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SETTLING ASHES

Three days had passed since the battle, already named ’The Battle of Extinction’, had ended . Though three days, in plenty of circumstances, might be a lot, for this specific occasion it was hardly so . At first glance, nothing seems to have changed . The landscape, running all the way from the Eastern Mountain Pass over to the threshold of the City of Sun, remained ravaged, grass of green nowhere to be spotted . Stench still permeated, one so bad nary a soul could approach it without retching out on the side . Swords, axes, shields, armors, all ilk of crafts lay strewn about where once a road lay, and where once the green fields pleased the eye .

Smoke, still, reigned supreme; it billowed out, dancing in the faint winds, curving and bending, converging into the sky . Some places still burned, some were finally ceasing, and some were stretches of soot and ash .

Corpses beyond count decorated the entirety of the plains outside the City of Sun; hundreds of thousands, piled into countless mounds, friend and foe alike lying next to one another, both cold and rotting . It was hard to look at the sight and not see the stars before passing out, hard to take it all in and accept it -- after all, just three days ago, all of these dead were among the living . Still whole . Alive . Breathing .

It would take months just to clean up the bodies, Lyn realized . She stood just outside the city gates, watching the river of people stream in and out, each bearing a mask covering the lower half of their faces, each pair of eyes that met her hollow and empty . A ghastly sight, perhaps one just as bad as if she were to look out onto the field itself; for however many died a physical death, many would die a mental one before these lands were renewed .

Her dark eyes seized the entire landscape, most of which she could not see as it was doused in black dots and shimmering pieces of steel and iron, and took a mental picture of it . This was war . No heroics . No bards willing to romanticize it . At least, not just yet . She knew, however, that with the passage of time, and with the closing of the wounds, stories and songs would spring out . Just like they did when Lino fought in the Battle of the Isles . Just like here, back then and there, corpses lined the ocean’s waters . As far as the eye could see .

Yet, now, nary a decade later, hymns are sung about it on a daily basis . Some praising his valor, some his endurance, some his will and spirit, some his dashing appearance . . . all things he precisely lacked in those moments .

How much of written history, then, was actually true? Are there any tales of battles and wars that are not embellished by the penchants of the clever?

" . . . you alright?" she turned to the side and saw a distorted face of a man she’d like to call a friend if he wasn’t hellbent on being pettily jealous . Ty, similar to her, was draped in the black cloak, a hood hung over his face .

"Better than them, at least," Lyn replied, turning back toward the carnage . "You?"

"Could be better, could be worse," he replied casually, taking a deep breath and immediately regretting it . "Fuckin’ hell, we need to ask some proper cultivators to blow this stench away . "

"Nah, leave it be," Lyn said . "It’s a good reminder . "

"My memories are a reminder enough," he said . "I pray there are cultivators who can make those go away . "

"My, I didn’t take you for an easily disturbed person, Ty . Or, perhaps, was that only the front you put up in front of the Lady?"

" . . . like the one you’re putting up in front of me now?" Ty glanced at her, his gaze mellowing somewhat . "Aye, something like that . "

" . . . what’s happening in the Castle?" she asked, looking away quickly .

"Silence . " Ty replied . "Not a mum left the walls for three days . No one’s allowed in, not even the Lady nor the Bearer . "

" . . . the ending," she mumbled . "Was rather . . . anti-climatic . Is that what it means to be strong, Ty? To simply appear on the battlefield where hundreds of thousands have died . . . and end it? If so, I envy it . "

" . . . I doubt he’s very much proud of it," Ty said lowly, sighing, Lino’s face flashing inside his mind . "In his mind, I’ve no doubt, he was too late . Take how heavy your heart is, and then multiply it . . . countless times over . . . and you’ve arrived at the point of how he’ll remember this . "

" . . . I’ve heard some cities are already celebrating our victory . " Lyn said . "Perchance, we should drag them out of their ivory towers and throw them into reality . "

"Leave them be, Lyn," Ty said, putting his hand on her shoulder gently . "I doubt you’d force even your worst enemy to witness this, let alone some innocent people . "

" . . . " she said nothing as Ty turned and walked away, no doubt heading back to the Records Room to help . That was also where she should be right now, sorting through countless parchments, marking exactly who lived, who died, who got rich, who got poor, whose cultivation progressed, whose dwindled, and whose disappeared completely .

However, she had no strength; she couldn’t . Not right now, at the very least . It was still too fresh . Perhaps, she mused, Ty was right; her title of the Lady’s second-hand was wholly undeserving .

**

Lino sat inside a rather damp and empty room, looking out the iron-barred window onto the busy streets of the City . He sat in the deep dark, the sole source of light that window which cast a strange shadow over his face, half dark and half light . He played with a gourd of ale in his fingers, occasionally taking a sip . However, there was no alcohol potent enough to dull even a tiny bit of it . Not just yet .

He’d locked himself inside this room shortly after the battle ended . He couldn’t face them, nor could he participate in the cleaning . All he could do at the moment is contain . Contain . And contain . He could feel himself aging rapidly with every moment, yet his appearance hardly changed . Still black-haired and bearded, with some traces of silver, the wrinkles on his face putting him somewhere in the fifties . The sole change over a few years ago was that his eye was healed . He could see with both clearly, now .

Glancing toward the door, his gaze held a certain expectation as the latter creaked a mere moment later . A gust of fresh air lunged itself inside, followed shortly after by three sorry-looking figures clad in thick, array-enchanted, iron chains . They wore hemp robes, tattered all about, just enough to cover their bodies . Six, Seven and Eight . To Lino’s knowledge, the last remnants of the Great Descent, save for a few higher numbers that hardly mattered .

Their cultivations had been sealed completely and, at the moment, they were effectively mortal . A simple cut across the wrist would be enough to kill them .

Rio kicked all three at the backs of their knees, forcing them to kneel down just a few steps away from Lino’s table . The young lad glanced heavily at Lino for a moment, forcing out a faint smile, before turning around and walking out .

Lino didn’t know what they did to the three in the past few days . He’d ordered them locked in the dungeons, though hardly cared what was done to them so long as they lived . They were living, though he wasn’t certain they were still alive . Dead eyes, gazes lacking any desire to continue, bodies slumped, heavy, as though there were mountains on their backs pushing them down .

"Is-is this how you treat your prisoners--"

"Cull your tongue," Lino interrupted Seven harshly, throwing the gourd in his hand straight at her face; though partly ceramic, she was a mortal -- the shards blasted across her face, cutting it a dozen times over, causing her to cry out in pain as her face began to bleeding . Six shuddered, yet the impression of Will on his mind prevented him from moving . "Have you seen it?" he mumbled, glancing out the window once more . "You have . You must have . You’ve caused it, after all . Balance . . . hah, balance . Petty little creatures, you lot . Hungry . Greedy . The world was yours, as it always was, but no . . . that wasn’t enough . "

" . . . w-what will you do . . . to us?" Six asked in a weak voice .

"Kill you, of course," Lino replied coldly, his voice terribly apathetic, as though he was talking to some stray wolves rather than people . "What? Did you think I would give you any more chances? I’ll shove a dagger through your skulls and hang your bodies on the walls until your bones melt into ash in the distant future . Even that . . . would be considered empathetic . They all hate me for it; torture them, put them into the pits of fire, heal them, and disallow them the suicide . Melt their skins time and again, have them experience every pain known to man for countless eons . " the trio kneeling shuddered, lowering their heads . "If I was smart, I’d listen to them . String you lot to hang alive for all eternity . " he took out a bottle of mead this time, uncapping it and taking a quick sip, his eyes still sternly focused on the outside, gazing through the window .

"I . . . just can’t be that cruel, though," he said . "The very thought . . . makes my insides churn . "

" . . . you . . . still think yourself a hero above us?" Eight spoke through his teeth . "Ha ha ha . . . mad . You really . . . have gone mad . "

" . . . of course I’m above you," Lino turned his back onto them . "Quite literally, actually . See? You lot are kneeling, and I’m sitting . Well above you . " he forced out a chuckle that died quickly . "Pigs Aaria keeps as pets are above you, idiots . All those dead outside, both yours and mine, are above you . Everyone’s above you . If there were hell, you lot would be condemned to it for all eternity . Not even a chance of salvation . "

"And . . . you wouldn’t?" Seven said . "Compare blood on our hands . . . and on yours . . . foolish Empyrean . . . "

"Aye, let’s do just fucking that!!" Lino screamed out, getting up off the chair and kicking it away, crouching down and pulling Seven’s head up by her hair, causing her to cry out in pain once more . "Want to compare blood on our hands?!! Let’s do it, you sadistic whore! All my life -- all my fucking life -- I’ve killed only so I wouldn’t be killed . I didn’t play god by establishing and crippling dynasties, I didn’t play god by determining who gets to live and who gets to die, who gets to succeed and who gets to fail, who gets to grow old and who doesn’t even get to the teenagehood . Even now, when I should have wiped out every last remnant of your army, every last man, woman, last cub of a child, I chose not to . I always keep choosing to spare, so in the name of all that is fuckin’ holy, why am I the one always being punished?!! Why in the god’s name is it so fucking difficult to at the very least be a decent person?!! Huh?! You lot have lived billions of fucking years, bones long overdue for graves, yet you still -- still -- greed for more . Greed . Greed . Greed . All your fucking wants have been fulfilled . You’ve done as you pleased, killed as you pleased, and where is your punishment?!! Where?!!" he was an inch away from her face, screaming and spitting at her, as he grew tired of it, flinging her head sideways and throwing her back onto the ground .

"You’ve spilled enough blood to make a bridge from here to the cosmic center," he said, taking a sip of mead . "Don’t splash about your shittery with me, abomination . All this cruelty," he sat back down, sighing . "How . . . just how can I continue believing in our capacity for good? When the only thing I’m ever shown is our absolutely abominate evil? I’ve sworn myself I’ll better this world, if need be craft it anew, but where in the god’s name do I even begin? By killing you all? Fuck that . I’d be doing the exact thing you’d been doing . By being really stern with you? Right . Maybe . . . you lot are really right . Just like Ataxia . Just like those Primes . Just like everyone fucked in the head . Maybe . . . there’s just not any good left in the world . We sucked it all out, shat it out, and fed it to the flies . Maybe . . . all that’s left in this world . . . is cruelty . And, in the end, those less cruel are the ones suffering . "

" . . . keep the veil on your eyes," Six said, looking up, meeting Lino’s eyes . "And keep lying to yourself . But, don’t spit it out at us . I’d rather you just kill me . "

" . . . I considered you my family," Lino replied after a short pause . "I was willing to bleed for you . How easy it was it, huh? How easy was it for you to toss me aside like I was some filthy sock? You ugly piece of shit . "

"You--ggurhaarhur . . . " Six’s reply was cut short by a flying dagger that pierced straight through his throat .

"NOOOOO!!!" Seven screeched, tossing herself over at his dying body, screaming and crying madly .

"Oh shut it; go," Lino growled . "Join him . Pray tell you’ve hearts for more than yourselves in your next life . "

"YOU BAS--URRGHUgghr--" she slumped, spasming, right over Six, her widely-open eyes staring at him defiantly, full of hate .

" . . . I thought you’d do better," Eight said, closing his eyes . "I guess I was wrong . "

" . . . wrong? No," Lino said, getting up, walking over with the shimmering blade in his hand, pressing it against Eight’s throat, leaning into his ear . "You were terrified because I was better than you wanted me to be . Sow the chaos . Unite the warring cunts . Exhaust me . End me . Begin the cycle anew . I interrupted the tale of your playwright, the perfect cycle you’ve established oh-so-carefully . I ended it . And, for that, I had to pay . Pay the price no man should be forced to pay . But, little shit, you’ve failed," he pressed the blade tighter against the throat, causing it to bleed as Eight winced . "I’m yet to be broken . Yet to die . Unlike you . " it was a swift motion that cut straight; Eight’s eyes rolled back, blood gushing out of his mouth as his body slumped back and fell, dead . Lino remained hovering over it for a second, his right hand trembling as he let go of the dagger, getting up and walking back to the chair, taking another sip . It was harder, he realized, than he imagined it would be . Much harder . Still too weak, he thought . Still . . . too weak . . .