Triumph of the Sword Saint: A Progression Fantasy Saga, page 1
Kensei 3
Triumph of the Sword Saint
DB King
Copyright © 2022 by DB King
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
v001
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Contents
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Contents
Series by DB King
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
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Support DB King on Patreon!
Free progression Fantasy Novel!
Series by DB King
Apocalypse Knights
Crafter’s Fate
Dragon Magus
Dungeon of Evolution
Elemental Mastery
Fatehaven Farm
Kensei
Mage’s Path
Night Guild
Ranger’s Magic
Shinobi Rising
Spellweaver Codex: Elder Mage Chronicles
Summoner’s Shadow
The Last Magus
War Wizard
World End
Chapter 1
Ashes fell from the sky.
Ruined walls fell apart brick by brick, crumbling onto the blood-stained soil. Houses and buildings of stone and wood fell apart into mounds of glimmering embers and cinders.
A few corpses arose from the whites and grays, hands and heads and eyes spewing outward into the waking world—skeletal mouths, wrung open in quiet screams. There were infants in there as well, but they were too small for their forms to be preserved in the grayness of it all.
The gray…
There was so much gray…
It gathered on the soil and drifted in the sky. It permeated in the pools around the ruins, amidst the trees, and over the petals of the meadows. It blotted out the greens in the rice fields, turning a verdant land into something… ugly.
Ashes… ashes and dust and embers for as far as the eye could see.
The sun was falling, and the whole landscape looked akin to mortal paintings of what Hell must have looked like as fiery beams of light cascaded over the glimmering embers and ashes.
Mordelo had never seen the realm of the dead, but it must have been as dreary and as dreadful as the sight before him—probably more.
“Was this… the right thing to do?” Mordelo mumbled as he looked on from the top of a hill.
Beside him was Lorraine. She sat lazily on the grass. Her eyes were narrowed, and she’d hardly spoken a word after the Order had come and razed the place to the ground. They had been thwarted in the end, of course, and had been forced to retreat as a child had popped up and started dropping singularities atop their heads. But it had been too late by then.
It had once been a thriving, bustling town. Now, it was nothing more than ruins, left behind by the passing of carnage and destruction.
Still, the mage-child had managed to kill one of their own, some nameless mage from the Great Khan’s Empire. And one of the weapons, supposedly designed by the vessel, had killed another after unleashing a deadly bolt the size of a spear.
Eight of the original ten lived on.
It hardly mattered.
Mordelo shuddered and sighed. His hands shook. “Was this necessary?”
Lorraine shrugged. “The Dark One left too much of a mark in this place. At the very least, we should’ve just driven away the townsfolk instead of blowing them up.” The Witch of the Crimson Woods shook her head. “No, it really wasn’t necessary to try and kill them all, but it was necessary to remove his taint. Ultimately, the deed is done, and we won’t be seeing another vessel for another hundred years if we’re lucky.”
Lorraine stood up and stretched her arms before turning away. Behind them was a veritable mountain of bodies—the homunculi whose use had run out after the destruction of the Dark One’s vessel. Maintaining them had been a hassle. The old man was probably happy to cut the strings off them.
“I suppose you’re right …” Mordelo turned away from the remains of Hirata and walked after Lorraine. “The deed is done, and it is time for us to return home.”
They walked in silence for a moment. The others were still in their tents in the distance, resting. The Banishment Ritual had taken quite a lot out of them. Mordelo could hardly keep from slumping, especially after having expended more of his magical stores in destroying Hirata.
A part of him still wondered if it had been at all necessary. After all, the vessel was already destroyed. Why did they have to destroy an innocent town alongside him?
There had been children in there—the aged and the sickly.
They had been innocent in their quest to prevent the end of the world, and yet Uemuji, the Elder, had ordered them destroyed anyway, as though their lives had held no meaning, no weight, and no purpose.
It was one thing to destroy a child for the sake of the world; Murasaki Jin had been a threat to all life simply because fate had decreed him to be the next vessel for the Dark One. For his own family—for his wife and his child, and even their dog—Mordelo had been left with no choice but to unleash his magical powers upon a young boy, who was probably the same age as his own.
But destroying a hapless village just because it might have been tainted left a bitter taste on his tongue.
Lorraine broke the silence. “You doubt the Eldest?”
“I’m not sure,” he said. “The Eldest is not infallible. No one is. Believing every single word that comes out of his dried-up lips seems foolish to me.”
He turned to glance at her. Lorraine seemed deep in thought—quite a contrast to her usual impulsive self. She had no qualms about killing off entire cities; it was, after all, how she had received her title. But even Lorraine must have sensed something… odd about their supposed leader.
“Well,” she began, eyes narrowed. Her demeanor shifted. Lorraine’s tone was almost contemplative as she spoke. “His claim about having destroyed prior vessels doesn’t coincide with the Prophecy of Night. Why would there be other vessels before Murasaki Jin? The more I think about it, the more it doesn’t make sense.”
Mordelo had noticed it as well, though his lack of knowledge in prophecies had stayed his tongue. The Prophecy of Night foretold the coming end of the world in the final battle between the Asura and the Kensei, ushering in an age of eternal night and darkness.
Uemuji claimed to have stalled the prophecy numerous times generations ago, fervently hunting down the Dark One’s vessels again and again.
And yet the Kensei had yet to appear.
The avatars of darkness and light were fated to appear at the same time—two souls whose destinies were locked. Unless Uemuji had also killed the vessels of the Kensei, then there were some major holes in his story.
What did it mean?
Mordelo wasn’t sure. It could mean absolutely nothing at all, or it could mean everything.
And so, he nodded. “Now that you mention it, Uemuji’s claim does seem rather farfetched. But there’s something else. His eyes… they’re the same as those of a madman. Were we even right to destroy Murasaki Jin the way we did?”
Lorraine chuckled. Mordelo raised a single eyebrow but otherwise stayed quiet. The witch was dangerous, one of the most powerful in their little gathering. Her destructive magic was without equal.
“I don’t care about the lives of children. I’ve used plenty of them in my rituals. The purity of their souls makes for excellent fuel. However …” Her eyes darkened, “something doesn’t seem right about all of this. I feel like a puppet, dancing under someone’s strings. The fact that this is a clandestine mission at all was enough to put me on edge. Why didn’t Uemuji inform the rest of the Order? Why are we out here in secret?”
Uemuji had refused to explain the need for such secrecy in an already secretive order. They already hid themselves from the outside world, remaining unseen and unheard, but they were not supposed to keep secrets from each other. Didn’t the Order share the same goal? Weren’t they all supposed to try and stave off the destruction of the world together?
If ten people could do it, then there would be no need for the whole organization to exist at all and yet…
“We should be careful around the old man,” Mordelo whispered. The camp was already up ahead. “He’s hiding something from the rest of us, and it can’t be anything good.”
“Agreed. I have some spells I can use to keep an eye on the old man,” Lorraine suggested.
Since she was a witch, her repertoire of spells was greater than the rest of them, though she was bogged down by the need for complicated rituals, which required sacrifices. Mordelo himself was a Druid, much closer to the animistic magic of the Varnu tribesmen of the far north who communed with the spirits of the land.
Uemuji was an Animalist, just like the rest of the mages who were unlucky enough to be born in Moyatani. Their magic was potentially powerful, but they were limited to what Magical Beasts they were capable of taming. The Eldest had something that allowed him to control and manipulate flesh, bone, and sinew.
“Do that, then.” Mordelo nodded. “We’ll need to gather information in the event that this turns out to be an unsanctioned mission.”
Their whispers ended as soon as they reached the camp. The others were there, mulling about their business. Some were cooking, others were eating, and more than a few were reading. Uemuji, as always, sat alone in his tent, poring through ancient scrolls and forbidden wisdom, as was his apparent hobby. Lorraine walked off into her tent and disappeared into it after closing the flaps.
At the center of the small camp was a roaring fire, kept alive through many nights by enchanted logs that never ceased burning, even in the rain. Around it was a circle of smooth, white rocks. Mordelo walked toward the open flame and sat near it, extending both his hands forward over the fire.
“Not used to the cold, eh?”
He didn’t recognize the voice.
Mordelo turned to the right. Standing there was a young man of Moyatani origin. He wore a simple white kimono and carried what appeared to be a tea set—two cups and a steaming pot. The scent, carried by the wind, was that of aromatic herbs and flowers.
The man’s name was Meguro or some such; Mordelo hadn’t really been paying attention when everyone had given their basic introductions.
His sleeves were folded back, revealing a tattoo of a winged lion on his right forearm and a six-headed snake on his left. Magic oozed out of him.
Mordelo huffed and nodded. “My homeland is much warmer than your country. Our winters barely last a month if they happen at all. Here, it is as though the whole nation is under some kind of icy spell.”
Meguro nodded and sat near him. He poured tea into the two cups and offered one to Mordelo. “It is a cold land. I always find hot tea helps greatly in matters of warmth.”
Gripping the hot teacup, Mordelo brought it close to his nose, taking a long whiff. The liquid inside had a color that was halfway between green and red. “What’s in it?”
If Meguro was trying to poison him, then the substance would have been laced around the edges of the cup. And yet Mordelo found nothing of the sort.
So why did he offer him tea?
Members of the Order hardly socialized unless they already knew each other from outside the Order’s immediate membership.
“Bloodflower and Jade-leaf. Combined, they create a very delicate sort of tea with a slight hint of sweetness from the Bloodflower petals,” Meguro said.
Mordelo smiled and took a small sip. He breathed in and out, with his eyes lazily half-closed. The wind blew over them. Mordelo felt chills running over his skin.
“You should take a sip of yours before it gets too cold. This combination does not taste nearly as good if it’s not hot.”
Mordelo nodded. His eyes drifted around the camp. Everyone seemed so relaxed somehow. It was as though they hadn’t just burned down an entire town full of innocent farmers and craftsmen. Sighing, he took a sip of the tea and frowned.
It was bitter—very much so. There was a tiny hint of sweetness from the Bloodflower petals, but it hardly compensated for the bitterness of Jade-leaf, which was a medicinal herb.
“That’s… something. I thought you said it was delicate. The bitterness of it is overpowering my tongue.”
It wasn’t bad as teas went. In fact, it was actually quite good. The people of Mordelo’s homeland hardly drank tea. The aged did, but everyone else drank mead and wine.
Meguro chuckled and smiled just as the wind picked up its pace. It was growing colder by the second. “Forgive me, friend, but I suppose it can be an acquired taste, especially for people from other lands.”
“Yeah, I’ve been in this country for a few years now, but I still can’t recall the last time I had tea.” Mordelo allowed himself to relax, even for just a moment.
Meguro didn’t appear to be hostile or aggressive, and so antagonizing him seemed like a foolish idea. Besides, he could use a few more people to talk to other than the unstable witch with pyromania and who knows how many other hazardous predilections.
Mordelo had spent the last several years in this country tracking down the vessel. He hadn’t made a single new friend in that time, and Lorraine hardly counted as a friend.
Hell, if she hadn’t been a fellow member of the Order, Mordelo was certain they’d be enemies.
“I’m guessing the men of the Southern Realms would be more interested in our wine, yes?” Meguro chuckled heartily.
Mordelo chuckled alongside the man. “Aye, your people’s rice wine is amazing.”
Mordelo found himself looking back to simpler times, to when he had worked as a simple woodworker in Mizino and imbibed to his heart’s content after a hard day’s work. The wine of his home country was to die for.
Many foreign nobles and rich merchants imported thousands of barrels of liquor each month. The nation of Mizino produced such fine wine that the Great Khan himself proclaimed them under his protection in return for a constant supply of their finest.
“But it’s nowhere near as good as the stuff we have from back home,” Mordelo added.
Meguro’s eyes drifted westward, where the ruined remains of Hirata lay in ashes. “The village we just destroyed… it used to produce some of the finest rice wine I’ve ever tasted in Moyatani. It was definitely better than the stuff they made in the capital, but not quite as good as the ones made in Sado. It’s a shame we had to burn the place down.”
Mordelo stiffened. “Did we?”
The man beside him raised a single brow. “Did we what?”
“Did we really have to burn the place down?”
Meguro shrugged, taking another sip of his tea. “Does it matter? What is one more village? Didn’t you and that crazy witch blow up an entire castle filled with servants and innocents? Then again, if it was me in charge, I would’ve just left them alone. The Dark One’s corruption doesn’t spread like a disease. It’s more of an insidious parasite in the mind, bringing people closer to violence. But then we’re in Moyatani. Every single person here is predisposed for violence.”
“Huh …” Mordelo could not help but agree with Meguro’s last statement. Was there something in the water in this country that made everyone want to fight each other in honorable battles?
The children were also prone to violence, and adults were almost definitely violent in some way or another. Then again, Mordelo might just have gotten used to life in peaceful nations that weren’t in a constant civil war.
But Meguro had mentioned something he did not quite grasp.
“The Dark One’s corruption… how do you know so much about it?”
There was a glint in Meguro’s eyes he did not like. It was eerily similar to the madness in Lorraine’s eyes, but it was subdued. The man’s gaze darted around, likely searching for anyone who was close enough to listen in on their conversation. Mordelo raised an eyebrow, but kept himself quiet as Meguro leaned in.
