On the Hills of Eden

Pallas wriggled slightly, the soft embrace of the mattress she lay on instantly melting away any exhaustion that had built up in her muscles. She grabbed the thick blanket that she and Qingxi had tucked into the bed earlier that morning, pulling it up and throwing it over her entire body.

She let it fall, slowly, the rush of cool wind from under it blowing by her face as it did so.

And all was right with the world.

Admittedly, she was concerned. For one, she rarely ever grew physically sore and fatigued back when she trained under her Mother. But that could’ve– at least somewhat– been explained away by the fact that she had elected to not use any blood armour at all during the bloodburst training.

More worryingly, though, was the fact that she was cold. So much so that when she went to wash her hands after returning to their lodgings, the water that ran from the tap felt uncharacteristically warm. Water that had been drawn directly from tanks stationed atop the building, entirely exposed to the wintry chill of the northerly winds.

Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to have skipped breakfast. But what was she supposed to do? Force herself to gobble down glutinous rice even when she felt like she was on the verge of hurling?

Perhaps that was the case. Perhaps not. Perhaps still, she may have only been feeling the effects of homesickness.

Qingxi’s company, Rumi’s cooking, Soleiman’s conversations– they were all wonderful. She couldn’t have possibly wished for better companions to undertake the Herculean task that stood before her with. But they just weren’t… Mom.

She sighed, closing her eyes.

She’d get used to it eventually.

Pallas let herself sink into the depths of the mattress, feeling as the fabrics of it and the blanket brushed against her legs and her arms.

There was a sound.

A sound of a plate shattering, coming from outside.

She opened her eyes.

She sat up in her bed, scooting over to push aside the paper curtains that covered the window above its headrest. She peered outside, watching as a few Kitsunite civilians, some dressed in ceremonial garb and others in plain day-to-day rags, gawked at her.

No. They weren’t gawking at her.

Her gaze shifted upwards.

They were gawking at the inn’s roof; which glowed a warm amber.

The… the roof was on fire?

She grabbed hold of the window bars, cranking them open and pushing the windows out. Then, she stuck her head out, craning it up and around to try and get a better look at the situation.

Rip the throat of the bleating lamb.

Her eyes shot open, and she damn near leapt back indoors.

The Hashashiyyin. They’d managed to break into the Shrine? And they knew where she was?

Tear away that vain facade.

She scrambled back across the bed, head turning and eyes darting about in panic as her thoughts tripped over each other in the cacophonous pandemonium that rang out in her head.

Should she stop him? Run?

No, she couldn’t run.

Burn and scorch and devour…

There was no time.

But she had the sword. Qingxi’s sword. The sword that, if used, would usurp the vision of Iblis’ serpents.

At once, she threw herself off the bed, leaving behind small puddles of blood that tore strips of ribbons from the blanket as she threw the door to the main dining area aside.

…all in thy path.

The voice faded almost entirely now as Pallas lurched over to a corner of the room, stealing the sheathed Xiafan blade off of the floor. She stumbled back upright, shuffling backwards as she stowed the blade onto her back so that it would be easier for her to engage in hand-to-hand combat if so required.

She tightened its strap about her chest, unlocking the door behind her with her left hand as he grabbed its hilt with her right.

…

She couldn’t hear the chants at all anymore. She would have to rely on pure reflex to intercept the foul beast of blaze.

Though such an expectation grew more unrealistic by the moment, her heart pounding with a rising ferocity as it built unceasingly to a crescendo that would not come– each thump and tremble filling her ears with more noise and bringing more heat to her eyes.

She breathed in, and then out. There was nothing to worry about. If Rumi managed to pull a windblade off the first time she used the sword, then she could too.

All she had to do was remember her advice– to imagine her mana. To imagine those lobes of unseeable power, coursing through the bodies of every living being– fleshed or free.

There came screams from the outside, the ribbons of fabric soaked in blood she’d torn from the blanket now slithering across the floor.

She tensed her fingers about the blade’s hilt, feeling the third band rubbing against the side of her palm. The ribbons now reached her feet, crawling their way onto her short skirted chiton and onto her chest.

Iblis!

She angled herself, preparing for the serpent, the sanguine ribbons now wrapping about her arms, reinforcing them in a durable layer of blood armour-

She drew the blade, slinging it before in an air-splitting arc that sent forth blossoming flowers of flame just as the wall before her erupted into fireworks.

The great serpent was thrown to a halt, its body curling up on itself as the windblade of fire slammed against its open maw. The blade wasn’t nearly sharp enough to do damage, but it sure as hell did stun the beast..

Pallas saw its eyes– covered in a fountain of sparks and embers, its flickering tongue seizing through the air in pain as it shrieked the foulest of agonies.

Slowly, she levelled the blade, holding it at a forty-five degree angle pointed forwards, its tip aligned with her neck in elevation. As she did so, she shuffled back through the doorway in the process, seeing as two orange orbs coalesced to both sides of the blade’s metal.

Two eyes, about the same size as hers, facing down the serpent as she continued her steady retreat. Smokeless, sootless, pure.

The incandescent spectacle of fire that was the burning room was soon blocked by a silhouette, the shadowy figure with its black cloak stepping through the doorway in pursuit of her.

A Hashashin.

The man’s hood fell, a small cloud of smoke rising from it in turn.

“Soteira,” he snarled.

Pallas grunted.

“You dogged fuckers,” she responded, tightening her grip about the blade.

“Lest history repeat again,” he said.

“The cycle anew,” a second voice continued from behind him. Distorted, crackling. As if on fire. “The cycle of suffering.”

At once the Hashashin lunged forward, sweeping his left arm out from under his cloak to send forth a small arc of flame.

Pallas stepped back, her blade still held-

The Hashashin suddenly contorted his body, sending his right arm– encased in flame and coiled in some impossibly long cord of fire that stretched back to the serpent– careening before him.

Just as Pallas’ feet both made contact with the ground, the great serpent bolted from out of the room– a column of flame that blasted forwards with impossible speeds. It swung across the hallway, slamming into her side just as she managed to raise her boots to cushion the impact.

She was thrown into the wall to her side, splitting its soft, pliable wood into splinters and sending her soaring through the air.

She collided onto the tiled roof of a nearby building, sliding across it as she maintained her grip on the Xiafan blade– forever unwilling to let herself be seen by the Serpent King.

She immediately rose back to her feet, the blade held before her and its eyes scanning the inn as the serpent came roaring out of the hole in the wall towards her.

Its writhing form slammed against the tiles of the roof, sending fragments of shrapnel flying in all directions as it bored its way towards her.

She leapt forward, rolling to her side and avoiding the lunge. As she rose from her roll, she saw again as its blazing maw surged towards her.

This time, she leapt over it, vaulting over its burning form and feeling the heat of its flames against her back as she did so.

When she landed, the thing had once more managed to turn on itself, and she had no time to evade.

She flipped the blade in her hands to a one-handed reverse grip, driving it through the upper jaw of the serpent’s maw and grabbing its lower jaw with her bare hand.

The serpent thrashed its mighty form against her, heat and hate washing over her as she fought against it, blood coursing through the ribbons on her arms and over her fingers in support of the struggle.

She slid across the roof, legs barely able to keep the snake in check.

She heaved in one last great endeavour, throwing its jaw shut just enough for her to raise one of her feet to meet its chin. Then, planting her boot against its blazing scales, she slammed her boot into it with everything she had– trying her best to visualise the blood within her as she did so.

She threw herself off the serpent, knocking it off course and drawing her sword from its flesh.

But there was no bloodburst. She would have to figure out some other way to pull it off.

Landing once more on the shattered and charred tiles of the building’s roof, her eyes skimmed the perimeter– landing on the Hashashin from which the vile creature originated; the man struggling to recover his balance from the wild, animalistic strikes of the snake.

She bolted from where she stood, droplets of blood drifting in her wake as she readied herself to cleave him off his feet.

She swung the flame-covered blade, just barely missing the man as he threw himself haphazardly into the air with a burst of fire– vaulting over her.

He landed, scrambling to turn around to face her before–

She buried her boot into the back of his spine, sending him sprawling across the roof.

She leapt after him, the gaping maw of the serpent rushing into her periphery.

But she could make it. All she had to do was bury the sword into his heart, and the serpent would collapse in on itself as it had done in the Living Cemetery outside Sayda. That was all she had to-

She lost balance.

It was as if the very roof she stood on had somehow slipped off of its walls and began tumbling down onto the street below.

Except, no. The roof wasn’t moving. The only thing that was changing was–

Boots suddenly slammed into her side, sending her flying across the roof.

She tumbled against the tiles, losing complete hold of Qingxi’s sword as it clanked and clanged out of her hands.

She stopped herself as best as she could, rising to her feet just in time to see as another assailant shot towards her.

An assailant wearing the Gravitas purple.

On instinct, she parried the shimmering silver that sliced through the air towards her, its metal bouncing off of the cloth-reinforced blood armour she had on both of her arms.

She returned the attack, slamming her fist into his liver and throwing him a good few metres away.

In the corner of her eye, she saw as another streak of purple and silver rushed towards her– ducking just in time to send the third sailor flying over her with his momentum.

Now, all three sailors formed a wide semicircular perimeter about her, slowly pressuring her against the edge of the roof.

She heard the sound of metal clanking against the street below.

And as she faced off against the three sailors, the serpent bearer struggling back to his feet in the distance, she observed as the first to attack her tilted his hat– revealing his face.

“Cesspool,” Avar snarled.

“You again?” Pallas spat, keeping her hands open. She had to think of a plan.

“I’ll make you regret ever trying to leave.”

They didn’t know how much she’d grown. The bloodburst and the bloodbeam were both novel discoveries made during the second fight with the Protoataphoi and during the escape from Minerva respectively. And, according to Soleiman, if knowledge really was power– then she had the upper hand.

She suddenly spun on her heels, making a break for the edge of the roof and lowering herself to the tiles. Watching as the three sailors jolted to pursue her, she spun back, yanking a ceramic tile from its place and readying a finger gun with her other hand.

In a split second, she mustered as best as she could all the hatred she held for the gold-guzzling sea-faring monkey-thieves, a small surge of blood rushing towards the tips of her fingers in response.

The half-formed bloodbeam shot out, catching the sailor on her right off guard and striking him directly in the eyes.

Simultaneously, she pelted the brick towards Avar, immediately turning to leap off of the roof.

As she jumped off, though, she saw as he dodged, his body moving inhumanly quickly to twist in some inefficient, awkward way to avoid the attack.

“Throw me!” She could hear him yell.

As she crossed the threshold of the roof’s edge, she sent forth a thick spray of blood below her, following up with two streams of blood directed straight at the two glowing amber orbs of the Xiafan blade– two glowing amber orbs that happened to be fading.

Just as she made her landing some ways away though, Avar slammed into the earth by the blade before her, standing in between her and the building and keeping her away from the weapon.

He began sprinting towards her, abruptly freezing as she brought out another finger gun pointed directly at his neck.

He didn’t know how powerful it was. He only knew that she possibly had the ability to kill him with it.

Watching as he stumbled in place, she suddenly pointed at the sword, blasting the small beam into it and sending it flying into the building’s dark insides through an open window.

Stunned, he watched as she leapt after it, rolling into the darkness before he could stir himself from the frightened stupor.

Just as she did, retreating into the darkness of the building– a restaurant–, she saw as the amber glow of the serpent slowly creeped into view through the open windows. And, if the lack of eyes on Qingxi’s blade gave any indication, it had had its vision returned to it.

She slunk away into the darkness, sheathing the shiny metal of the blade as she crawled beneath the cover of the restaurants’ many tables.

If knowledge was power, then staying where she was made her more powerful.

By Avar’s side, the second sailor landed, the third still in the process of recovering from the bloodbeam that had struck him in the eyes.

“Did she go in, Officer?”

“Aye, Rocco,” he responded, stepping towards the open window she’d crashed through, the light of the serpent behind him illuminating the darkness with a burning brilliance. “Stay close, but stay behind.”

He hopped through the window, running a gloved hand over the peculiar talisman the Hashashiyyin had outfitted him with earlier that day.

They had told him that it would keep him safe from danger whenever it arose, so long as he waited fifteen seconds to allow it to regain its mana. Now, how a strange clam-like artefact made of ceramic with a miniature clock within its clutches did such a thing eluded him. But the mere fact he was still alive told him enough. His skull would’ve been cracked open and he’d have been bleeding out atop the building’s roof by now if not for it.

He stepped forward slightly, stopping as the darkness kept a firm grip on the rest of the building’s interior, his subordinate still attached to his side.

“Oi, snake. Come closer,” he said, turning back to it. “Rocco, I said stay behind-”

In the corner of his eye, the snake slowed down. And its oranges were dulled.

The Instrument had activated.

At once, his head whipped around, eyes frantically scanning the dark for the ‘danger’ that the amulet had activated in response to.

There was a glimmer of dull orange in the darkness.

Suddenly, the shadowed space before them erupted into a brilliant shower of embers, the blazing form of the Xiafan blade once more being torn from its sheath arcing out in a cataclysmic cleaving curve before them.

“Rocco!” Avar yelled, diving out of the way.

But colour had not yet returned to the snake.

Time was still being slowed.

He felt the sudden surge of blistering heat wash over his back as he threw himself away, turning around just in time to see as the blade sliced and sizzled through the body of his subordinate.

He fell onto his bottom in shock, gasping for air as the sight of his friend and junior’s halved body fell to the floor.

Pallas landed once more, cinders falling off of Qingxi’s blade as she steadied herself from the attack.

The pathetic sight of the cowering Officer just barely lit by the twin fires of the sword and the serpent now before her, she froze for a moment.

First, he had managed to avoid her feint. Secondly, he had somehow reacted to her ambush.

There was no time to think.

The serpent on her left, eyes bursting with sparks once more, roared in indignant fury. It slammed its form into the open window, forcing the walls to give way as it lunged directly at her.

Already aware of its presence, she leapt deeper into the restaurant, dodging its attack entirely.

She quickly rose to her feet again, the entire room now illuminated not only by its slithering form but also by the billowing fires rising from the multitude of glowing cinders and blazing splinters floating through the air and strewn upon the charred ground.

She saw as its form slithered haphazardly across the floor, slamming into the walls of the establishment as it prepared for a second attempt at devouring her.

The serpent once more clumsily shot past her, and she dove to its side. Now, though, her blade readied, she lunged at the thing’s scaled side, preparing to slice it-

She heard a creak behind her.

She turned around, lifting her arms just in time to catch the boots of the Officer. Still, the force of the impact had caught her entirely off guard, throwing her through the serpent’s blazing form and back out to the street.

She slid against dirt, rolling back to her feet and springing back into a fighting stance the first moment she could.

Behind her, though, was the Hashashin. A small flame in his hand.

She turned to face him, stepping backwards to adopt a stance more fitting for a two on one when the serpent erupted from the bowels of the blazing restaurant.

It slammed its jaws down upon her sides, lifting her from the ground and presenting her to the sky.

Now engulfed in the oven-like heat of the serpent’s maw, Pallas fought to keep herself from being swallowed. Her right forearm planted against the roof of its mouth and her left sandwiched by its lower jaw, she struggled slightly– just barely managing to fight to wedge her leg against its lower jaw as a thick layer of blood armour quickly rolled over her entire body.

Her left arm now free, she reached for the roof of its mouth, trying to free her right so that she could impale it with the sword.

The serpent slammed her down into the earth, the sudden impact of the action stunning her briefly. The blasphemous beast then dragged her against the rough floor of the street, heaving its entire mass to scrape her against the earth– ripping her blood armour off in the process.

But she wouldn’t budge.

It lifted her back up into the air again, and in that very instant she forced its jaw just slightly more open, freeing her right arm and using it to dig the Xiafan blade into the roof of its mouth just as it slammed her into the ground once more.

This time, it scraped her against the earth with a renewed ferocity, as if enraged by her persistent refusal to cave in; to fight for victory even in the jaws of defeat.

She needed a bloodburst. But Rumi’s technique wouldn’t work here.

The blood-reinforced fabrics of her sleeping chiton grinding against the earth, she tried her best to calm herself. She collected every last drop of resentment, of hatred and repugnance the Hashashiyyin and the Gravitas stirred up within her, simultaneously visualising every individual drop of blood that coursed within and without her.

The burning of Minlos. Smoke and soot and sizzling flesh.

The escape from Porthopolis. Rumi’s scars and the sting of Avar’s blades.

The girls of the Silent Village. Their hairs shortened or shaved, their lives lived in constant fear.

Her heart now roaring in resistance, she saw as the rivers of blood that flowed within her began to surge. She saw as they built up, pooling and gathering at the base of her feet, that familiar feeling of irrepressible pressure once more returning to her as it had once did in the second battle with the Protoataphoi.

This was no half-attempt at a bloodbeam that she had done earlier.

This was a bloodburst.

The air exploded into a blossom of blood, crackling with power and steaming with heat as the serpent’s jaw was blown off of its hinges. The thing’s head was sent careening into a group of houses on one side of the street, Pallas’ feet in turn slamming into the walls of a building opposite said houses.

She wasn’t done yet.

Once more, the air itself split and bled, Pallas flying back towards the serpent– the beast stunned and with Qingxi’s sword still buried into its upper jaw.

She slammed into its head, kicking down on it and forcing it even harder into the houses as she tore the blade from its resting spot. She leapt off of it, landing on the ground as she rose to face the Hashashin.

Hearing as a pair of footsteps abruptly stopped not too far away from her, she aimed her sword at the Hashashin— angling to throw the blade.

With her left hand held out before her as a guide, she saw as the Hashashin suddenly scrambled in fear, desperate to avoid being impaled.

Instead, she blasted another weakened bloodbeam towards him, the rapidly moving projectile shot from her left hand temporarily blinding him.

She spun on her heels, parrying another one of Avar’s stomps with the form of Qingxi’s blade. She threw him off of herself, sprinting forwards to stab the blazing metal straight through his chest.

“Officer!”

She twisted her wrist and slashed upwards, her blade cleaving through the body of the third sailor.

Now, she stared down Avar, face drenched in blood and body covered in dirt, the sinister orange glow of the flame now being put to use by her.

“What’s wrong?” She asked. “Think I’m going to kill you?”

Heat washed over her–

She spun around, catching the serpent and cleaving the Xiafan blade into its very maw, slicing its metal all the way down the length of the great beast as it carried on with its own momentum– only letting up when it finally disengaged out of sheer agony.

She swung the sword once more to intercept a ball of fire the Hashashin had hastily sent to try and keep the serpent from being totally killed– cloaking the area before her in smoke in the process.

And she leapt into it.

The Hashashin then fell to the ground lifeless, he too having been cleaved into two– the serpent dissipating in turn.

Qingxi’s sword having done its work, she sheathed it, hearing the frantic footsteps of a man making his desperate escape as she did so.

She bolted from where she stood, using her hands to pull herself along the ground as she ran around the smokescreen and off of the wall of the restaurant. Seeing as Avar began his escape back towards the mob in the distance, she grabbed a plant pot off of one of the restaurant’s windowsills.

Readying a finger gun with her right hand, she threw the pot before her.

And just as she’d expected, he dodged it, once more moving with an unnatural burst of speed.

But it was over now.

A true bloodbeam blasted out of her fingers, the slow burn of the offended hatred within her taking control over her blood and using it to spear a hole through his left thigh.

Avar collapsed to the ground, rolling across the dirt.

When Pallas caught up to him, he suddenly seized, rolling across the dirt a few metres more as Pallas shook off her shin from the force of slamming it into his liver.

Watching as he clutched his abdomen in agony, she stormed over to him, stepping over and grabbing him by the collar as she stood over him.

“Think I’m going to kill you, Avar?” She asked, throwing him back onto the ground. “Because this is what you wanted, right?”

She fell onto her knees, pounding her bare fist squarely into his nose.

“To fight me?” She yelled.

She domed his face again, pounding it again and again with her fist. Once, twice, then too many to count; until his face was nigh unrecognisable, its cartilage and bone and flesh all mangled into a sick masterwork of ruined life.

Finally, she locked her fingers together, bringing down one final hammer upon his bleeding, bruised and broken skull; the air crackling with her blood.

Then, she paused to review her work. For just a moment.

She took the amulet from what remained of his head, rising back to her feet; her breathing heavy as she felt as her blood clung uncomfortably to her sticky, sweaty skin.

Finally, she gathered any phlegm she had in her throat, spitting down on his corpse.

And she had nothing more to say.

She only had to find the others now.