Chapter III: Swords Temple

Demonic Wildlands Near the Great Plateau

Month of the Garuda 16, 172 ,328 DE

When I reach the base of the trail to the Escarpment, the Demonic Cows are gone, but their broken horns litter the ground. Even if it is Demonic, a stupid cow is a stupid cow. The only purpose they serve is to be food.

From the tracks of the Demonic Cattle herd, after playing who's tougher with the boulders and the cliff, they never managed to figure out that they could get onto the trail at its foot. They just milled around like stupid cattle tend to do then headed south again. There are no signs of them coming back north in the area.

After digging my pack out of the hollow beneath a tree, where I left it yesterday, I head east at a fast jog. Staying away from the trails left by common animals and Ferocious Beasts alike, I wend my way through the trees. It slows me down, but I can still cover twenty to thirty kilometers in an hour.

As I travel east, I catch the scent of numerous predatory Ferocious Beasts. Some of the Beasts catch my scent at well, but we avoid one another. While there are dumb animals that are stupid enough to commit suicide by Raymon, whether above or below the Eastern Escarpment, very few Ferocious Beasts near Shizukana Gake will tangle with me. Ferocious Beasts are much smarter than you average dumb animal. Of the ones that are stupid enough to still fuck with me, the ones that are strong enough to kill me are too slow to catch me, and I can kill the rest of them .

Nearer to the Swords Temple, I catch wind of a dozen or more Demonic Beasts, but the strength of the Chaos corruption in their scents is on the weaker side. They should be first generation Demonic Beasts that have only recently been corrupted. The second generation and beyond Demonic Beasts are the ones that tend to be the most dangerous. With them, the Chaos corruption has settled deep into their Souls, and they tend to have much greater Power than the first generation Beasts.

While I have seen a few first generation Demonic Beasts that are corrupted and have great Power, they do not stay in the vicinity of the Eastern Escarpment. Even if they do not enter the killing range of the Watch Towers, they suffer enormously from the constant pressure of the Watch Towers' repulsion fields. The stronger the Demonic Beast, the stronger the effects of the repulsion field and the larger the killing radius for the Watch Tower. According to Old Man Jones, each of the Watch Towers has a maximum effective range of around a hundred kilometers give or take.

However, Old Man Jones calls the Watch Towers' range sixty or so miles. The Great Plateau has more than a dozen systems of measurement, and he, normally, uses the standard system, which he says is closest to the system he grew up with. He hates the scientific system and only uses it for Engineering or other scientific applications.

The Swords Temple sits on the outer edge of the Watch Towers area of influence, but it has its own defense. Entering the huge glade where Life built the Swords Temple, I pause and stare at the huge ash tree rising almost three kilometers into the sky. Despite its height, which is greater than the top of the eastern edge of the Great Plateau, no hint of the great tree's existence can be disceenred from the top of the Eastern Escarpment. If one were to climb to the tops of the surrounding trees, as long as one was outside the glade, it would still be impossible to see the great tree. The tree was left by Life to watch over the Swords Temple, and the two swords the temple was built to house. I assume that the tree is what keeps the Demonic Beasts at bay.

In the depths of my Soul, I feel the tree welcoming my presence, along with its love

"Hello, old tree. I'm back again." I grin up at the tree.

The trees leaves rustle in a discontented manner. The tree hates when I call it old.

According to Old Man Jones, he witnessed Life create both the Swords Temple and the guardian tree from nothing. Though, more than a hundred and seventy thousand years ago, the tree was nowhere as big as it is now. She was the creator of the entirety of what he calls the Second Metaverse, a well nigh infinite collection of Realms. This world and the Realm where it resides are a part of the Second Metaverse, or so sayeth Old Man Jones.

I am not sure how much I believe about Old Man Jones' Metaverse origin concept. It comes from the texts and grimoires of the ancient War Masters, and according to Old Man Jones, they were all followers of Life and Death. I have learned enough to know that their views on things were probably heavily slanted by their beliefs. However, my mother did tell me the Dragons came from a Realm that lay beyond our Realm. I do not doubt that there are more Realms than our own, but I am not sure that I buy the idea that one woman created them all.

According to both my mother and Old Man Jones, my ancestor was the Universe Mother of this Realm. Born at the origin of the Realm, she was the first Great Wolf and shaped this Realm and its laws. When the Dragon Gods of the Celestial Court invaded the Realm, they killed or sealed the Great Wolves along with the Realm. Since my mother never returned from leading the Dragons away form Old Man Jones and myself, she is either dead or sealed once more. I may be the very last of the Great Wolves.

Standing at the foot of the giant ash, the Swords Temple is a circular building, seemingly carved from a single block of black stone. With a diameter of barely more than a hundred yards, the temple is dwarfed by the tree behind it.

While I cross the glade, I admire the carvings of trees, plants, birds, animals, fish and insects that cover the exterior of the temple for the umpteenth time. I had already stopped counting the number of times I have come to this glade years ago, but I come at least two or three times each month to read the inscriptions of the Scripture of Origin that line the interior walls of the temple.

As I enter the Swords Temple, the noise of the outside world disappears. Whether the susurrus of the wind, the calls of animals and birds, or the noise of insects, once you cross the threshold of the temple's entry, none of it can be heard. Total silence reigns inside. Spoken words are muted, and no matter how loud I might try to make my footsteps, they would still sound soft and hollow.

When you stand facing the center of the temple, the Scripture of Origin begins to the left of the entry. With the exception of the doorways cut into the circular wall and a small section directly next to the entry, lines of small script cover the fifteen meter high walls from ceiling to floor.

Evenly spaced around the temple, five doorways lead to small rooms with specific Scriptures for the individual stages of the Scripture of Origin. The Scriptures for Body Forging, Mind Forging, and Soul Forging are all in the first room on the left.

The ceiling of the temple looks like a star-filled night sky, but the stars on the ceiling are not the stars that we see in the sky overhead. I do not know what or where that sky might be, but I have always felt that it exists somewhere. Though not bright, the stars on the ceiling provide enough illumination that even a common human could read the Scripture without the need for a torch or lamp.

Looking at the center of the temple, a block of midnight black metal has twos swords embedded into it, making an X. One has a black blade with silver edges, and the other has a silver blade with black edges. Made of blue-green metal, each sword's guard looks like a flattened S , with the blade impaling the middle of the S. The furniture on the hilts appears to have been carved from ivory for the silver blade and obsidian for the black one. The pommels of both blades are discs about two inches in diameter. In the center of both discs is a taiji symbol. Despite being flat circles, no matter what angle I look at the swords from , the taiji always retains the same orientation in relation to my point of view.

The swords were placed into the metal by Life. I have tried pulling them out time and time again, but I have never made them budge so much as a millimeter. Even though, I know several sword styles, I am not a sword user. I do not like swords, so I am not sure why I keep trying to pull these two out. Something about these particular swords just seems to have sunk hooks into my Soul, and I can never forget about them.

After making my obligatory attempt to pull out the swords, I start reading the Scripture of Origin from the very beginning.

Forge the Body

Forge the Mind

Forge the Soul

Open the Realm

Bind Trinity

Claim the Elements

Fuse the Elements

Complete the Realm

Transcend the Self

Stand against the Primal Powers, an inviolate Realm to last for Eternity

Memories of my fist time seeing the Scripture drift through my Mind. As a three year old child, I was able to read it immediately upon seeing it, even though I did not know how to read and write before reaching the glade. When I saw the preamble of the Scripture, I felt those words were meant for me and me alone.

* * * * *

After my mother led the Dragons away, we had walked for days before reaching a huge glade with a giant tree and a round stone building.

Feeling the joyous welcome from the tree, I stopped dead and stared up at it. As knowledge of languages I had never heard poured into my mind, I stood fascinated.

"Brat, don't just stand there. Get a move on."

Shitty Old Man Jones' yell drew my focus back to the world around me. The flow of knowledge was cut off, and I growled at him. With one more glance up at the huge tree, I raced across the glade and entered the building on Shitty Old Man Jones' heels.

As soon as I saw the temple, I stopped and stared up at the star covered ceiling, but Old Man Jones headed straight for the sword in the middle.

Even though I was only three years old and never learned to read and write, w hen I saw the preamble, I knew how to read it. I had been taught the language by the giant tree. Turning to my left, I read the preamble and knew I needed to read the contents of the Scriptures for Body Forging, Mind Forging, and Soul Forging.

By the time Old Man Jones' realized I could read the Scripture of Origin, I had already started practicing the Scriptures of Body, Mind, and Soul Forging. He blew a gasket on the spot and bitched about not playing with things I did not understand for the next month.

* * * * *

No matter how much the shitty old bastard may want to say thirty-seven days is not a month, he let slip that on his home world, a month only had thirty days give or take.

While reading the Scripture of Origin, I do not pay attention to the passage of time, but when I reach the door to the first room, I stop and go outside to find the sun has already passed the midpoint in the sky.

Most of the glade is filled with Precious Herbs, and every one of them is useful for one stage or another of the Scripture of Origin. Old Man Jones claims that he is only a half-assed Alchemist, but his standards for quality are more than a little warped. He is without doubt the best Alchemist in Shizukana Gake, and he says that he has never seen more than a third of the Precious Herbs in the glade. Neither Ferocious Beasts nor common animals dare to touch them. Demonic Beasts would probably eat them in a heartbeat, but n o matter how weak or strong they may be, they cannot even enter the glade. As a result, I have an almost unlimited supply to serve my needs.

Wandering through the glade, I pick the herbs that I need and ignore the rest. Some I no longer need, and others I do not have a use for as yet. I only collect enough for a month's supply. Since the herbs have a very limited shelf life, there is no point in being greedy. I can come here for more whenever I need to.

The wind shifts and a new scent reaches my nose, a spicy scent reminiscent of cinnamon. I cannot claim to be overly fond of cinnamon, but the instant I smell the new scent, my mouth starts to water. I am drooling over the smell of a plant? I normally only drool over meat. What the fuck?

Following my nose, I find a red-leaved bush I have never seen before. Nestled between the roots of the guardian tree, the bush should never get much sunlight, but it still has lush leaves and clusters of berries the size of the ball of my thumb, with a deeper red color than its leaves.

Picking one of the berries, I break the skin and sniff it. The rich cinnamon odor intensifies, and I cannot smell anything poisonous. Popping the berry in my mouth, I bite into it and a mixture of sweetness and spiciness fills my mouth. Despite the berry's smell, there is not even a hint of cinnamon in its flavor.

After chewing and swallowing the berry, a rush of Power spreads outward from my stomach, and my entire body feels invigorated. My muscles feel stronger and crackling sounds emanate from my joints and bones. At the same time, the minimal Mana in my Body seems to dissipate by a slight but noticeable amount.

"Good stuff." With genuine smile as opposed to my normal smirk, I pluck all the clusters of berries from the bush and drop them into my pack.

With my supply of herbs replenished and the sun more than three-quarters of the way down to the Eastern Escarpment, I set out to the west.

‎