Book 2. The Grand Gathering. Chapter 5. Anatis’s Past. (Part II)

“Either way,” Anatis picked up, realizing that he fell silent for a while. “My father was furious and right after mother finished speaking, he stormed out of the room. The look he gave me when he noticed me standing there in the hall…” he said weakly, the memory alone making him feel nauseous. It had been as if his father wasn’t looking at him, at his son, but at some kind of monstrosity which should have never been conceived. It hurt… it hurt a lot to be looked in this way by one’s own parent.

“I burst into tears soon afterward. I was so shocked that it took my mother a good hour to calm me down,” Anatis stated relatively calmly, trying to distance himself from the past as he spoke. “Then, a servant came rushing into our quarters. He informed us that my father went to the Cioze family and claimed that Ninrah had raped my mother and requested aid in getting the man to admit what he had done; just so he could officially proclaim me a bastard,” he said with a helpless laugh, wondering how a loving father could suddenly turn into someone filled with nothing but hate and bitterness.

“That servant told us how my father’s demand led to a huge debate, mainly because many people from the city and from the Cioze family itself were indebted to him and thus didn’t refuse to lend him an ear outright. However, since the news of what was going on spread throughout the Buare City like a wild flame, the Twin Phoenix School quickly learned of everything and what much can be said… they were enraged, especially Einrah,” he continued speaking at a relatively slow pace, towards the end realizing that he probably should tell the three a bit more about the two Great Masters of the Twin Phoenix School.

“Einrah usually spent most of his time in Buare City, nourishing the large branch of the Twin Phoenix School and getting involved in local politics the whole time. He was the main reason as to why the Cioze family had been put into a position where they could either submit themselves to the Twin Phoenix School or lose all influence in the region.”

“My... biological father wasn’t in the city at that time. He rarely left the main sect, so he couldn’t intervene… I don’t know if he would even if he was there, though.”

Thinking about what had happened next, Anatis felt his throat clench painfully. He jumped up a little when Nila put her hand on top of his, but managed to somewhat relax thanks to her. After taking a few more seconds, he proceeded to speak of what would lead to the most difficult to talk about part of the story.

“We’ve been told that having learned of my father’s claims, Einrah took a bunch of Elders and Core Disciples and went straight to the Cioze family to confront him, furious that my father was slandering his little brother and accusing him of something like raping a noblewoman.”

“I don’t know if it was because of how angry my father had been at the time, but he apparently refused to back down from his claims. As a result, Einrah went ahead and killed him and all who stood by his side without any hesitation whatsoever.”

“My father was a martial master of the fourth rank and many of his friends were equally strong if not stronger than him… but they stood no chance. Einrah alone wiped them out with ease while the main branch of the Cioze family simply watched it happen without lifting a finger.”

“My mother had been shaken by the news, but I took them emotionlessly; I couldn’t have cared less about what happened to my father,” Anatis concluded the part with a bitter smile. He perhaps should have felt bad about his father’s… about the death of the man who brought him up like a father, but he had actually felt a bit happy about it, and he always hated himself for it.

All this time, the siblings listened to Anatis speak with bleak expressions on their faces. They understood very well how hard it was to bring up and remember in detail the most painful memories, so they didn’t interrupt Anatis with any comments of the kind ‘it must have been hard for you’ or ‘we understand how you must have felt’. They knew from the first-hand experience that no matter how honestly spoken, such words would most often be interpreted as petty and shallow.

As for Sinra, even though he had no experience in listening to anyone’s deeply hidden, personal stories, he was tactful enough not to urge Anatis on or to try to console him. After all, the two of them had met only an hour ago or so. It really would be out of place for him to be all empathetic and supportive towards Anatis.

“If this was all to it, then it wouldn’t really be that bad, but…” Anatis said in a weak voice. He really didn’t want to speak about it… but since he already started telling the story, he collected himself and kept going.

“Not even a minute afterward, my uncle, the clan leader rushed into our quarters with his private guards. He shouted for my mother to take her kids and run as fast as possible, saying that Einrah took his subordinates over and ordered them to massacre our family.”

“When uncle and his guards went to delay the Elders and Core Disciples of the Twin Phoenix School, mother took me by hand and rushed to my siblings’ rooms. She told me to get my little sister while she went to pick up my newborn brother. We met in the hallway a dozen seconds later… but it was already too late.”

“A group of Elders and a few Core Disciples entered our quarters at once and blocked any path of escape. Uncle and the others… they fought, but how could they match-up against powerful experts Einrah brought with him? They bought but twenty or thirty seconds of time, and that was only because their opponents weren’t in a hurry.”

“I could only watch how my mother tried to fight them off, but was easily subdued. She might have been able to put up more of a fight… but she was still weak from giving birth to my little brother.”

“One of the Elders ordered his pupil to go and kill ‘the two unnecessary brats’. My little sister was torn away from me, then I was pushed away onto the floor. The youth simply roused his Qi and released the golden flames, turning both of my siblings into ashes.”

As he spoke of it, tears began glittering in Anatis’s eyes. It had been six years… but this whole time, he had been bearing the hatred and resentment in his heart. To him, these events might have as well happened yesterday; he would never be able to forget them… nor would he want to forget them.

After all, if he did then he wouldn’t know upon whom to extract his revenge. The Elder, that pupil of his… Einrah… everyone from the Buare City’s branch of the Twin Phoenix School. He would bear with it and lay in wait until the day he would become powerful enough to eradicate them all.

The ominous thoughts caused Anatis to unconsciously rouse his Qi, which oozed from his body dangerously and emanated the aura of the Aspect of Wrath.

“They dragged my mother and me before Einrah, basically throwing us onto the street before his feet. I remember that I was trembling, weeping and shrinking away, hoping everything around me was just a nightmare.”

“I know that Einrah had some kind of conversation with my mother, but I can’t recall much of it. The only thing I know is that the whole time, Einrah’s voice seemed to be calm, but at the end, he suddenly became furious and swept with the back of his hand at my mother’s head… and shattered it into a mass of flesh and gore…”

“Seeing my siblings killed had filled me with fear, but by that point, I was too shocked to be scared anymore. When Einrah killed my mother, I instead started feeling really angry… Without thinking, I attacked him as the Wrath overcame me, but he knocked me unconscious with a light tap of his hand to the back of my neck.”

“When I woke up, Ninrah was already there. There was the whole thing with me lashing out and attacking him because he didn’t want to ‘help me’ and do something about Einrah… the whole thing about me being forced to remain in Einrah’s branch of the school… but that’s not important for this conversation anymore,” Anatis said resignedly and wiped the tears from his eyes, then closed them and leaned back in his chair, trying to calm down and relax.

Surprisingly for him, the Aspect of Tranquility within his soul grew considerably stronger as he experienced the process of shifting from extreme anger and anxiousness to relative calm. Although he had no way of confirming it just yet, he also felt the foundation of the Aspect of Tranquility becoming one whole.

The extremely pleasant and calm sensation made him open his eyes and glance at Laien. By the looks of it, having this unpleasant talk brought an unexpected benefit upon him. If he were to once again fight with Laien, he would have considerable chances of victory.

“Congratulations on making a breakthrough,” Laien said with a slight smile. As another wielder of the Aspect of Tranquility, he was able to tell how the essence in Anatis’s body riled up and became stronger and purer. Also, from the story he had just listened to… he learned that most likely, he would need to lose himself to extreme anger to complete the foundation of the Aspect of Wrath. The thing was pretty obvious in itself, but nevertheless, it was nice to have a confirmation.

Sinra and Nila were fairly confused by Laien’s out of the blue statement, so they could only guess what happened. Meanwhile, Laien spoke up and changed the subject.

“I wonder if it isn’t some kind of a pattern,” he mentioned and before Anatis could get a wrong idea, explained what he meant. “I and Siana also had our parents and family killed about five years ago. The village we lived in was practically wiped out by a group of bandits,” he laid out without getting into the details like Anatis had, feeling that they all have had enough of sad and depressing stories for today.

“You mean that hardships bring birth to strong individuals?” Anatis asked curiously, having cooled down perfectly due to the brief but strong influence the breakthrough has had on him.

“Pretty much,” Laien said and shrugged his shoulders. “I mean, there probably are people as talented as us out there in the world, but they will never work as hard and as diligent, so they will never become truly accomplished,” he clarified just to put his thoughts into proper words and make sure he himself would never get conceited enough to forget about them.

Just then, the door opened and Injar walked inside with a rather troubled expression on his face. “I must agree, I’ve seen many talented youths who failed to make it big because of their laziness,” he said awkwardly, trying to get everyone’s attention away from the fact that he had been standing at the door for good ten minutes, unable to find a right timing to enter the room.

“Ekhm,” Injar coughed, failing to hide his embarrassment. He sighed in his heart and walked up to the table, then waved his hand and withdrew a few dozen of various, steaming hot dishes from his interspatial ring; including a huge plate of crabs.

Thankfully, he was spared from saying anything else as the delicious smell which began spreading out caused Laien’s and Anatis’s stomachs to growl loudly.

“Let’s dig in!” Laien said happily and picked up what appeared to be cutlets stuffed with mushrooms.

“Mm,” Anatis agreed, his mouth already full of a pancake.

The two girls exchanged a glance and chuckled quietly. They too went ahead and started eating, but without jumping at and devouring everything close to them like the two boys at their sides.

As for Sinra, he sighed a bit and joined the four in feasting. Soon, Injar did the same and for a period of time, the room was filled only with the sounds of moving tableware and munching.

“The thing that you want from me,” Sinra spoke up after everyone finished eating and now were only sipping various juices from their glasses. “Is it helping you with your revenge?” he asked simply and broadly enough to leave Anatis space to specify.

“Ideally, I would love to have Einrah killed and his branch of the Twin Phoenix School destroyed, but it wouldn’t be too realistic of a request,” Anatis said with a wry smile, but just as Sinra was getting his hopes up, he added. “If you can persuade Einrah to let me and Nila safely out of the Twin Phoenix School for good, then I will happily follow you.”

He could have guessed it, but when he heard Anatis say it openly, Sinra still felt his face sinking. Before, he might have hoped to have a reasonable argument with Einrah despite the man’s reputation, but now he had no delusions about it; even with Injar’s help, it would almost certainly be impossible for him to convince Einrah to let Anatis go. If Ninrah had failed to do so, then how would he and Injar be able to what Anatis’s biological father and Einrah’s little brother couldn’t?

“It should be doable,” Laien said with a smile, causing everyone with exception of Siana to stare at him in confusion and surprise.

“What about your martial arts, though? Without access to the subsequent scrolls, you would be unable to advance on your martial path at all,” Laien inquired, still trying to imagine Anatis’s situation in the Twin Phoenix School. Truthfully, he would have liked to learn more about what happened after Anatis had woken up back then. Perhaps he would ask him later? Yes, he probably would.

Surprised that the martial art was what Laien was worrying about, Anatis ended up replying more honestly than he possibly should have. “Ninrah provided me with all the scrolls up to the seventh levels and promised to give me the ones of eighth and ninth when I need them, so that won’t be a problem,” he explained, causing Nila to give him a scolding glance. How could he be so stupid as to reveal something like carrying priceless scrolls on himself? He was asking for something bad to happen!

“Good,” Laien nodded, smiling wryly. “I will need to ask to be sure, but I am almost certain that elder brother will help you two if I ask him to do so,” he said merrily and finished the apple juice in his cup.

“Elder brother?” Anatis asked with a slight frown. Could Laien have been referring to…?

“I mean Rudford,” Laien clarified with a laugh. He really got a bit too used to calling Rudford in this way… but he wasn’t about to stop doing so either. Honestly, all the confusion this habit of his was causing was nothing but amusement to him.

“He really would help us?” Nila couldn’t resist asking. She might have had some hoped for Laien and Siana to somehow help them, but she would never have thought Laien would claim that Rudford would personally intervene for their sake…! “You know it very likely means that your master would get into an open conflict with Einrah?” she blurted out, not trusting the clarity of Laien’s mind given his current lighthearted attitude.

“Elder brother once said,” Laien brought up with a cheeky smile. “That as he is now, only three people he knows of in the Sarkcente Kingdom can rival him; and Einrah wasn’t one of them,” he bragged, feeling very happy to have such a powerful master.

“Ho?” Injar appeared to be intrigued by this statement, but he didn’t ask Laien about who these three people were and allowed the conversation between the youths to flow uninterrupted.

“You know,” Laien spoke up again, this time giving Nila a meaningful look. “I’m not just saying so without any second thought or consideration. I realize well enough what we are discussing here, but it’s not like there won’t be benefits for elder brother if he helps you, right?” he asked, moving his gaze to Anatis towards the end.

The two quickly caught on and realized what Laien meant. Anatis was undeniably extremely talented. As long as nothing catastrophic happened to him, he would grow up to be a top-tier expert of the Sarkcente Kingdom, if not of the whole Starlight continent. In the future, there would be more than enough opportunities for him to repay this debt of gratitude.

The future potential of Anatis… yes, it was a big card. However, both Anatis himself and Nila knew all too well how few people would be willing to bet on it and help them, and how even fewer people would actually have the capacity to aid them at all. Laien was certainly doing them a great favor… but what was his reasoning? What was his motive? They had trouble believing he was doing it purely out of the goodness of his heart.

“We only met today… yet you are willing to go so far for our sake, why?” Nila asked dubiously, having seen enough of the darkness of the world to simply have faith in good Samaritans helping people for no personal gain whatsoever.

“Big brother is just like that,” Siana intersected, speaking in a casual tone. “He always does as he pleases and is quite selfish in this regard. If you need an explanation, then he must have ended up liking you after you fought and talked a bit,” she said while looking at Anatis, then chuckled as one more thing came to her mind.

“You are good looking too, so it probably helped,” she mentioned half-seriously, half-teasingly.

“Eh?” Anatis yelped accidentally. Though, he soon noticed Laien holding back a laugh and blushed, realizing that Siana was making fun of him.

“I’m not planning anything strange, you don’t need to worry,” Laien reassured, still laughing a bit as he was saying so.

“The way you kids are behaving makes one think you are discussing something as unimportant as what you are going to eat tomorrow,” Injar pointed out with a smile. Although he didn’t say so directly, he was impressed how easily the siblings made the previously gloomy and anxious atmosphere turn relaxed and merry with just a few comments.

Moreover, judging by how these two acted, it was all natural to them; it wasn’t an act or a purposely created façade, what made it all the more positive in Injar’s eyes.

“It’s better than being all stiff and serious,” Laien said and shrugged his shoulders. He liked Sinra and Anatis, so he saw no reason to be acting and distancing himself while talking with them. He simply wanted to become good friends with them and as far as he was concerned, playing someone he wasn’t wouldn’t help him with that.

“Anyway, I will ask elder brother to help you, but is leaving the Twin Phoenix School really what you want?” Laien inquired, unsure how Anatis and Nila’s circumstances looked in detail. “I might be wrong, but Ninrah seems not to be that bad of a person, no? Wouldn’t transferring you to the main sect and getting Einrah to promise to leave you alone be enough?” he suggested, wanting to at least cover all the options before making the request of Rudford.

“If Einrah really left us alone, then maybe…” Anatis mused, unsure whether it would be a good option or not. “I would need to at least talk with Ninrah about before deciding,” he said with a troubled expression, feeling guilty about making the matter more complicated for Laien who was going out of his way to help him.

“Mm, so when will you be able to talk with him?” Laien asked with a smile, not feeling like Anatis was being problematic at all. There were quite a few things he considered annoying while other people didn’t, but preparing everything thoroughly before making an important decision wasn’t one of them.

“… He is together with Einrah, so it would be hard for me to get to speak with him in private during the Grand Gathering,” Anatis said resignedly. He wasn’t quite willing to risk being dragged into seeing Einrah and being interrogated by him… but maybe he should take the gamble and hope that Einrah won’t be interested in the reason he wanted to speak with his little brother.

“Huh, then will there be any good chances to speak with those two at once? Preferably with as many people watching and listening as possible?” Laien threw the question up into the air, which was quickly answered by Sinra.

“Before the Grand Tournament, there is always a banquet which all the participants attend. If the news of Anatis getting affiliated with me and the Red Dragon School spreads, Einrah and Ninrah will be concerned enough to show up and try to address the matter,” Sinra explained briefly, at the same time confirming what the four youths were guessing since the beginning. He wanted Anatis, and most likely Laien too, to represent him in the Grand Tournament.

“Then it will be all good,” Laien said with a laugh, a few ideas as to how to deal with the two Great Masters already popping up in his head.

“As long as they don’t immediately rush over to take me back,” Anatis pointed out grimly. He wouldn’t be surprised if after learning of the matter, Einrah would take the Elders like back then and come to wherever he would be at the time to cause a scene and kill some people off.

“Wouldn’t he already be about to come here then?” Laien brought up. “We kinda did leave with Sin in a rather spectacular manner,” he said with a chuckle, causing Anatis’s and Nila’s faces to turn pale.

“I wasn’t joking when I said you are under Sinra’s, thus under my protection,” Injar reminded with a smile. “if you think only Rudford can put Einrah in check, then you are mistaken. I might not have a whole school behind my back, but I do not fear those two brothers,” he said confidently.

As far as Injar was concerned, apart from his master and that old freak, and maybe Rudford if he had made some big improvements in the recent years, there was no one in the Sakrcente Kingdom who could pose a threat to him.

The only reason he alone didn’t amount to as much manpower on Sinra’s side was because he had his hands partially tied. Some things would be overlooked due to his personal prowess and the identity of his master, but as a guardian, he wouldn’t be allowed to do something like threatening the Twin Phoenix School for Sinra’s sake.

“Are you bragging?” Sinra asked with a chuckle. It was totally unlike Injar to be speaking big about his own strength; he usually was fairly modest. Was it Laien mentioning Rudford that woke up a competitive part within him?

“Just reassuring our guests,” Injar shoved the question aside, refusing to admit that he really was feeling somewhat jealous of Rudford and of the name he had made for himself during the Great War with the Ciene Kingdom. Regrettably, he himself had been born a decade too late and had only entered the Realm of Heroes after the war had already ended, at the age of sixteen. The country then entered a hundred years long period of peace… so in the end, he never became truly famous.

“If they are worried, have them stay in your quarters. Even the Twin Phoenix School won’t dare to attack the Royal Palace and in case they do, I will stop them,” Injar suggested and gave Sinra a questioning look, then glanced at Anatis and Nila.

“I think it would be a good choice,” Sinra supported the idea, hoping that the two would also agree to it.