Path of Glory

7

“White Fang’s memories tell me that the warriors of modern times forgot about true power in their pursuit of cheap power. You can’t get it from the World River, or create it from energy. The real power comes only from yourself. You don’t take it from the world, you change the world with it. This is what the Black General taught me, and what I must now pass on to you.”

Erhard’s words sounded familiar to Hadjar. He’d heard them many times before, and he had gradually come to understand what their deeper truth was.

Complete analysis, Hadjar ordered mentally.

[Processing request...

Request processed...

The host is in critical condition.

0 hours, 0 minutes, 0 seconds, 6 milliseconds left until all systems completely stop and are fully disabled...

Error 07@^#456!

Initiating recalculation…

Recalculation completed...

16 hours, 14 minutes, 45... 44... 43 seconds left before cessation of all functions.]

The memories came flooding back to Hadjar. He remembered how, under the light of the full moon, White Fang, Erhard Darkhan, the Last King, had simply stabbed Hadjar’s heart while announcing that they were about to have a friendly spar, not a deadly duel.

“You killed me!”

“If I’d wanted to kill you, junior disciple, you would’ve been dead by now,” Erhard responded calmly.

Hadjar hated to admit it, but the Last King was right. If he’d wanted to kill him, Hadjar would hardly have been able to stop him. Damn it, he wasn’t sure even Morgan could do that. Perhaps only Orune would’ve been able to fight Erhard on equal terms, even though the man was still just an initial-stage Spirit Knight.

“Then what did you do?”

Erhard pulled the sword out of the sand and made a figure eight with it in the air, then held it out in front of him, squinting at it with his left eye as he appraised the blade. Apparently, this was not his weapon.

“You may be following the wrong path of borrowed power, junior disciple-”

“Stop calling me junior disciple!” Hadjar shouted in annoyance. “I don’t know you. Besides, you sucker punched me! Or, well, sucker stabbed me?”

“Sucker stabbed you?” Erhard raised an eyebrow in amusement. “I reminded you of our agreement and then simply lunged at you. The fact that you were unable to defend yourself against something so basic doesn’t impugn my honor.”

Hadjar swore under his breath.

“To answer your question, junior disciple,” the Last King continued in a deadpan, mocking tone, “like any warrior, you should know by now that in a moment of mortal danger, time is perceived differently. We’ll use this to speed up your meditation of comprehension.”

Meditation of comprehension? Apparently, that was what Erhard called the Caterpillar and the Butterfly meditation.

Analysis, Hadjar ordered.

[Processing request...

Request processed…

Host is in the ‘Cocoon’ state.

Time until the state ends…

Error… Error… Error…

Unable to fully process request.]

Hadjar swore.

“I knew many dockside girls in my time, junior disciple, but even they didn’t swear as eloquently as you do.”

“I knew another white-haired swordsman, senior disciple. He would’ve sent you on a very erotic trip.”

Erhard arched an eyebrow:

“I haven’t been to a brothel since I put on my army officer’s medallion, junior disciple.”

“Why do you keeping calling me junior disciple? I have nothing to do with your Master. Except the fact that he’s going to devour my soul and occupy my body one day… If I let him.”

“But you possess the ‘Four Sword Strikes’ Technique. I can sense it in you. It’s the same Technique that the Black General taught me. The same Technique that conquered the Hundred Kingdoms, shaping them into the Eternal Empire.”

“Eternal?” Hadjar chuckled and crossed his arms over his chest. “Your Eternal Empire, senior disciple, has now broken up into seven major countries and countless smaller ones. So, it wasn’t eternal at all.”

Erhard frowned. The words seemed to sting him.

“My legacy, junior disciple… Something that I, my brothers, and their brothers shed their blood for... you, our descendants, sold for a hot meal and the golden bars of a warm cage, to... to beasts.”

“To Lords of the Heavens,” Hadjar corrected him. “Dragons-”

“-are just simple beasts,” Erhard interrupted Hadjar in turn. “No matter how wise they seem to you. No matter how human they look. When all the false layers come off, there will only be a beast inside. A beast can be a friend to a human, an enemy, or a servant. But never a master. For in that case, the human will also become one.”

“Become what?”

“A beast.”

Erhard turned around. He swung his blade through the air, and the slash froze in the space in front of him. Like a tear in reality. Hadjar didn’t know if the world around him was real or not, but he sensed that the skill with which the Last King had done this simple thing was beyond his comprehension.

Analysis, Hadjar ordered for the third time.

[Processing request...

Request processed…

Object ‘White Fang / Erhard Darkhan’ has been analyzed.

Level of potential utilization: 79.57 %.]

Well... that explained a lot. With that in mind, Hadjar followed Erhard into the spatial cut.

 

“F

uck!” Hadjar exclaimed, and drew his Blue Blade.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, junior disciple.”

“Stop calling me ‘junior disciple,’ you old corpse!” Hadjar snarled and took a step back. “You planned this all along, didn’t you? All to lead me into a trap.”

Hadjar was standing on the bank of a wide river. A calm westerly wind was blowing. The young spring was coming into its own and was gradually pushing back the old, austere, stately winter. Ice blocks floated downstream. Birds were singing, and flowers were blooming amid young, green grass.

A boy of about twelve was standing on a high cliff near the shore. In his hands, he held a simple, straight blade. Sweat trickled down his muscular, scarred, overworked body. He was fighting a shadow.

A figure wearing a cloak was sitting on a small rock in the distance. His gray hair was tied into a braid that fell almost to his waist. His bony, wrinkled, old hands seemed to have difficulty holding the knife, but they were still carving a figure easily. Even if he were rendered blind, deaf, and without even his sense of smell, Hadjar would still be able to recognize this entity. It was the Black General. The Enemy. The former servant of the gods who’d almost destroyed the world.

“Calm down, junior disciple,” Erhard put his hand on Hadjar’s shoulder. “These are just my memories…”

Hadjar’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. By the Evening Stars and the High Heavens, he had already visited such a memory once before. It had belonged to his Master Traves. The unknown Immortal old man in that memory had communicated directly with Hadjar, even though they’d been separated by hundreds of thousands of years.

“I was once in a memory that almost made me lose my mind.”