Chapter 46: Steel and Grit (Patreon)

[Introducing Yakeshi, The Heaven’s Blade]

The black void suddenly transformed until I was standing on a grassy hilltop during a grey cloudy day. Quickly I turned around, paranoid that I was about to be attacked as another test. But there was nobody there. In fact, the only thing in the countryside of note was some kind of structure that sat atop a mountain in the distance.

I suppressed a sigh. The message was clear. Better to just get this over with.

I began my trek to the base of the mountain and then started my climb. Less than a week ago, doing this would have been unthinkable, but my enhanced stats were built for such things. Small indentations in the rockface became perfect handholds to help propel me further up. Everything was fine at first, but slowly my muscles ached more and more.

By the time I’d climbed a third of the way up, I had to stop and rest. There was a convenient spot just to my right that looked perfect for it. A large chunk of the mountain had shorn away, leaving a sort of wide horizontal V-shaped gap in its place. There, I kneeled in place to rest, using only my feet and legs.

Somehow the mountain hadn’t seemed so tough at the start. I shook my head. All this effort just to reject a god’s advances. It was excessive, but then again, all of the gods so far had displayed large egos. Maybe they expected all of their potential followers to go through these efforts to win their approval? Once I found The Heaven’s Blade, I vowed to ask something more specific. Something useful that could help me descend the tower or improve my strengths. Something that doesn’t let this whole endeavor be a waste of time.

I flexed my sore fingers and arms one more time before resuming the climb. What was once mildly tiring became arduous. My fingers bled and my muscles screamed in protest. Occasionally I would pause, but there was nowhere else to truly rest, and I’d come too far to turn back now. I gritted my teeth and pressed on.

It grew colder and windier the higher I climbed. There were thoughts of giving up and turning back, anyway. Thoughts about how climbing down would be easier than going up. It didn’t make sense but in my tired brain it didn’t have to. But then I thought about being trapped here until I climbed this mountain or dying here and leaving Hugo alone in that church with my lifeless body. I couldn’t do that to him.

There was nothing else to do but endure and progress.

Eventually, I felt my hand grasp the top and nearly cried. With my last ounce of strength, I hauled my body over the top and then laid on the top of the mountain to catch my breath.

Every part of me felt worn out, but I knew the journey wasn’t over yet. I’d been so focused on the mountain itself that I’d almost forgotten why I’d started climbing the damn thing in the first place. But I remembered glimpsing that structure and hoping that it was the god’s home.

I forced my eyes open and did indeed see a one room wooden house. It looked empty and ramshackle. Two of its walls were missing, along with parts of the floor. Only the roof appeared like it was holding up well. Though I imagined it would only take a few more storms before it followed suit with the rest of the place.

Once I’d recovered a little, I got up to take a closer look. My initial assessment was accurate. The place looked long abandoned. But given the effort it had taken to get here, I still searched under every broken floorboard and ruined piece of furniture in case there was something that the god wanted me to find.

When I was sure I’d searched it thoroughly, I went out the back into a dead garden behind the house. There were dry patches of earth where grass used to grow and a few small, lifeless trees. It also featured a stone path that led to a murky but ultimately empty pond.

“Why am I here, Yakeshi?” I asked aloud, having finally run out of patience.

There was a metallic scraping sound behind me. I swiveled round to see a young-looking man with dark hair sat on the ground. He was dressed in white robes and held a straight short sword with a thin blade and no handguard. There was a whetstone in front of him and there was another scraping sound as he sharpened his sword’s edge with it.

“It is interesting that you did not ask that question when you first arrived,” he said without looking up.

With the arrival of his presence, the garden changed. Patches of dry dirt became lush with verdant green grass and the trees sprouted leaves and then fruit. The nearby pond became almost clear and was filled with bright orange and blue fish. I glanced back and saw that the house had also been restored too and the two missing walls were replaced with sliding paper doors.

“Why is it interesting?” I asked.

“You were presented with a goal and an obstacle. You then leapt towards both without even first asking yourself if they were worth pursuing in the first place.”

“You’re saying I have the wrong priorities?”

“I’m saying you haven’t yet begun to even consider them.”

“Being thrown into one life-threatening situation after the other tends to do that!” I snapped, before calming myself. In a more measured tone, I continued and said, “right now, all I want to do is survive, help my friends, and grow stronger.”

The god continued to sharpen his sword, and I studied him. He had angular, hard cut features on a youthful face. People might have thought he was barely into his twenties if they didn’t look closer. Only his tired eyes suggested his true age. As if they had seen it all before one too many times and had become bored.

“Lots of people on your planet could be saying the same thing right now. What makes you so special?”

I considered his question and realized that I didn’t have a compelling answer.

“I don’t know,” I replied.

“Do you know why I requested to speak with you?”

Don’t say swords. Don’t say swords.

“No,” I replied honestly.

He grunted. “Good. The last person I spoke to said it was because they used a sword like I did. My response was to throw them off this mountain. No, the reason you’re here is to determine what path you will take. If there’s anything I’ve learned over my very long life is that mastery is an illusion. In reality, the path you choose never ends. There is always more to learn. A path can never be finished.”

“By path, are you talking about my Class?”

“Your Class, as dirty as it is, is only the first stepping stone. Already you have choices before you and abilities that reflect those choices. Will you be a swordsman who cuts his enemies clean and true like your Heart Strike ability? Or will you follow the wilder path of the vicious animal who tears flesh apart with your blades like they were claws with your Savage Rupture ability?”

“Both have had their uses so far,” I said defensively.

“Because you’ve gotten injured making mistakes and so you over rely on that filthy blood power of yours. Had you clung closer to the swordsman path, it would not have been necessary.”

“You’re saying I shouldn’t use my Class ability?”

“I’m saying that eventually you will have to make a choice about the type of person you want to be. How you choose to fight will reflect that choice going forward.”

I think I understood what he meant, but the conversation was more philosophical than I would’ve liked. I preferred hard facts and useful strategies that I could use to improve my odds.

“How does avoiding powerful abilities help me right now in the tower?” I asked him pointedly.

He scraped the metal along the stone again.

“You cannot avoid going down a path except for those who perish. All that matters is which one you go down,” he said, ignoring my question.

“What if I want to forge my own path?”

He stopped sharpening his sword and finally looked at me with those sad, tired eyes. “That is what every successful warrior who goes down a path believes. That they’re a trailblazer, marching to the beat of their own drum. But the further down the path they go, the more they start to see the signs of those who came before them.”

“So what happens if I go down the wrong path?”

“You become powerful and monstrous. A terror that I, or someone like me, ends up having to put down.” He sighed then. “Please do the right thing. I’m tired of killing children.”

I frowned. “Aren’t I being set up to fail then if the System gave me an evil Class?”

His eyes widened and in a blink, he was stood in front of me, staring. “What did you say?”

“The System gave me the Blood Reaver Class. I never picked it,” I replied, trying not to shy away from his intense gaze.

Yakeshi smiled and almost appeared lost in thought.

“This changes everything,” he said finally. “Go now. We will speak again.”

The god and the surrounding scene melted away as I was brought back to the black void for my final encounter with another god. All of them so far had their own quirks and desires. It seemed like placating them without making any firm commitments was the way to go.

Yakeshi talk of paths was troubling, but I steadfastly refused to give up my blood healing or Savage Rupture abilities unless I found something of equal or superior value. They were some of my strongest powers and the only reason that I was still alive. Obviously, more would have to be learned about what a Blood Reaver can do to avoid The Heaven’s Blade’s future ire, but at the moment, I would stick with what was working.