Ash... Approaching the location of the fortress, Suuki and I saw scorched earth, with burning planks and belongings scattered all around, abandoned by the fleeing residents. The bodies were not visible, but they could definitely be felt: behind all the debris and piles of ashes lay people, either whole or torn to pieces. All that remained of Shen Guan was stones scattered over a very large area, some of which had been thrown so hard that even the nearest rocks had been shattered. Most of the trees were either knocked down or burned by something; along the entire length of the well-built and fortified clearing were craters from massive explosions, as if it had been bombed by winged missiles — I had never seen anything more destructive in this universe. The closest analogy really came from my home world: bombing, in its most dangerous form — it was not difficult to imagine how easily any modern civilisation from my world could crush the local inhabitants: no troops near the city, no long-range TNT attacks, no chance of preserving the infrastructure — it was as if someone who valued efficiency above human life had really let loose here. Someone at a safe distance simply took it upon themselves to fire on the fortress, ignoring the fact that it had been built by hundreds of the best architects and that there were only simple defenders inside. Perhaps if the latter had not prepared escape routes, they would already have been killed.
Even my fortresses wouldn't stand a chance here.
"Afka, what do you know about fire mages? - While Suyuki climbed onto the ruins of the city, horrified by the realisation that the outside world was a much more cruel and dangerous place than she had imagined, that the war of the fire people was taking lives by the dozen, the equally shocked fox could only wave her paws distractedly.
"All information about the subtypes of fire magic was burned along with the library department..." Afka muttered quietly, lowering even her ears. I remembered Wang Shin Tong's words about the destructive nature of humans, but I personally understood that these were isolated incidents, while Afka... felt only disappointment; it was a big blow to her. The fox was more empathetic than anyone I knew, and I understood her emotions well. "But there are almost no creatures left that could do such a thing. Explosive magic is a rare gift, and people with this ability formed a clan, but because of their dangerous nature, they were eliminated. But how this was achieved, and by whom, I do not know.
It sounded alarming. Until all the strongholds were destroyed, the nations had to take desperate measures to exterminate the owners of such explosive magic. Whether they were buried under corpses or there was some easier way, again, is unknown: the weaknesses and killing habits of certain enemies had been deliberately erased, and at such moments, Zhao's actions seemed particularly ingenious.
However, I did know one thing: Sparky-Sparky-Boom-Man was a mercenary, not part of the Fire Lord's army, so someone had ordered Shen Guan's destruction, and for some reason, Zhao came to mind. The explosive approach was too obvious. From Oza's point of view, it seemed like a rash decision to keep a siege engine around all the time, and considering the prosthetics he had received during experiments with his magic, he was really some kind of cyborg assassin. It would be much more useful than giving such a person complete freedom of action; Shen Guan could have fallen long ago, but controlling someone like that... Perhaps it was the Fire Lord himself who ordered the destruction of the dynamite mages, because if they had decided to seize power, they would most likely have succeeded. No tanks, airships, or other wonders of modern engineering would have helped them. Fortresses and platoons of soldiers? I have proof that it's pointless. And what if one of them challenges Agni Kai? Then it's either pray or refuse to agree under any circumstances. But lightning could easily kill them... from a distance. It's a pity they didn't kill them all, now it's my headache — I promised Lya that I would take care of everything.
Perhaps it would have been better to just run away, but she made it clear that defending the fortress was her duty as an architect. And I just didn't want to leave my friend alone with such a dangerous enemy.
"If this place was so easily destroyed, why is your fortress still standing?" At the same time, Suyuki returned to me, looking several times angrier than before. She was breathing heavily and clenching her fists tightly.
"Good question. Lya said that the fortress I built was bombed several times, but the enemy didn't attack with full force again. It was as if they were shaking and intimidating them, but not ready to destroy them yet...
"Whoever did this is worse than an animal. They could have done the same to us," she spat out in utter contempt. "Dagoth, maybe I don't understand the world around me, and I'm angry at things that seem normal to everyone else, but promise me something," she said, taking a step forward and grabbing my hand. "Kioshi's philosophy... no, stoicism calls for the strictest punishment of criminals. Swear that you will execute that bastard. If you throw your discs at him, the ones that cut through stone cores, you'll kill him easily! Think about it, Kioshi would have done the same.
"Killing again? We have to be better than that, not like the most cruel people. His fate is to live in prison. He's the last of his kind and could restore history and knowledge to our library," snorted Afka.
They both stared at me with different expressions. On the one hand, there was a girl who had begun to change, for whom murder was a way of enforcing modern laws, the simplest form of getting rid of the most dangerous criminals. Most of the world was now in the Middle Ages, albeit with spiritual practices, and murder was a common occurrence. On the other hand, there was Afka, even more repulsed by the thought of bloodshed. She couldn't understand why people were so obsessed with it and wanted to move forward into a new era. The mage's knowledge could tell us a lot.
"Choose:
1 - Side with Suyuki (Effectiveness - you've seen with your own eyes what a cold approach can do. You have kept your enemies alive for long enough, but sooner or later this choice had to be made. Since you did not swear an oath to Wang Shin Tong, you will not be cursed, but you do not know what else he is capable of. Afka will leave, and the library will be closed for centuries. Your relationship with Suyuki will change to - beloved)
2 - Side with Afka (You do not share Afka's point of view, but you agree to respect it out of simple respect and to preserve the possibility of using the library. You promise to capture the enemy alive. Suyuki will no longer see you as her life partner, but Afka will be very grateful. Relationship with Wang Shin Tong will change to - friendly
And... that's it. The choices did not allow you to maintain relationships with everyone. There was no third, fourth or fifth option, no tricks, as is usually the case. But no, I saw a way out, why didn't Anubis mention it? There were many options that could have worked.
"You won't be lucky."
"How many times have I made decisions on my own, without your prompting? Let me... just let me sort this out now. I'm sure it will work." "Suyuki, please... just a second," I held my finger out in front of the girl and stepped aside, staring intently at Afka. "Listen... I understand you well, but do you really want to spare the life of a complete monster?
"The explosion mage is the last of his kind, and the library needs to recover the lost knowledge," she frowned.
"What if you can't get anything useful out of a maniac who has killed hundreds of people? Life isn't always measured by knowledge," and at that moment... I understood what Anubis was talking about. I understood Afka's thoughts before she said anything, and they contained a much deeper understanding of the subject than I could have imagined.
"The life of the flesh is insignificant. But when they pass into the spirit world after a violent death, beings replenish the mist of lost souls. I'll tell you about it later, if you want, but you must prevent souls from ending up in that terrible place. Better yet, learn how to purify people so that no one can get there.
Yeah, I'm like a librarian, but I don't know anything about the secrets of the universe.
But more importantly, the agreement with Wang Shintong has been based on some place in the spirit world all this time? They talked about it in Kora, but all I remembered was crowds of wandering souls, frozen by the surrounding aura. Now this raised even more questions, but Afka's deep gaze made it even clearer that I wouldn't get the answers right now. Perhaps it was my good relationship with the owl that would allow me to understand everything? Would they begin to reveal the secrets of the world? I didn't know. I didn't even know how important it was, whether it was worth taking this new factor into account, but the principle was clear. I had to choose between two options.
It remained to decide who was more important to me... Damn, why did this happen? Why can't relationships just be good?
"Okay," I said, patting Afka and nodding heavily. Her fox tail wagged quickly, and I returned to Kioshi, the cosplayer who was stamping her foot. I didn't want to talk about it now, but I made my choice. "Suyuki, I promise that the life of the person who did this will be as difficult and hellish as possible, and they will regret being born... but I won't kill them. You see, I have a certain view of the world...
"She won't understand you."
Yes... from Suyuki's look, it was clear that she literally couldn't share my view, even if I explained everything to her. We are different.
Turning silently away from the frozen girl, I headed back. There was no reason to stay here any longer. I had achieved the main thing: I understood the extent of the destruction, on the basis of which Afka would create a plan. Suyuki could think whatever she wanted, clench her fists and stamp her feet, probably even be disappointed in me, but that didn't mean that our human relationship would be severed. I wanted to hope so. I was still the only one who could help them all, and so, even if she didn't want to, she followed me ten steps behind, sad and hurt. And my head was filled with thoughts of how to become friends again. Soon we returned to the fortress, where peaceful residents and soldiers of the Fire People had already settled in. The latter were sent to prison and assigned a couple of Kioshi warriors as guards so that none of the locals would do anything foolish. At the gate, I was met not by Leah, but by the commander of the earth mages, a man in traditional cloth garb, with a small beard and a pair of well-groomed moustaches, and a typical hat that resembled an upside-down bowl. Captain Baoqin
"Any ideas?" he asked mockingly.
"Not now," I shook my head, disappointing the soldiers who were watching intently and drawing the captain's disapproving gaze. Maybe that increased the overall tension, but I had no time to maintain relations with all those damn whiners. "Better show me a map of the area, I need to know the surroundings in detail.
"Tsk, I can't believe we have to rely on an outsider... Let's go," the man looked rude, and his manner of speaking showed his disapproval of the fact that I was their only hope, but he still led me to a guarded tent with a map. Afka got to work, and Baoqin looked at me harshly. "We figured out that the explosions don't happen right away. Less than a second before the bang, a small fireball appears at the site of the detonation, thirty centimetres in diameter. I have no idea how the three-eyed man creates it at such a distance, but it is the only way to determine where the blow will come from. It's impossible to defend yourself, no matter how skilled a mage you are — you can't stop the explosion. It destroys any wall, and then you yourself, and you're lucky if it kills you quickly, otherwise you'll suffer and writhe in agony with your arms torn off.
"Isn't there too much mockery in your voice towards someone who can help you? - Suyuki took a heavy step forward. I even froze, surprised by her defence. But then I just spat out in disappointment and stood against the wall. Baoqin just looked away.
"A dozen of my men were torn to pieces. How are you any better than them?
"…
The situation became even more difficult when Afka found herself at a dead end. She simply didn't know what plan to come up with — all her defensive strategies were falling apart in the face of the enemy's power. Traps, fortresses, golem forms, none of it made sense. What's more, defending themselves was dangerous, because, as the destruction of Shen Guan had shown, debris was a problem; it could become more dangerous than the explosions themselves. Crawl underground like a mole? The locals had already tried that; it was an obvious tactic, and the enemy had learned to shake the ground around them, blowing up everything in sight. You'd be lucky if it just buried you.
But there was only one plan, and it wasn't quite what Afka was used to.
"We'll have to take a risk," she concluded, waving her ears. "And fight without thinking about defence. Can you do it?"
Glancing at Suyuki, who was leaning against the wall and not even looking at me, I nodded wearily. I had so easily cut myself off from quick access to the fourth chakra, ruined my relationship with a good person, and now I felt like cats were scratching at my soul, which meant I had to at least show that it wasn't for nothing.
"Win without getting hit? - I exhaled quietly and turned my back to the map and the captain, slowly climbing onto the wall. Taking off my upper clothes, I sat down in the lotus position. I had to learn to listen. Renounce and just listen.
He had to solve a complex dilemma like some kind of monk and achieve enlightenment.
========== 17 - Explosion against the shock wave ==========
The echoes of nature resonated in my head like a musical triangle, announcing every rustle with innocent simplicity and a pleasant sensation. The wind blew, swaying the trees thirty metres away, each leaf felt separately and gave a sense of wholeness, my senses were already strong enough for such a jumble of information. The residents walking around the castle, unaware of what was happening, reported their every step, and through their actions it was possible to piece together a picture of future events: who would put their foot where, how out of breath they were, whether they would use magic in the next second — I began to distinguish these and even more details after I turned my attention to such an inconspicuous thing as the beating of the heart. The human body could reveal a lot of details, including whether qi was flowing through the vessels: this energy itself is imperceptible, I couldn't see it in other people, but I could feel it in the ground - some people need contact with the soil, the qi points in their feet lazily but persistently allow magical energy to pass through; others, like me, can expand their range of influence and not maintain contact with the ground. The Avatar must see magical power in everything; he is connected to the world through the harmony of his four elements, which makes him so powerful.
However, this is not all there is to it. Even the Avatar does not delve into such aspects. Feeling magic is not at all the same as feeling the flow of qi inside a person and seeing what is in their heart. Many gurus have mentioned more than once that they can feel a person's energy, its power, whether their chakras are open — for some, a single glance was enough, while others could calm people with a simple touch. If these were ordinary books, I wouldn't believe it, but the canon showed something similar: Guru Patik definitely sensed other beings on a closer level, and Hugh somehow saw the entire swamp through his connection to the main tree. Such skill would be very useful to me now, not only to meet the explosive mage, but also to understand what cats are scratching at Suyuki's soul. The fourth chakra, tied to love, and the heart, was called Air, and this element, as we know, is the most spiritual: its users could literally lift themselves off the ground or enter the astral plane. It was exactly what I needed to achieve the desired result, but... I was getting myself into trouble. It was impossible to sense other people's qi without the necessary chakra, and I would not open the chakra until I knew how to fix my relationship with Suyuki.
Let love be blocked by grief, a sense of loss or a deep longing for something very important to you, but, as magicians say, everything is interconnected. It was impossible to open the chakra if you didn't have the foundation laid down in the first place; it's not a toy for kids who want to grow up fast. Now I needed to lay that very foundation.
An image of Suyuki appeared in my mind — not just a fantasy, my senses showed her standing by the wall, looking wearily at the back of my head
"Suyuki isn't just disappointed — she's scared. We left our familiar surroundings, and now she doesn't know how to live in a new place. Where to find hunting grounds, where to gather roots for the settlers. The threat throws her off balance, and she wants to nip her fear in the bud and tear out the sprouting seeds of doubt that are preventing her from leading the group. Suyuki doesn't know if she made the right decision when she agreed to leave home. Her anger stems from her own insecurity — she needs to be made to feel like a real leader."
But not now. My senses alerted me to the arrival of someone unfamiliar, sounding extremely strange: the heavy clanking of metal legs, rough breathing and a steady heartbeat indicating that the owner was calm. Coming from the forest, there was very little left.
Standing up, still keeping my eyes closed for better concentration, I turned to Suyuki, who was alert and didn't understand what had made me jump up so suddenly.
"Make sure no one gets hurt.
SPIRIT*
The earth instantly pushed me high into the sky, and all the guards and townspeople looked up, their eyes wide, watching as a sandy armour formed and my spheres appeared above the fans, sparkling as brightly as the sky during a thunderstorm. At the right moment, a pair of launched spheres collided with something rushing towards the new Shen Guan. It was a stream of qi, dispersing the air with a terrifying popping sound; upon encountering an obstacle, the beam instantly condensed into a fireball and, in less than a second, gained enough power to detonate.
Two explosions occurred simultaneously. One was sent from deep within the forest by a hidden mage who had no reason to come closer than fifty metres. The second was formed by my compressed spheres, which released all their energy and caused the space to crackle with electricity. A fiery mushroom cloud appeared, only it was perfectly circular, and its shockwave shook the ground and allowed even those behind the walls to feel a gust of wind.
I could feel the enemy's attacks! The merging with the world around me went perfectly — I couldn't tell when the attack would happen, but the world reacted strongly to such a concentration of qi, creating a beam that thundered with its power.
"Monstrous power," I began to return to the ground in advance, and I didn't even need to open my eyes to understand how powerful the mage's attacks were. But I began to guess how this was possible: the concentration of magic in the man's qi was so enormous and compressed that the fire he created expanded at an incredible speed. This said nothing about the amount of energy; he undoubtedly needed enormous reserves. The problem was that he clearly had a shitload of reserves — the mage quickly spotted the culprit, prevented the explosion from hitting the city wall, and fired another shot. "And monstrously fast!"
My senses did not immediately convey any information to me. Yes, I saw the air shaking, but it took time for the vibrations to reach me, and it was vital to dodge an attack that could be the last. Fortunately, my tactical skills were sufficient to calculate my opponent's actions — moving out of the line of fire in advance, I didn't think twice, touched the ground and made a dash for it.
BANG*
The ground split open from the force of my push. The soil itself accelerated me towards my enemy, while my sand suit allowed me to accelerate my body beyond its normal limits, leaving me with the responsibility of simply withstanding the strain. My joints began to wear down and cause slight pain, my muscles heated up until they were red. Several sand spheres that had darted forward contracted and, crackling with electric discharges, caused another explosion upon meeting the beam, filling the battlefield with the smell of burning and causing the ground to tremble from the unbridled energy. Fully aware that even grains of sand could be thrown back by the shock wave, we had to run diagonally and create stone barriers in front of us, which sometimes even broke from the violent shaking. There was a kind of shrapnel effect, like from a grenade — often it was the fragments that killed, not the explosion itself. For the same reason, he hid among the trees, where any splinter could have killed me. But I was protecting the person who taught me how to create strong shields, and I couldn't let her down.
"Gh-h!" The mage was clearly angry and clenched his metal limbs tighter than he let on, signalling that we should get ready.
"He always aims at me, but because of the delay before the explosion, I have time to run away. I can use that," I saw my opponent's every move and could come up with a counterattack.
Taking an even more stable position, the mercenary poured an excessive amount of energy into his hands, which pierced the air like an arrow. I managed to run back five metres, but the sphere that appeared in a microsecond made it clear that the attack would be much more terrifying than the previous ones. Fortunately, a sand sphere was already spinning at the site of the explosion, four times larger than all the previous ones, literally like the one that had deflected the iron core. The fans in my hands continued to spin relentlessly, spinning every grain of sand and concentrating the excess pressure.
BADAKH*
This time, the shock wave knocked me off my feet, but the expanding cloud of flame couldn't reach or even splash my head. The two explosions neutralised each other, even though mine was significantly weaker.
"Hop," - but with the same speed with which I was knocked off my feet, I quickly jumped off the ground, momentarily plunging the tips of the fan into the soil itself. "You shouldn't have done that."***
Gathering behind the gates of a sturdy fortress, armed with large stones and iron armour, at least capable of stopping debris from explosions, and equipping toad-varans to rescue civilians in the worst case scenario, the soldiers stood in disorderly rows behind Captain Baoqin. It was extremely dangerous to stand close to each other, as a single explosion could destroy any of the solid rows they were so famous for, and which they were quite concerned about. The warriors of Kioshi, in turn, hid in secret passages in the castle, which had been so thoughtfully constructed by Dagoth. When the explosions began outside the walls, the troops pressed themselves harder into the ground, anxiously wondering what the outcome would be. There was no direct view of the battlefield due to the giant walls, which no one in their right mind would attempt to climb. All they could do was press their heads into their shoulders after each explosion. "Now," the people thought as another bang sent a large fireball into the air, but the high walls of the sand castle remained unharmed. Somehow, Dagoth was holding back the mercenary.
"How is this possible?" Captain Baoqin, in turn, could not believe his ears: the sand mage had held out for so long against the real Zamkobo, a man who was almost a natural enemy of their nation. There were many ways to destroy the stone defence; it could even be done with a well-compressed fireball, as the energy had the property of causing great damage when expanding rapidly, but no mage could create such large-scale explosions. In addition, there was a disregard for the magic of their saviour. Baoqin had thought about it many times: a crowd of soldiers using stones would be stronger than one, even a powerful one, who liked to play in the sandbox. The combination of these factors made the captain hope that the fortress would at least not be destroyed, but rather slightly damaged, which was what the mercenary had been doing lately, for some reason not thinking to demolish the defences as he had done with Shen Guanyin.
But then the ground shook so violently that some soldiers lost their footing and fell on their backs. At that moment, there was an explosion, and all sounds ceased. Baoqin glanced at the captain of the warriors standing aside, Kioshi, a very young girl who was leading a group of children. The man was surprised by her reaction — cool-headed, completely ready at any moment to use her entire arsenal of cold weapons, and showing not a hint of concern for her leader. And she was not alone; every Kioshi showed more courage than his soldiers, who were standing on wobbly legs.
"Self-confident brats," the longer the silence lasted, the more tense the atmosphere seemed. Baoqin's gaze was fixed on the gate, even though he understood that if the enemy wanted to, they could enter from anywhere, so more eyes were needed. Unable to withstand the pressure of the silence, the captain turned to his assistants and gave a loud order: "Hey, bring the fire soldiers from the prison, we'll use them as human shields. Let them climb the walls and survey the battlefield.
"But the Sand Mage said they should be safe.
"Do you think we should continue to carry out a stupid order, even if he dies? We must protect the residents first; the enemies can be used as expendable material," roared Baoqin, not immediately realising that his hand, which was gesticulating wildly and threatening with a fist, had been grabbed by Captain Kioshi herself. The young girl was Suyuki, whose makeup made the man wince slightly. For some reason, at that moment, in such a tense situation, it seemed to him that he was looking at a little girl, and not the supernatural spirit lurking behind the threatening makeup.
"Dagoth said... don't you dare touch the soldiers of the Fire Nation.
"Huh? Girl, can you hear yourself? You obviously don't want to obey this stupid order, so let's use a couple of useless pieces of trash to find out what's going on," he said, shaking his fist and forcing her to let go. "What will you do if your Dagoth is blown to pieces and this monster finishes off his remains? I don't know about you, but I think he could easily feast on the sand mage's calf, and we can get the residents out while this three-eyed thing is busy.
"...All right.
Frowning, Suyuki couldn't think of a reply. She wasn't ready to risk her friends to get them up on the wall — the warriors of Kioshi were renowned for their loyalty, but she still had to earn it. She needed good relations not only with the captain, but with every warrior, so that they themselves would be willing to take the risk. Otherwise, Suyuki was not willing to force her friends to walk on the edge of a knife for someone they did not want to become a mountain for. Baoqin nodded in agreement with her choice and ordered the soldiers to carry out the task. Soon, six men in chains were led out of the fortress, writhing and looking fearfully at the soldiers, who were ready to kill them at the slightest movement. The prisoners were placed in front of a staircase leading up to the wall, where they were ordered to climb up one by one. Everyone watched them from a considerable distance, as if they didn't want to get splattered with blood. "Fyur-fyur," Suyuki heard an agitated fox sound at the same time. Dagoth's pet was hiding behind her leg, obviously worried about its master. However, she did not even think of climbing the wall, as the shock wave would be particularly devastating for such a small creature.
"I'm sorry, we disobeyed your master's orders... But Baoqin is right: if Dagoth is unlucky, we must save the inhabitants. He could have taken no risks and killed the target from a distance; it's his own fault for getting involved.
"R-r-r," for some reason taking her words as a threat, Afka growled menacingly and bit her ankle sharply. The bite was not painful, but unexpected, and Suyuki flinched, not understanding how the fox had jumped away and raised its fluffy tail threateningly.
"Do you really understand everything?" Feeling guilty, she clenched her fists in confusion. The excessive pacifism of this animal's owner was incomprehensible, but Suyuki couldn't help but argue that Dagoth was willing to take enormous risks for the sake of what seemed like a worthless life.
For a second, she even wondered why Afka valued Dagoth so much... and could only come up with one answer. If she got into trouble, she could be sure that Dagoth would help in any situation, and that incident on her home island had proven it. The sand mage could have run away and left them to fight alone. He could have abandoned his friend Leah and not fought the explosion mage. He could have left them on that godforsaken island and not wasted his time helping the inhabitants...
"It's hard to say that I like it... but if we can't rely on him, then who can we rely on?
At that moment, the soldiers who had climbed the wall huddled together and stared wide-eyed in disbelief at the ruined field. But no one could have expected this.
"Why... has the landscape of this flat field changed so much?
Clenching her fists, Suyuki gathered her courage and climbed onto the wall after the soldiers. The Kioshi warriors silently watched her, not stopping her, because they understood that this was a fleeting, perhaps even foolish, moment of trust.
"Why has the clearing turned into mountains?
But her reaction was even more astonishing.