[MA] 129. Honor and Morals (Patreon)

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[A/N: I didn't manage to write a third chapter this week after all. Too much stuff happening. Sorry.

2/2 this week. Next chapter on Tuesday.]

Martino nodded to the Major, who exited the kitchen and closed the door behind her, leaving the four people inside alone.

Then, he had the gall to look condescendingly at Shen. "War is not black and white, boy," Martino said. "Difficult decisions must be made for the greater good."

Shen snickered. "Don't you lecture me on War is, old man. War is in my Path; it's part of me. I am War. I understand it much better than you ever will."

"Oh, is that so?" Martino smiled coldly. "Let me ask you something, then, boy," he said, stressing the last word. "How many wars have you fought in your ample lifetime?"

Shen had used the Concept of War in many battles, but they weren't actual wars. Not between nations, or even large enough groups of people. Shen didn't feel bad for that; he had been blessedly born in the Eternal Empire, where peace and stability were abundant. Instead, he was grateful for his peaceful life.

He opened his mouth to reply, but Martino talked over him. "Let me guess: none. So let me tell you something about knowledge and experience, boy.

"You're a greenhorn who knows only victory under controlled or advantageous situations. Yeah, I heard all about your grand achievements. All luster with no substance. I found many Guardians like you who think they are fire or death or whatever because they learned something about the elements through magic and mysterious ways.

"Sorry to break it to you, but that doesn't make you truly wise in the ways of war. You're just some edgy teenager talking big words about things you could have read in a tweet. You're just a boy who memorized a lot about something you don't understand, no matter what the damn aliens might've told you.

"You've never dealt with unwilling soldiers who would rather go home than fight, never had to decide whether you would torture someone or let your imprisoned soldiers be tortured by your enemy instead, never stayed weeks without bathing because the recycled water from everyone's piss smells like the piss it is.

"I'm not talking about guessing what you would do in bad situations; I'm talking about being there and doing it. You haven't been there, haven't done it. If you had, you wouldn't spill your pathetic morality at me with such ease. You would understand the situation much better.

"Me? I was born poor and fought all my life to get where I am. War is part of me because there was only victory or death. So don't you talk about being at war with me, boy.

"We're fighting true war, not whatever you think you know. I was told you're a powerful fighter, but don't try to bite more than you can chew. Leave the important decisions to the grown-ups. You're just a child with an oversized stick, and you'd do well to remember that or stay out of my sight."

Shen heard everything in silence, then nodded and said, "If that's what you truly want, I can give it to you." He turned into a blur, and the next moment, Martino put his hands over his eyes, screaming in pain.

Shen had just pierced them and blinded the man.

"Now, you don't have to see me anymore," Shen said with his Lion's Roar, just loud enough to be heard over the man's screams.

Alicia and the General widened their eyes in astonishment.

"What did you do?!" Boisclair yelled as she started fawning over the man.

"This is a war zone," Shen explained calmly when the man stopped screaming. "He claims to know so much about war, yet he didn't foresee the stupidity of offending someone much more powerful than him in this situation?"

"Are you out of your damn mind?!" the General insisted. At least she was wise enough not to try to shoot Shen or call for help; neither would be any good. "We were talking, not killing each other!"

"In his life, there's only victory or death," Shen insisted back. "He's not dead. By elimination, I believe this counts as his victory."

That attack wasn't something Shen would usually do. However, unlike what Martino had stated, Shen was War.

Therefore, Shen understood perfectly the strategic fight happening right there.

Martino wanted to own Shen. His words were poison targeting Shen's heart and Path, to rule over Shen through a twisted tongue and gaslighting. He had tried to lead Shen's Path astray, thus making it easier to enslave Shen's will. Shen wouldn't have cared about any other offense, but claiming his Path was only theoretical and separated from him was the same as trying to cripple him.

In cultivator culture, challenging one's Path was worse than a sneak attack from your most trusted ally.

The system's blackmail chargers showed Giorgio Martino's primary weapon was his mouth. Shen had thought of arguing back for a few seconds before deciding against it. He knew better than to fight against the man on a verbal battlefield.

A fight of words wasn't just about being correct. Martino and Shen weren't in a mortal academic environment or in one of the Truthseeking Summits of the Eternal Empire where only the truth mattered. Instead, identifying and exploiting your opponent's weak spots was more important than speaking the truth. A lie was as valid a tool as any other—and often much better than others.

Indeed, whether knowingly or not, Martino had already lied to Shen.

Understanding a Concept was not the same as memorizing things one didn't understand.

Adding a Concept to one's Path meant becoming it, fully, with all it entailed. Shen's very reaction to the man saying otherwise showed it. When attacked, when placed in a conflict situation, Shen had used what he knew, what he was—War, Combat, Sharpness—to achieve victory.

Shen understood the dangers of engaging in a fight—verbal or otherwise—in a war zone much better than the self-aggrandizing idiot who claimed to also be War.

Shen also understood the need for torture in certain situations. It had been part of his Path Resolution Tribulation, and he had concluded he might just cross that line if there was a need for that. His honor wasn't more important than everything else. If he had to decide between his honor and thousands of lives, he would choose the latter.

It was terrible to admit to himself how low he was willing to go for the supposedly greater good, yet he wouldn't pretend to be someone he wasn't.

When he had Inspected Martino and Boisclair, he hadn't questioned the morality of their actions at first. They had been the ones to proactively attempt to justify the blood in their hands. The excuse they had given was pathetic, so he had pointed it out to them.

The system wasn't at fault for their actions; it hadn't forced them to kill. They might believe killing to protect the Maiden was necessary, and Shen agreed with that, but that had been their own decision. They should own up to that.

Shen hadn't come to fix everything wrong in the world; he wasn't a saint. He wasn't there to judge everyone either; that was up to Marzia. He just hated the hypocrisy, so he had pointed it out and had been ready to move on.

That had been his original intention.

However, Martino's attack made Shen reevaluate the situation.

At the end of his Path Resolution Tribulation, he had concluded that he would cross any moral bridges when he came to them. This was it, here, now.

He was standing in front of a moral bridge, at an ethical crossroad.

The people in front of him were torturers—or at least had allowed it to happen and were alright with it. Shen understood the need for torture when too much was at stake, but it was the first time he found himself face to face with such people. When he looked at them, he imagined dozens of people screaming, bleeding, and suffering because those two let it happen.

He could justify torture by his hands because he trusted his judgment to only do that when there was no way out. But could he just let a manipulative, arrogant, and dominating torturer walk free like that?

Marzia was officially the one in charge of deciding the fate of criminals, including war criminals, yet could he trust her judgment when it came to someone obviously related to her? Or should Shen become the judge in certain situations? Did being the strongest person around give him the right to decide who should be tortured and who shouldn't?

Alicia had said power corrupts; now, Shen wondered whether a higher power should be held accountable for things that existed to regulate the actions of smaller men.

The Immortal Emperor had, after all, been above all the laws he had created himself.

Were Guardians a superior caste as the Alliance suggested? Was Shen becoming some sort of superior being by growing stronger?

Shen had hated that part of the Alliance. Maybe it was simply because he had been too weak to understand the perspective of those so high above him. With power came the responsibility to make choices that weren't always obviously good or bad.

Where should his honor draw the line—or rather, should his honor draw a line?

He chuckled to himself in sadness as he thought of honor.

Shen's father had abandoned his honor for Shen. Shen had avoided thinking about that, but now he couldn't anymore. The truth was that the man had managed to betray his clan so thoroughly because of one simple fact: he had had the power to do that. He had been the strongest in the clan, one of the strongest in the entire Eternal Empire. Very few people could've stopped him even if they saw what he was doing.

In fact, it was likely that some people had detected his movements but kept quiet out of fear. What was honor in the face of someone so powerful they might as well be gods—even when compared to other cultivators?

And what was honor in the face of the life of a loved one—the situation his father had had to face when Shen's life was on the line?

More importantly, what was honor in the face of torturers?

Should Shen imprison them? Then, what? Would he spend his time watching over them? What if Marzia absolved them after she arrived; would he just accept it? Did he even have the right to blame them for doing something he might do himself one day? Maybe he should just ignore their transgressions?

Who was Feng Shen?

What did his honor demand, and how easily did he ignore it when it became inconvenient?

The inconvenience was more than feeling bad for killing a relative of the person he wanted to save. Marzia was the Human Maiden. She could sanction his Title if she wished to, making it useless to him. It was likely that she could also make his life very hard with her Decrees.

Shen thought about it all while Boischair looked at Martino's pierced eyes. The tip of his spear had barely perforated them. Just enough to blind the man.

"Don't worry, a potion will fix this," she told him.

"Are you here, boy?" the man growled in rage, ignoring Boisclair's care. "You're finished! You have no idea who I am! What I went through! The Martino family will put your skull through a spike..."

Shen shook his head. The man had really mistaken being alive for a victory. There was no changing such a person. Shen could see how Martino's entire life had been shaped by his past conflicts.

Indeed, as Martino had said, only death would stop him.

Shen took a deep breath and decided he couldn't let a monster like Giorgio Martino stay around. Letting Martino do whatever he wanted was a terrible idea, especially if he was in charge of so many people as the General had suggested.

Shen couldn't just arrest Martino and Boisclair; they were too dangerous. Martino's words were poison, and the General was entirely under his thumb—Shen could tell even with his Battle Sense inactive. Speaking of which, he activated it to analyze those two.

From Boisclair's actions, body language, words, heart rate, and even body temperature, Shen concluded that she was indeed little more than a trained hound.

As for Martino, Shen detected no doubt, no hesitation, no lies in the man's entire self. He fully believed that he was above everything and that Shen would die for his transgression. Martino saw himself as an untouchable god.

Shen could only wonder; if Martino had any sway over the Human Maiden, if he could even use a little bit of her influence to affect the world, how far would such a man go?

"I'll destroy you!" Martino screamed. "Destroy your life! I have friends, connections, power you can't imagine! You're over, boy! Over!"

'Power I can't imagine, huh?' Shen thought.

Power. It was time Shen accepted, once and for all, that his power gave him the privilege to decide other people's fates. He would keep questioning his morals to not become a monster, but he wouldn't let his questions lead to inaction.

So, now, he would kill Martino because his morals and honor demanded he do it for the greater good—even if those same morals kept questioning themselves.

He noticed how he was behaving exactly like Martino. For the greater good, he would act in a way that, isolated, could be seen as immoral. He was putting his beliefs above another person's because that was the Path he had treated and believed on.

And that was Shen's answer, the truth of his Path, the reaffirmation of himself:

If he sought absolute power, he had to be willing to use it when needed. If he sought to tread his Path to the peak, he had to be ready to crush other Paths that got in the way.

Once again, Shen turned in a blur and returned to his position.

This time, blood splashed as the heads of Giorgio Martino and Vivienne Boisclair rolled on the ground.

"Looks like I was wrong," Shen said as he looked at the falling corpses of the two people he had just killed in cold blood. "It wasn't his victory, after all."

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