [Struggler’s Resolve] as I smiled back at her.

“That probably wouldn’t be too wise,” I said. “Don’t you think?”

She chuckled. “Probably not. Although it would be exciting.” She then laughed. “I could only imagine what they’d do to the both of us if we were caught. It’d be the scandal of the month.”

Her words were a reminder that social norms were broken at one’s peril here.

If getting caught with Xi Xha would beco the scandal of the month, then marrying Silver Light would be the scandal of the decade. Not that I could even do that at the mont. I shook the thought from my head. I couldn’t worry about those things right now. I had bigger issues to deal with.

Starting with the monster plotting to prey on my people out in the wild.

“What can you tell about sothing nad I’xol’ukz?” I said, abruptly changing the subject. “Have you heard of it before?”

The smile dropped from Xi Xha’s face as I shifted instantly into work mode. She didn’t seem upset by it however and rely beca an astute professional in my eyes, her brow furrowing as she began to think.

“Give a mont,” she said. “Wait here.”

She disappeared down the aisle of books and about twenty minutes later returned with two large scrolls under her arms. She beckoned to a small table and laid out both scrolls side by side. They were covered in faded text that I couldn’t read, the characters looking even more hieroglyphic than the Yee symbols I had co to decipher as easily as English in my mine’s eye.

“This is the na you told , I believe,” Xi Xha said, pointing to a scribble of characters on the scroll. “Ai Zhul Ugh. It’s ntioned briefly in this scroll from the second Taun Dynasty. It’s the na of an ancient demon that was imprisoned by the Great Soul Emperor Wu Shin Taun on his day of ascension.”

“That’s it?”

She referred to the second scroll. “Here is the only other ntion that I could find of a similar word… I’xol’ukz. It’s from an ancient Dharmian text. The word translates to the Lord of the Moon. It says here that he is a lesser deity and one of the four heralds of the stars.”

Now we were getting sowhere, I thought.

“So what does that actually an?”

“I’m not certain,” Xi Xha said. “What you see here is a recount of an old Dharmian myth about the star callers.” She then ran her finger under the characters and spoke almost in rhy. “The lesser gods, the heralds four, shall usher in the glory of the stars. The Lords of the Earth, the Sea, the Sky and the Moon. Rejoice at their appearance, for the age of the stars is at hand.”

She paused and I looked at her. “Is that it?”

“It’s a very short poem,” she said. “What makes you interested in this?”

“Just sothing I overheard,” I said, playing it off. I then pointed back to the first scroll. “But here it says that I’xol’ukz was—”

“Ai Zhul Ugh,” Xi Xha corrected.

“Right,” I said. “So anyway it was a demon that was imprisoned, right? But does it say where?”

“It doesn’t say, but I would imagine it was imprisoned where any demon would be bound. On one of the nine planes of hell.”

“Sounds like an important detail to miss out, don’t you think?”

“Not really,” she said. “The ntion of Ai Zhul Ugh here is but a footnote. The true significant detail of the script is the reference to Soul Emperor Taun’s day of ascension. If he didn’t happen to defeat this demon on that day, there would likely be no ntion of it at all.”

I stepped back, pondering it all. The links seed clear to at least, but I needed it confird.

“So this Ai Zhul Ugh ntioned in this scroll is a demon that is also the sa I’xol’ukz which is a herald of the stars?”

“It’s as close as I can find to the na you said, yes.”

“So could that an that I’xol’ukz ushers in the Cursed Stars?”

“Cursed Stars?” She let out a chuckle. “Those are a different matter entirely I believe.”

“But it does say stars, right?”

“I wouldn’t give too much credence to the Dharmian text. It predates the Taun record by so ten thousand years and is possibly fiction or allegory. And by the tone, it seems to celebrate these heralds and the stars as sothing to be glorified. Certainly nothing like the Cursed Stars we know today.”

“But it’s the sa na, right? I’xol’ukz?”

“It’s close phonetically, but not the exact sa word. Not even the sa language. The na could also have been borrowed or changed in aning over the centuries. Who knows?”

“Can you read it for again?”

As Xi Xha did so, I envisioned the words in my mind’s eye, morizing them as script.

“The lesser gods, the heralds four, shall usher in the glory of the stars. The Lords of the Earth, the Sea, the Sky and the Moon. Rejoice at their appearance, for the age of the stars is at hand.”

“See,” she said. “Nothing sinister about that.” She then cracked a grin. “Not unless the authors were demonic or sothing.”

I raised a brow. “Say again?”

“I was only making a joke. We have no idea who the authors were or their purpose for writing this.”

But she had made a keen observation.

Good and Evil was all a matter of perspective. If those sa words were being uttered from the throats of a demonic cult like those Fire Birds, there would be no question as to what kind of stars they were talking about.

I felt sothing open up inside of as my Fla burned a little brighter.

Confirmation of further Insight into the unknown.

“Thanks, Xi Xha,” I said. “That was helpful.”

She bowed. “I’m happy I could be of service to you, Iron Bull. Anything else?”

I thought a second more. “Actually yes. How much do you know about the legionnaires and the Phalanx?”

“Ah,” she said with a smile. “Now I understand the interest with the Cursed Stars. You’re not progressing through the Brackets in order to qualify for the academy, are you?”

“What academy?”

“The Legionnaire’s academy. You must be of Gold Ranking to even attempt to qualify. But I would not suggest you do that.”

“You’re the second person to warn about taking an interest in all this. Why not?”

She laughed. “Few volunteer to be legionnaires. They are more so sentenced. Tributes of the state.”

I was starting to understand the picture more. “So, these people who beco legionnaires are more like convicts?”

“From most worlds they are,” she said. “Most are not expected to survive. There are a few who chase the glory of an easy path to the Diamond Bracket, but cultivators with that mindset rarely last.”

My interest was piqued even more. “Diamond Bracket?”

“Any legionnaire who survives a tour of the hell worlds is automatically considered ranked as Diamond Bracket. And if they survive three tours they are promoted to the rank of Imperial Marshall, which is the highest civilian ranking one can hold. Far above even Wardens and equal to royalty. If they survive five tours, they beco High Marshall. And at eight tours, Grand Marshall.”

“A Grand Marshall? What’s that equal to?”

She shrugged. “One can only guess. In the entire history of the Yee Dynasty, there has only even been one Grand Marshall. The title was bestowed posthumously on their final tour. I can’t recall their na at the mont, but it was over four thousand years ago. Today there is only one who holds the rank of High Marshal, the Academy President, Tzu Li Zen. There are perhaps only three other Marshalls in existence in total.”

My head was spinning. This was a whole new level of advancent and progression I knew nothing about. A sea of possibilities flashed through my mind and the urge to take a chance on one of those hell worlds tempted like none other. I’d learned to survive a few minutes under the Bloodmoon’s influence. Could I eventually grow strong enough to resist the influence of an entire star?

“Chun…Chun?”

Xi Xha called my na, pushing out of my daydream. She laughed. “I seem to have lost you.”

“No, I’m fine,” I said, but then lied to not make a big deal of it. “That certainly doesn’t seem for though. Thanks for warning .”

She smiled with relief.

“Good,” she said. “Because we need you here as our Iron Bull.”

* * *

We headed for the library exit, and Xi Xha once again made an offer to spend so ti together in the redlight district. It was honestly tempting, but sothing just still didn’t feel right about it.

“Maybe later,” I said as we got past the Imperial Guard. “I have a few things I need to work on right now.”

One of them was the ball of Corrupted Steel tucked away in my robes.

With the new Insights I had just gained from Xi Xha, I was eager to try the [Brand of the Frenzied Fla] technique to see if I could finally etch the orb. But no way was I going to attempt sothing like that in front of this kind of crowd.

Xi Xha smiled glumly in response. “Try not to work so hard. You’re always going, going, going. You must make ti for yourself too. Else why are you doing any of this at all?”

I paused as she said it.

I honestly never put myself in the equation when I made my plans. It just didn’t feel right in so regard.

“I’ve been blessed with a chance to make a real difference, Xi Xha,” I said, perhaps speaking more to myself than to her. “My strength cos from my need to fight for them, not myself. In the end that’s what truly matters.”

Xi Xha chuckled. “I can see now why they all despise you. You think like no cultivator that I know. Yet still I say, take heed, Chun.” She gently took hold of my forearm, squeezing it softly. “Fighting for others is noble. But you need to have soone fighting and caring for you as well. If there is no one to take care of you, then how can you take care of anyone else?”

As she said the words, I could sense the stirring of fear in her heart.

Her words rang true as well and I wondered if she was offering herself to fill that role.

It was sothing I never would have thought of her as doing before.

Before I could even consider it further, a strong gust of wind pushed against us, unfurling our robes. Xi Xha let out a gasp and instantly fell to her knees and pressed her forehead to the brass floor. I turned to see what she was kowtowing to and saw a sleek black skiff landing on the street a stone’s throw away.

“Well, well… look who has co to pay his respects to the Silver Leaf Clan.”

My heart froze at the powerful words and the woman who had spoken them.

Tall and statuesque with silver hair spilling down her shoulders, piercing chro eyes. I’d never seen this woman before in my life, but one look at the other two identical won in the skiff with her and I knew exactly who they all were.

“Screw my life,” I muttered as the situation beca clear.

The Silver Leaf Triplets had just co for an early showdown.