(TLO) Chapter 96: IronBlooded (Patreon)

From where he sat, nearly a mile away from Seth, Jabari knew the moment the child attained convergence. It was in the singing of Masamune, in the emptiness of Dainik as it repelled the ambient reia drawn to the boy from the very act. In most soul magi, a convergent skill is born from the unity of both body and reia buttressed by the reia belonging to the world around them. That was not the fate he wished for Seth. By his hand Seth would be the very description of self-sufficient.

Any reia he took from the world would be wholly intentional.

The ambient reia around the boy cried in its own way, wailed as it fled the space around him. Thirteen feet of him repelled reia and he took a hand to Masamune.

Jabari was already on the move. He walked the distance between him and the active convergence in a speed that would leave Barons in awe.

When the Guda Snake entered the space the boy had created, Seth drew.

Jabari was barely ten feet away when Masamune left its sheath. It sang through the air, blue blade glistening even in the darkness, and the boy left where he stood. The skill was akin to teleportation over a short distance. To his peers it would certainly seem that way, as though he’d simply disappeared from one spot and appeared at the edge of his reach.

But to those who were stronger, of higher authority, they would watch a boy blur over a distance, his sword cutting through the distance as he struck his opponent. To Jabari, it was gravely slower.

Seth stepped past the Guda Snake before its attack was complete, cut it twice before its jaws closed. He marked it with two vertical slashes along its eye before Masamune returned to its sheathe and came to a halt at a distance thirteen feet from where he stood.

As the world around him settled, the snake concluded its attack. Its head smashed into the dirt where Seth had been standing, broke the ground in a mild crater spreading as wide as eight feet before bounding away. Its body followed after it, raising as much mayhem as its head.

Seth was left wholly unscathed.

He completed Masamune’s sheathing with the help of his skill before his legs gave out beneath him and he fell. Jabari caught him before he hit the ground.

In his hands Seth trembled like a child going into shock. It was his body struggling to evolve from nothing more than its own will. Without the world to support it, it would draw every last shred of reia it could take from whatever part of him it could find it.

For the world it would be a show of defiance, a refusal of its aid. For Seth, it would be a lesson in pain.

But this had always been his intentions for the boy. This was not how he had intended it all those years ago when he’d taken the child—kidnapped him as he had so aptly put it—but it was a method that worked just as well. It was not necessarily better, but it was not worse either. It was just different.

There was a reason sects did not use this method. In fact, he knew of only one sect that employed this method in the evolution of their disciples into Iron. Of all of its patriarchs, none would’ve dared to do so without the support of the world’s reia.

Behind him the Guda Snake rose from the ground. In its aura he felt defiance, anger, rage. It was a snake livid at being harmed by a lesser. He knew why it raged but did not understand it. Even with Masamune the boy had barely scratched it. His attack had barely broken the surface of the scale around its eye, left two smooth lines that would no doubt heal in less than a week. Still, he allowed its disrespect in his presence. He had, after all, used it for a purpose it did not intend for itself. He had taken it from its peaceful slumber, weakened it, then set it against a child too weak to ever stand a chance against its true rank.

Society would insist he owed it an apology, recompense of some sort. When it struck, he chose to give it its recompense rather than punish it.

He did not look at it as he thought, a single word growing in his mind without care. Die.

The world squeezed around it, forced it to the will of the inevitable all things belonging to it must come to face. It fell to the floor without breath.

Recompense was too strong a word for an apology. But at least its death was painless.

Jabari took Varmei from Seth as he began trashing and lowered him to the ground. With it by his side, constantly drawing on what reia he had, he would not survive the evolution. Done, Jabari waited for the boy. He could give the boy a part of his reia, enough to bolster his reia reserves for the breakthrough, but he did not. Not yet.

He wanted the boy to struggle through it first, struggle as he had done for the past month. As he had done since he’d taken him. After all, of what point is The Struggling One if he did not struggle.

Taking Seth by the leg, he dragged him unceremoniously to the dead snake and deposited him beside it. With Varmei he drew a single line across the length of its torso and its blood spilled all over the child. It burned his skin, wisps of smoke rising where it touched it. Jabari didn’t mind the injuries it made. Weakened as he had made it, it would be a while before any part of it regained its true strength. Thus, the poison in its blood would not kill the child.

As for the injuries, they were of no consequence. Seth’s evolution would take care of it, completely renewing itself in the authority of Iron.

It was not long before the changes began. Jabari watched it happen with his spirit sense as he took a step away from Seth’s violently shaking body. He took a moment to consider the force of it and added two more steps.

The process proved slow and torturous. First, his core cycled faster, as violently as his body thrashed, overworking itself to produce more reia than any soul mage of his authority had any right to produce, for the funding of his evolution, sucking up every ounce of reia from skin, flesh, blood, bone. This forced his heart to pump faster, forcing more blood through his veins, seeking to replenish its blood with reia it had not realized the core was no longer supplying it.

It took five minutes for Seth’s core to gorge itself on every last bit of his reia. To starve the body to shrivel. Full, it exploded outwards. It flooded his reia channels in one blow, filled the boy out, flushing every inch of him. The action extended beyond the channels so that when it reached the heart, it was a cleansing wave.

The impurities in Seth did not seep out of him like most soul magi when they evolved to Iron. He was not going to be most soul magi. There was nothing slowly executive about it. In one moment he was a mess of wounds and burnt skin, in the next he was a lump of black sticky slime. He was buried in the mess of his impurities so massive he looked like a lump of stone buried beneath layers of molten lava if it were black.

Some of the black goo splashed harmlessly against the snake and some of it barely missed Jabari. Despite it, he did not flinch. He kept his attention on Seth, watching for any complications. This technique—despite being born of one already tried and partially confirmed—was wholly experimental. The boy had been introduced to the iron poison of the Guda snake too early. Then he’d been introduced to too many poisons, each one turning his blood to something more toxic than it should’ve been. The boy had only been able to function thanks to his constant healing. If not for that, his core would’ve broken before even being form and he would’ve long since succumbed to the poisons.

The bath of black impurities bubbled a few times at few places, then settled. There was no blinding light or reia shaking quake. Just a few bubbles and nothing more.

Still, Jabari gave it a little more time. He waited two minutes, and when nothing else occurred, he approached the boy.

He stood before Seth and looked to the south, through the scattering of uprooted and unscathed trees. Beyond the sea of trees, at one end of a mountain the seminary dared not go, there laid a spring. He would take the child there. So he put his hand into the mess of impurities and took Seth by the hair. It was caked in black ick already solidifying. Still, his hold was firm.

With Seth dragged behind him, he made his way to the spring.

He dragged the boy for an hour. Each minute was spent pulling him through trees and grass and stone and insects that bite and claw and chew. He did this not simply because he did not want to be stained—though that was a reason—but because he wanted the now bleary eyed Seth to know, to understand, the body he had been given. He needed him to know the physical resilience of this Iron body.

An hour into their journey Seth began struggling, thrashing like a kidnapped child should. It was a good sign. It showed his strength was returning. It seemed his now solidified core was doing its job. As good as it was, it was an inconvenience. His struggling was spreading his impurities, staining the ground around him instead of the ground upon which he was dragged. It was only a matter of time before it would begin splashing—a matter of time before he would stain Jabari. He would not have that.

With the barest shrug of intent, Jabari thought, sleep.

When the boy slipped back into unconsciousness, the stillness of his body was the only sign. Jabari paused to glance back at the boy. It was the only acknowledgement of his immaturity in what he had done. It lasted barely a moment before he turned back and dragged on.

………………………………………………………

Seth awoke to darkness.

His inability to see did not scare him. He knew his eyes remained closed. It was like waking up in the morning from a particularly deep yet unfulfilling sleep. It came with the difficulty of his eyes being caked shut by the mucus that formed around the lids while he slept. But this one, however, seemed particularly sticky. It made it a struggle to finally open his eyes. When he did the brightness of the colors around him struck him.

The world had never been this bright. The colors were declaring themselves as if children to their mother, loud and rancorous, and he forced himself to focus on other things. It was all he could do not to close his eyes.

The first thing he noticed was the absence of Masamune. Then the absence of Varmei. He pulled his mind back to find where he had lost them, hand twitching from the absence of something to hold. It told him he’d been fighting for too long. Even in the seminary he’d never reached for a sword that was not there simply because he’d held one for too long.

The first thing his mind remembered in its search through recent events was the Guda Snake, then his convergent skill. Then he remembered the blow he had struck the snake and knew it too shallow. It sent a tremor of panic through him. His panic guttered out almost immediately, succumbed by building logic. If he was alive long enough for his hand to lament over the loss of Masamune it meant Jabari had intervened.

The next thing his mind pulled to bear was a memory of pain. So much pain that he almost groaned at the simple reminiscence. It was a powerful pain. Like someone had taken his body and bent it in ways people should not bend. It was a thousand metals beaten and bent, folded, only to be beaten again for the making of a sword. It was wrong.

As if something broke at the thought, his world opened wider. His eyes did not open any larger than narrow slits but his attention widened. His awareness spread beyond the bright colors and missing weapons and painful memories. It came alive to find he was being dragged. Someone was taking him somewhere. It was against his will. But what will did he have in the land of the unconscious? Against his will was not the right phrase. Rather, it was without his consent. Worse, it was without any regard for his body. He was being dragged like a piece of decrepit old rag.

He would not allow it.

He felt for his strength and found it in his core. He pulled from it in sharp breaths and it responded easily. It filled him slowly. He did not like the speed, but he took what he got. When it was sufficient, he struggled against his captor. It could’ve been Jabari but the priest had never treated his body so savagely, so pathetically. Pulling him by the hair was the blatant height of disregard. Jabari might not regard him very much, but he did not disregard him this blatantly. Then he thought of the Guda Snake. He thought of the possibility that he was still in a fight, that Jabari had not intervened simply because there remained a chance of a fight. His body responded as had been ingrained in him the past few years. So he fought.

He thrashed and struggled. He called forth more from his core and felt it reach through his reia channels. Strength returned to him. It was not much, but it was enough.

In his struggle, he reached for his hair where he was pulled and fainted.

Seth woke again, this time with a jolt, shocked by what he did not know. It took him the briefest moment to realize he was soaring through the air. He had been thrown, that much was easy to tell. But whatever had thrown him had not done so with enough force. It meant he still had some command over his body. With an instinct given birth to in the last month being thrown and flung by opponents many times his size, his body forced to right himself. When it failed, he knew why.

Whatever strength he’d gained before fainting was gone.

There was only one thing to do. So he accepted his fate. The pain of his impact would be devastating, but he’d fallen enough times to know this time would not kill him. So he firmed his mind, called upon his will, and braced for impact.

It came soon after.

When he hit his destination it was not solid. It did not fight his muscles or beat his body. He hit it with a splash, submerged in water too hot to be a river. For a time long enough to say a short word his mind plagued him with the insanity of being boiled alive. He fought against that fate. His body honed from years of swimming righted itself easier in the water than when it had attempted it in the air. Before long his hands and feet paddle him to the surface.

He broke it to a breath of fresh air and a surprising presence.

Jabari was squatted at the edge of what was a steamy pond. He had one hand tucked into it, swirling it. From it ran a stream of black ichor.

Jabari looked up at him then withdrew the hand. “Welcome back,” he said. “You survived.”

Schooling his mind from all the thoughts and panics of the last few seconds, Seth asked calmly, “Were you trying to drown me?”

Jabari cocked a questioning brow at him. “It would seem the seminary has not tried to drown you in all the time you’ve been there.”

“And why would you say that?”

“Because if it had, you’d know that if I wanted to drown you, I’d be there with you, making sure your head stayed under.”

Seth glared at Jabari, then let it go. Floating in the water, he turned his attention to himself and almost retched.

“Yes,” Jabari said from where he was still squatted. “You reek of something putrid. You are in there to wash yourself as best you can.”

“Yes, Reverend,” he mocked, scrubbing away at the black liquid he now noticed was caked to his skin. He raised a black forearm towards Jabari and asked: “Am I still poisoned?”

“No. The poison is gone from your system, expelled on your evolution to Iron.”

Seth paused, taken aback by the information. He’d been told it was the aim. But Iron in six months of being souled? In the academy he would be called a genius.

“Still,” Jabari continued, “your blood and reia have reacted as intended. They have taken up the characteristics of the strongest poison to infest them.”

“What of the other poisons; what happened to them?”

“Nothing useful. I only had you go through them to weaken your resistance to the strongest one.”

“The Guda snake’s,” Seth finished darkly. “So its poison runs through my veins.”

“Of course not. That would mean you’re still poisoned, and you’re not. The characteristic you gained was a thicker blood and denser reia.”

“Isn’t that basically the symptom of the iron blood poison?”

“It is.” Jabari stood up. “But that is now simply, and wholly, the characteristic of your blood and reia. They are denser and harder to move. But your cycling is stronger, and so is your heart.” He shrugged. “It balances out.”

“So… I’m okay?”

“Yes, you are. You’ve advanced into Iron. In most lands each type of Iron body has a name. I’ve heard of one called the dragon’s breath Iron body known for its strength against fire. There is the Wind laced Iron body known for its dexterity—”

“You’d think it would be known for its speed,” Seth said.

“—There is the Mountain Iron body known for its strength,” Jabari continued, ignoring the interruption. “I had intended to give you the Wind laced Iron body. It would’ve worked well enough for my intents. But I guess this will suffice just as well.”

Seth waited a moment after Jabari had fallen quiet, hands still scrubbing at the black liquid sticking to his skin. When the man seemed adamant to speak no further, he was forced to go hunting for the answer to his curiosity.

“What of me?”

“What of you?” Jabari asked.

“What’s my Iron body called?”

Jabari shrugged. “It was forged from constant poisoning but is mainly focused around the poison of the Guda Snake. Like I already told you, its main symptom is referred to as having blood like iron.”

“I understand all that.” Seth waved his hand in a hurrying gesture. “So what’s it called.”

A look passed Jabari’s face that he couldn’t quite name as the man said, “You truly have forgotten your fear of me.”

Something in the way he said it sent a shiver through Seth, and he paled. His hand stopped scrubbing.

“I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad one,” Jabari mused. “Regardless,” he continued, “there is only one sect I know of that grows their children into Iron with a similar technique. Fortunately, as strong as they are, they don’t really have a name due to their lack of popularity. And the body they gain is incomplete, even by their standard. They are called Bloodcursed on account of some of the issues they encounter at higher authorities. But you’re not the same. What you are is complete, thoroughly fashioned, though improvised.”

“So what am I?” Seth asked, fearful. Bloodcursed didn’t sound like something he wanted to be.

Jabari looked at him in a daze, as if wondering why he even had to ask.

After a moment he seemed to give up. When he answered, it was in a tone that said he only gave it because Seth had asked. As if there was no point to even naming it.

“You’re Ironblooded.”