Dead Moors,

Wagons,

Sensing the powerful burning of Chi come rushing past, the palace guards turned their glaive polearms on the blur that was Kido. The pompous fools were too slow and the most they could do was yell out warnings in his passing.

The lowlier brown robe servants had stood a far greater chance of hindering him with their crossbows but were too focused on maintaining the pony’s rhythm as they picked up the pace again. The calming effects of the relic whistle were effective but short, and the animals strained against each other as much as they did the reins.

It didn’t even look like the idea occurred to them as they clutched on tightly.

At least they behaved their station. There he is!

The lead waggoneer looked back in shock as anger and then fear splayed across his face in the few seconds it took Kido to reach him. Not caring one bit for his stuttering protests, he did however add the man’s ridiculous hat of office to the chopping list on impulse.

“What do you think you are doing? Stop.”

Too late for that, he had to pay.

Kido hurtled through the air as the driver rose from his seat, cursing and reaching for a locked compartment beneath it. The shouting had given the drivers guards plenty of warning, but thankfully there only appeared to be one hanging on to the side, inching his way forward. Chances were there was another on the other side too, but neither would reach him in time to still his blade.

“ Damn you Preafect! I command you to…”

With a splash of blue and orange, cored blades clashed on impact and the sweet sound of metal rang out. The force of the blow jarred the driver's hastily drawn sword wide and as Kido felt it go, he loosened the grip on his left. Delivering an empowered punch straight to the man’s face and smashing him onto his backside. Laying the wretch out prone just as his feet touched down on the racing wagon.

Razor studded gauntlets had carried the force of the blow even further and if the waggoneer had risen, it would have been on shaky legs. He could take the fool's head right now, but there was a righteousness in this moment and he chose to savour it.

Only proper to educate this pyeanchi of his station in his last moments. The idiot saw me coming and didn’t even activate his core, just his blade.

It gnawed at him. By not drawing on his core, it had guaranteed his loss.

What good was the sharpest blade in an infant’s hands?

Raising his head, the stunned driver worked his jaw gently looking about for his blade. Too dazed to speak. His silence suited Kido just fine as he too took note of the fallen blade, and what a pretty piece it was too. Two Master crafted blades.

Who in the Nine was this guy?

Reaching for it the palace guards finally arrived. Swinging off from the sides of the canopy, they levelled their spears at him yelling and screaming. Essentially cutting him off from grabbing the driver’s blade.

“Drop it! Drop it now, filth!”

As suspected, there had been another clinging onto the other side of the wagon. In hindsight, he should have said something fancy, but was still too angry to form a coherent sentence. Instead, he just leveled his Katana at the pair, silencing their pathetic bluster.

Activating the blade's core once more, he poured some of his own Chi into it causing the guards to falter as the blade sheened a dark neon blue. Trained in the spear, he was confident in winning this fight just as easily. The guardsmen had quickly closed in on him, essentially granting the swordsman the upper hand in this tight space. Then soon realised their error in the glow of a Master blade.

“STOP IT! All of you. Get back to the rear, you useless mouth breathers or you’ll be my next test subjects. And you. Cease your flame this instant!

The guards turned and fled which surprised Kido to no end.

“You don’t get to talk to me like that wagon man,” he growled. “I don’t care who…”

“For the love of Izumi!” The driver went full unhinged, but he wasn’t looking at Kido. “Turn your off core now!”

Hearing Giver’s real name spoken out loud and in such a manner shocked him. This was no monk to make such an utterance, but the blasphemy did bring him out of his mindless rage.

Shi-bal.

Panicking, Kido realised his error at once and snuffed his core out. But the terror in the driver’s eyes rooted him to the spot as he looked over his shoulder.

He felt it too.

Behind the convoy came a devastating crash of water as the river itself seemed to be spilling out of the mists. Followed by another terrifying roar.

Closer this time.

With a meaty thud, the ground shook as the Imoogi slammed hard onto the banks. With the cries of pitched battle still thick behind the convoy, Kido nearly had a heart attack as a giant serpent head, crowned in jagged exoskeleton, suddenly pierced the mists. She was trying to escape the river.

“What have you done?” Wailed the driver.

At that moment Kido felt his soul waver, realising that she was searching for the source of Chi from moments ago. He felt the instant weight of her gaze locking onto him, slowing time to a crawl as the confused look of the mother Imoogi shifted into one of absolute rage.

The hair on his arms rose as he understood, she knew exactly where her entire brood had been taken.

“You fool,” the Driver whispered. “You’ve killed us all.”

Raising her head high she flicked a forked tongue with sparks going off, tasting the air for the confirmation she sought. The mother Imoogi aimed and then opened her jaws to the fleeing convoy. Her skin rippled as a blinding pearl of lightning essence began to form and crackle.

Kido gave a panicked shout as he saw the gates of the Eternal Cycle open up to him. Her eye’s paled to milky orbs as the ball of lightning coalesced into a death sentence for the entire convoy and anything else in the general vicinity.

He would have fled, leaving the wagons behind if he thought it might help. But he felt her gaze still locked onto him with weighted blame. No, there would be no escaping her “Orb of annihilation” technique.

As a child, he’d seen a lesser of it’s like before in the Tournaments. Shredder techniques ripped apart the very essence of Ki in their passing, strengthening and feeding the attack until it detonated with a mental command, or an overload.

Barely two seconds after realising his end, he hadn’t even blinked, The face of his mother and father came to him. Odd that he should have…

The savage blow struck her from behind without warning. Trying to slither after the convoy, the rest of her elongated body was still within the mists. There, her thick hide weathered a barrage of punishment from a Beast hoard of unknown abilities.

Too focused on Kido some powerful Beast, with the strength enough to pierce her hide, had cut deep. The mother Imoogi hissed in pain suddenly and triggered her technique prematurely.

Kido blinked, spellbound.

What should have been the end of the convoy, failed and warped within the mother Imoogi’s fleshy mouth. The sharp sound of elastic intestine smacking against flesh, only a hundred times louder. The mother Imoogi’s technique went off in her hissing mouth.

The explosion blasted her jaws open again, as a no longer forked tongue snaked out in a cloud of smoke that escaped her ruined mouth. Blood, fang, and the soul twisting shriek of a dying animal sprayed over the land. Kido could only stare in open-mouthed amazement as the wagon rattled along carrying him away.

Writhing viciously like a monstrous worm dug up from the soil, she flung foes from her back as thrashed about in mindless agony. Shaking her ruined mouth in a futile attempt to be rid of the pain, she gave up a pitiful stuttering groan and fell back into the swirling wall of fog.

Abandoning the convoy, her hate-filled cries were muffled by the thick mists and splashing of the Flooded River. With no lighting drawn upon he could not see what became of her as the waters stilled. Only when he heard the Beasts braying in foul celebration, did he suddenly remember to breathe.

The mother Imoogi was gone.

First Wall,

Arbillists

Watch it you mother-loving fool!

The Sargent grabbed the recruit’s arm and twisted it, eliciting a cry of pain. Poor form to lay hands on the men, he knew, but in this case, entirely justified as he ripped the burning brand out from his hand.

“By the Third, any closer to that wick and you would have lit it. Just whose side are you on? You Beast Rutter.”

The men drawn to the action unfolding beyond the walls muttered curses at the careless recruit. Rechecking themselves as the Sergeant's words broke them out of their spell.

“I’m sorry sir. I’ve just never seen an Imoogi so clear…”

“Shut it, Watchman. Lower that arm again whilst holding a brand and I will shove it up where the blisters keep you standing for the rest of your short life.”

“All of you, at the ready. Taker’s pit, you men actually think we’re waiting on those wagons to cross the border. The only thing we ever wait on is the Shogun's word. Now focus!”

Dead Moors,

Wagons,

Staring in disbelief at where the mists had swallowed the titanic monster, Kido turned sharply at the gentle scraping sound of a weapon. Standing atop the bustling wagon, the howl of the wind struck him as the rest of the world’s senses came flooding back.

Shaken, he let it wash over him as he turned to watch the waggoneer sheath his blade. Conscious of the Giver’s benevolent hand in sparing his life, he found he no longer possessed the hatred he had moments ago for this man.

Then the son-of-bitch smiled.

“By all Nine hells! Did you see that? Wheee! That one really had me going. Then, bam and then… boom! Wow, just wow. Have you ever.”

The driver burst out in a fit of laughter, forgetting himself entirely. Strands of long black hair whipped about freely as his silk robes billowed behind him like a flag in the storm. It looked like he was having the time of his life.

Madman and a bone flower addict.

Catching his bearing Kido checked on their proximity to the border posts.

Close and gaining fast, but so too were the mists that hunted them.

He almost asked if the wagons could go any faster, but bit his tongue, noticing the insolent twinkle in the madman’s eyes. Instead, he just scowled at him.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that. That was all your fault, you know?” He said rather cheerfully.

Kido ground his teeth

“And what did you think would happen when she found her nest empty? Your actions are nothing short of an attack on Qaelang and her inhabitants. Your Emperor’s own Laws demand the destruction of any Monster nests discovered.”

“Is he not yours too, Watchman?” The man replied coyly.

Kido pointedly said nothing, refusing to rise to the bait of preplanned catchphrases that went for reason these days.

This close, he could see the obnoxious fool bore enough features as to herald from the Kojeni or Aegle Houses, but not enough to determine which exactly. It mattered little but explained a lot, both were the uncontested two most powerful clans within Qaelang, since forever.

Their mannerisms lacking, and their tongues too loose. No wonder this Pyeanchi struggled with his station, it had to be a daily occurrence.

Looking closely, Kido got a bad feeling about the man before him.

There was something more to his imbecilic nature as well as the way the guards had fled at this weaklings’ words.

He’d heard the slander of foul experiments going on beneath the Palace and the execution of a renowned High School Alchemist, that persisted over a decade later.

Whilst he put little stock in the rumours of Nobles, his instincts told him there was something distinctly wrong here.

He tried to sense the weakling’s core again, this time determining its size versus the power he felt resonating within it. Just to check they matched, but it was hopeless trying to sense anything accurately with all the Ki from the Lanterns soaking the wagons.

“Well then,” he held his hand out for Kido to touch to his forehead as he kneeled. “Welcome aboard. As a member of the Divine Emperor’s personal council, I’m not accustomed to introducing myself but you can call me Master. Also, I’m going to need you to move to the back of the wagon and hang on with the guards. Not enough space for both of…”

Kido growled, slapping the offending hand away.

“I think not.”

Not in the least interested in the strange etiquettes of Nobility, he caught a glimpse of something flash behind the man’s back.

Had that been a dagger!?

Scowling he backed up into a dueling posture, resting his hand on the hilt of his blade.

The wretch actually had the audacity to appear shocked, but instead of anger, looked to the ponies and then back at Kido again. Flashing that insufferable smile as if pleased with himself.

How had this fool survived to adulthood?

“Well now, that was just rude. And to think, I just told you I answer to Divine Emperor himself. See this hat?”

Damn officials and their damn hats. How he hated them. They looked so ridiculous in the things. What next, Beast arsehole hairs for the making of laws?

“I will make this easy for you junior,” Kido spoke with the finality of command.

You will pick up those reigns and report to the loading bay after the second gate. There you will submit to an inspection, and any illegal materials found in your possession will be taken into evidence. You will further be fined for the endangerment of the Watch and the impeding of the Shogun's civic duties.

“Civic Duties.” The official barked in laughter. “The man merely dangled out a piece of cloth instead of raising it, which is the correct protocol if he wishes to play historian. No, I won’t have it. A sound alarm is the well-established proper procedure, and I won’t pander to someone who can’t even get that right.”

“You arrogant fool! He did it for you. You not only chose to ignore the Shogun's warnings, but you also then go and rob an Imoogi in the face of a Beast wave with barely a handful of servants. Where is your crack pipe, you imbecile? Now pick up those reins before we have an accident.”

“I don’t expect the likes of you to recognise genius when he sees it. Raiding that nest right before the Beast wave hit, was the perfect timing. Although, it uh… did cost me a few ladies. But by Heavens Gates. What a bargain.”

The madness in his eyes shone clearly now, his behaviour once again giving Kido that deep uneasy feeling. Unstable was now a fact, but that was the second time this crazed fool had mentioned ladies.

Was he missing something here? There wasn’t a single woman out here, not one.

I tire of your insults, junior. You will pick up those reigns and do as commanded. You have endangered all of Qaelang with your reckless antics.

“You tire of insults, yet dare voice out loud the Emperor's councilor your inferior? Then you think you can tax the Emperor's wagons of their rightful harvest?”

“Rightful? You pilfered from a monster's nest right in front of the City gates, and then you left the Watch to clean up your mess. You will pay!”

“If you’re so hard up for Kwon, you might want to consider the vast amount of wealth we just left back there.” The councilor smiled, noticing Kido’s attention. “I hereby renounce my claim to the Imoogi's corpse and pass all onto the Shoguns Preafect.”

Dammit, the fool was right, that Imoogi had been huge. If even a fraction of the materials survived, its harvest would see him set for life. Eggs were well and good but Ancient monsters’ bones were worth a fortune. A good tooth was worth its weight in metal, sometimes even superseding it.

The wail of a peasant’s life ending as he failed to outrun the mists, brought Kido back to his senses. Stepping away from the official, he held onto the Canopy awning tightly with both hands and gauged the pony’s speed.

Might just make it, if the wheels hold.

“Fear not Watchman.” The Driver smirked, completely misreading Kido’s observations.

“They know the way to the Palace, besides.” He waved off to the side, “the life of a harvester has always been fraught with peril.”

“The only peril here is that forked tongue of yours, councilor. You might want to put that dagger away before you gut your arse. We’re in for a bumpy ride.”

Kido inclined his head forward, as he held on and braced.

“Huh? What are you… Eeeeee!”

The Wagon rocked suddenly as it struck the first peasant, both man and pony crying out when the wheels crumpled his body. The councilor was hurled into the air and almost slid off the edge before gripping on with both hands. He clung there desperately treading air, screaming his frustrations as a glint sailed off into the distance.

Kido snorted, as he watched it go.

slimy pyeanchi.