Blade
His real name was something generic. He went by Blade.
He was a Level Five cultivator, but he didn’t have a very good cultivation method and had probably done a lot of damage along the way. The odds of him improving his cultivation from here weren’t very good, but he’d heard rumors about Ethan Zhou—and how he could work miracles.
The Master’s Guild, one of the few mercenary guilds that operated out of Solocrin, actually worked quite a bit with the Lady Yalin of the Zhou household—mostly augmenting guards when she was trying to get specialty items to the main house or specific magic items for glyph work. Her own son—though very few people knew that—actually worked with the guild as a spearman. He was more of the adventurer type (fighting monsters) than the mercenary type (fighting people), but few people knew that. Blade had always wondered by Tylin didn't simply join the Zhou house guard, but he never asked as it really wasn't his business.
Blade. like most low level mercenaries., had never met Vivian Li or Liu Anmei of the Emberflower Pavilion. He had seen Marissa Lin in Path Icon reels and MageNet discussions, and everyone knew who Princess Sophie Virelyn was. But the fact that she was here and not veiled was about as crazy as drinking fire ale on the summer equinox. She was here with no royal guard, unviled for what seemed like a scholary trip.
It made zero sense.
But he didn’t make it a big deal. Professionals don’t make a big deal. He and his men were professionals.
It was easy not to discuss or judge. It was hard not to stare.
Blade knew some beauitful woman. Solcarin was a basically a pleasure town. Made for the indulgence if nothing else. (It did have some shipping for trade as well) But there were beautiful woman, then there was Vivian Li and Liu Anmei, who were two of the Four Great Beauties of the Empire—women known for their looks, poise and cultivation. These woman were on a completely different plane of existence than just about any other female in the Empire. Hell the world.
So much so it was hard to even look at them without losing track of yourself,
The Princess wasn't any better; Sophie Virelyn was forever rumored to be a beautfy on par with the Four, and though she hadn’t been seen without her veil in public for many years the rumors persisted. Well Blade could testify, and would to anyone who would listen when they got back, that the Princess was indeed on par with the Four. Though why she was walking around now without her veil seemed stupid in this circumstance. Blade wasn't exactly a smart man but thatdevelopmeent seemed to have a lot to do with the way Vivian Li and the Princess were constantly arguing about Vivian’s husband, Ethan.
Ethan Zhou, his name was all over the Empire these days. He was the enigmatic figure who took the world by storm. The guy had so many rumors attached to his name he might as well be mythological though Blade had a inkling that it was more than a little fluff and circumstance.
The interesting thing was that The Twins, the Zhou daugthers, were actually his sisters. Speaking of the twins, they were gorgeous little things themselves. Polite and beautiful and soft-spoken until they weren't. They acted and moved with grace and poise. They had a sort of dry sense of humor and were nice to everyone even his rough and tumble mecerianes. Add in Marrisa Lin and the Aid Elizebeth and you had a group of fascinating women.
That being said, they were now being hunted by some of the most ruthless and scary beings Blade himself had ever heard of. He had fought with many of the different mortal races., including orcs who were not as isolated and Orcs that were painted Red and a sword wielding demon touched humanoids that he didn't have a name for. Worst of all was the Murai who might be the strongest single person Blade had ever seen in person. He knew that there were plenty of stronger culivators in the Empire. But they weren't here.
His job, as well as his comrades’, was to protect the group of noble woman. That’s what they got paid for. That’s what they signed up for. And they were going to do their job.
“The barges are ready,” Linen said as Blade was stuck in his thoughts.
“Are you ready to actually navigate the thing?” Blade said in response.
Old man Linen—a man that was probably ten years his senior and only a Level Three cultivator, but who had more experience in survival and trails and fighting than anyone Blade had ever met—was something of an older brother and a bit of a mentor. Linen never really figured out the ins and outs of cultivation, but he was one of those people who fought with the determinaion of a berserker and the precision of a duelist. Best of all, he used every bit of mana he possessed to its absolute extreme. He was one of the few people that Blade knew that had beaten people above him by more than one level. Quite the accomplishment actually.
“Yes, we think we have it. Though, Blade, we don’t really know what to expect on the way back. If there are orcs watching from the overlook of the river path as we pass, it’s going to be a problem.”
Blade gave him a soft smile. “I’m counting on it, Linen. We are the distraction at this point for three of the most important nobles in the Empire,” Blade said, gesturing to the women who were probably fifty yards away, packing up their own items as they got ready to flee northward. “We can’t allow the orcs and that damn Murai to catch up to them.”
His second-in-command gave him a smile. “You’re sounding awfully noble yourself there, Blade—going soft on us?”
He shook his head. “Nah, just considering what’s important.”
He called to his men—still trying not to be too loud, because they weren’t that far away from the orc encampment. Granted, five leagues away was enough. But if there were any cultivators or cultivator equivalents at Six or Seven, all they had to do was channel a little mana, and they might even be able to hear them. So instead of calling out, whistling, and getting everybody moving, he called for the people nearest to him and told them they were going to be barged up in ten minutes.
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His men listened.
Twenty mercenaries on two of these crazy water striders. Blade marvel at the contraptions. They were some of the most clever spellwork and design he’d ever seen. Barges that could go downriver and upriver, on their own power, feeding on ambient mana. It was incredible technology. He wondered if this was how the flying carriages worked, or the horseless carriages that people seemed to favor so much today. His mercenary guild did a lot of escort missions, but most of those carriages were transportation carriages and used animals as opposed to magic. The ones that didn’t use animals had a complicated sort of fuel cell area where mana crystals or charging apparatus for individuals who feed the mana system and had a bevy of machincs that allowed the carriage to be steered and controlled. The systems were difficult, clunky and completely inefficient—so merchants used animals and were thankful to do so.
But this strider mechanism was ingenious and worked really, really well. Before they knew, Blade and his men were gathered on the decks of the two barges. The Princess and her entourage actually saw them off. Thanking them and wishing them save journey.
And then Blade and his mere were off the barges whispering as they cut through the black water—thin, rune-fed things riding the river having no business carrying the weight of twenty mercenaries and their hope.
Not long after the trees and peppled in-lets gave way to sheer cliffs that went high into the area. They men and woman on the barges went quiet.
Blade crouched at the bow, eyes scanning the few areas where the sheer cliffs allowed for sandy beaches and banks. The moonlight flickered on his armor and the water. He wasn’t afraid—not exactly—but there was a gnawing weight in his chest that wasn’t going away.
This wasn’t a mission. It was a message. I had to be. Had to be a noise loud enough to make monsters look the wrong way.
He’d been in worse odds, but never with stakes like this.
The barges hummed beneath him, ambient mana spilling through etched lines like veins of liquid light. For a moment Blade enjoyed the dispaly of spell work and mage tech. Blade didn’t understand half of what made them move, but he respected good craftsmanship when he saw it.
“South bend coming up,”Linen said quietly, his scarred hands gripping the steering runes. “I can feel them watching.”
That happened faster than he was expecting.
“Good,” Blade murmured. “Let them see us.”
The current shifted, pushing against them. Behind them back at the opening of the Moon Goddess gate,, the women’s party with the Zhou family guards would heading up river toward the Upper Plains. He didn' t know they intended to go from there but hoped that . Vivian Li got them through.
“Keep your heads down,” he said, voice low but steady. “When this turns ugly, we don’t run until we make a mess big enough for them to notice.”
They rounded the bend. The moon bled pale silver on the cliff faces as the sheer walls reached higher in the air.
Then came the sound the orcs trap came into view. On one of the few places, one of the few in the ravine that allowed passage to the passures on the top of these flat tops mountains the was a wood sort of barrier that looked like a cross between a beverer dam and a death banter. Blades face went cold as hundreds of orcs came into view apparently just wait.
Blade didn't waste a second "Casters Light them up"
One of the few places in the ravine that allowed passage to the high plateaus—the only path that led upward—had been blocked. A rough barrier of timber, stone, and bone stretched across the choke point. It looked half like a beaver dam and half like a fortress. Red sigils burned faintly along its surface. Hundreds of orcs stood behind it, waiting.
Blade’s face went cold.
“Casters!” he barked. “Light them up!”
Mana flared. The night split open as the mercenaries unleashed their first volley—fire glyphs, shock wards, rune grenades—streaking through the dark and exploding across the barricade. Orcs screamed. Wood splintered. The smell of burning oil and mana ash filled the air.
“Get us to ground!” Blade shouted. “We can’t fight on water!”
The barges scraped hard against the shallows and hit the bank. The mercenaries jumped into knee-deep river mud, forming ranks as the orcs roared from the cliffs. Some were already climbing down, claws sinking into rock, eyes glowing red.
“Shields up! Archers—suppressing fire!”
The first wave hit them like a landslide.
Orcs in black-iron armor crashed into their line, blades glowing with sick red light. A Demon Sword Squad; they were the stuff of legends —human cultivators twisted by demonic pacts, their weapons alive with parasitic spirits. Each carried a cleaver that hummed like it was breathing.
“Hold the line!” Blade roared.
He met the first one head-on, parrying a strike that cracked his arm to the shoulder. The sword squad member's sword shrieked, spitting sparks. Blade countered, driving his blade through the thing’s neck. The blood hissed like acid where it hit the ground.
Linen fought beside him, his spear weaving like lightning, punching through an an opponent's chest before another leapt onto his back. The air filled with shouts, screams, the thunder of spells detonating off stone.
The ground began to tremble.
“Captain, more coming from above!” someone shouted.
He looked up. A dozen more shapes—armored silhouettes descending from the ridge, wings of black mana flaring behind them.
“Pull back to the ledge!” Blade yelled. “Make them climb for it!”
They scrambled higher up the slope—broken ground that led toward the split pass between the cliffs. The thread of the old trail shimmered faintly with residual glyphs, half-active mana lines from ancient construction. The higher they climbed, the narrower the path became.
“This is it!” Blade shouted. “We hold here!”
They formed a half circle around the narrow entrance, every blade and charm they had aimed toward the slope below. The orcs poured in after them—climbing, snarling, swinging those cursed blades that seemed to drink the moonlight itself.
For every one they cut down, two more crawled up from the river. The mercenaries were running dry—mana burned out, talismans cracked, blood slick on their armor.
Blade caught sight of Linen falling to one knee, his spear shattered, his chest plate crushed in.
“Go,” Linen rasped. “Get out—warn—”
Blade didn’t let him finish. He turned back to the slope, teeth bared. “No one’s getting out, brother. But we’ll make damn sure they remember where we fell.”
He drew the last charm from his belt—a red flare sigil carved with unstable mana. The kind you weren’t supposed to ignite within fifty meters of a ley line. He jammed it into the ground, let it catch, and felt the world lurch.
“Fire in the heart!” he shouted, voice breaking.
The sigil detonated. The cliffs blazed white. Demon touched humans and orcs alike screamed as molten light tore through the ravine. The barrier burned.
The last thing Blade saw was the river turning to steam and the cliffs glowing like iron in a forge.
Then the mountain came down.
At dawn, only a scar remained—an open wound in the crevase where the path upward had stood. The area was foreverr changed the river rerouted by molten stone, and the orcs that had held the pass were ash.
High above, far from the ruin, a faint glimmer of light moved northward o the river—Vivian’s party making their way toward the Upper Plains, probably unaware of the price that had bought their silence.