Fates Parallel Interlude 2.1 - The Lost Legacy

A demon wandered a mountain aimlessly, staring up at the sky. Not the same mountain he’d been sealed in, that would be foolish, and one wasn’t wont to linger too long after a ten thousand year nap. The week he’d spent watching over those children had already been quite a risk, but his curiosity always had been a weakness. Jianmo was surprised that nobody had tracked him down yet—it’s not like he was all that good at hiding.

“Maybe that little snake kept his end of the bargain after all...”

He’d better have. That cheeky elemental had been quite the hiccup, and if those kids hadn’t stumbled on it, who knows how much longer it would have been before it weakened the seal enough for Jianmo to escape? Probably forever—those elementals were insanely smart sometimes.

He sighed as he followed along the leylines, taking in the scenery as he meandered. It was a hot summer day—not that the temperature could affect him—and the mountain scenery was quite beautiful. This was the grassy, overgrown kind of mountain with bushes and trees everywhere you looked, and no real path to follow—completely untouched by humanity.

That was because it was worthless. This mountain was like a tiny hill compared to Geumji, and while it did have some leylines running through it, it was hardly the unparalleled nexus of power he’d been sealed away in. It would still do, for his purposes—supposedly.

“I might be trusting that snake a little too much. He was way too sure of himself for such a little brat—I bet he’s still in his first millennium—and he smelled of dragons. Still, he freed me...sort of. No way he would have done that if he was working with those dumb lizards. And I don’t hate cocky little brats, anyhow.”

Jianmo chuckled to himself at the little joke. It was a silly phrase, but his master used to say it all the time, and Jianmo picked up the habit. He frowned to himself at the thought—it wasn’t like him to get nostalgic.

“Must be that cute little baby demon bringing it out of me...”

Jianmo had taken on a disciple of his own—his very first one. Well, sort of. He’d invited her to come find him, but he doubted that Qin’s brats would ever let that happen—they’d probably kill her just for trying. Still, it probably counted. Jianmo was a master himself, now. There was a non-zero chance that he might be able to pass on his own master’s techniques.

“Hahaha, as if! I barely learned a damn thing from that old geezer, and he certainly never taught me anything on purpose.”

Still, he did miss the old bastard, just a little bit. But he was gone, he’d never come back, and nobody would ever be worthy of replacing him—especially not in this trash heap of a world. Jianmo supposed that was probably the entire point—his master dies in peace, the divine realm is rid of him forever, and his influence is safely sealed away behind some garbage mortal realm that nobody cares about. Everybody wins. Everybody except Jianmo.

“Well, not for long, assuming that little snake spoke the truth.”

Jianmo reached the peak of the mountain—the very tip, such as it was. He sat down and observed the scenery with a sardonic chuckle.

“What a sad little mountain you are. Hardly any essence to speak of, a peak below the clouds, hell, I can see a taller mountain from here, haha.”

Jianmo tried to keep an open mind, but it seemed absurd that some nameless little hill like this could be what he was looking for. Still, he closed his eyes to meditate, and his domain surged outward, covering the entire mountain and most of the sky around it. Jianmo was absolutely confident in the strength of his domain. No other creature in this world knew with as much certainty as Jianmo exactly who and what they were.

He didn’t envy humans, with their horrible complexity or the spirits of this world—those poor things didn’t even know how badly they’d been wronged. Fiends—now there was a race that knew what they were about. A bit dumb, though. Elementals...well, Jianmo had always found the few that he’d spoken with to be just a bit too weird, even by his standards.

Jianmo wasn’t really better than any of them—not intrinsically. He just had one advantage, one tiny, enormous, inexorable edge—age. The most venerable creatures in the world could count their years by the thousands, or even tens of thousands—they were like toddlers. Jianmo had already been a million years old by the time he’d had his first thought. In the countless millennia since, Jianmo had ample opportunity to refine his self-identity.

He was a weapon—well, obviously, but there was a lot that went into that idea. He had been forged by his master as a tool for war. Fed with the blood and souls of millions to refine himself into the perfect tool of destruction—and that was before he even became a demon. In fact, his master had quite specifically tried to prevent him from ever becoming aware—that was why it had taken so long. Even so, the ability to think didn’t change what he was—not really. He was a tool, an implement created to serve a single purpose, and that purpose was to kill.

Now, that didn’t mean that Jianmo was some kind of bloodthirsty monster. A weapon was only as dangerous as the one who wielded it, and Jianmo hadn’t had anyone like that in a long, long time. Maybe he would, one day, but he doubted it.

“Maybe that cute little disciple of mine...or her little friend. She was nice, if a bit stuck up. I don’t hate prudish little girls like her, though. Ah, but who am I kidding? This world isn’t likely to tolerate their kind for long. They’ll be dead before I even notice it.”

What was wrong with him, today? Jianmo sighed and refocused on his task. He sensed the world around him within his domain. One advantage of this realm being abandoned was that there was no local divinity for him to struggle against. The fabric of reality immediately capitulated to his will, and he was able to sense every part of it as it became his.

The snake hadn’t been lying. Space was thinner here, reality weaker. It wasn’t just suitable for what Jianmo wanted to do—it was perfect.

“How did that little brat even discover this?”

Jianmo had to admit he had underestimated the sketchy young scholar. The boy had talked his ear off for an entire day and a half about his theories and calculations, trying to explain how even if he couldn’t sense it himself he could use predictive models to find the places where the boundaries between realms grew fuzzy. Jianmo had slept through most of it, but now he believed.

A grin spread across Jianmo’s face as he stood and drew his true form out from within his demonic core. There was a loud thunderclap from up above, as if the heavens knew what he was about to do, and strongly disapproved—a good omen! Using his domain, he began to manipulate the space around him, twisting and stretching it unnaturally until it threatened to tear apart entirely.

That’s when the first thunderbolt struck. It was a strong one! Those divine realm bastards really wanted his master gone, and to stay that way. The first bolt had been a thick, purple thing that had come from so high above that he couldn’t even see its source. It had shattered the black, curved horn on his head and burned away his purple hair. Jianmo didn’t let it bother him, he continued to knead and twist the space around the mountain.

It was starting to have tangible effects, as unnatural gravitational vortexes and vacuums began to form in the places where Jianmo had most severely altered reality. An unfortunate goat wandered into once such place and imploded just as the second bolt struck Jianmo. This one was an order of magnitude stronger than the first, and Jianmo actually had to hold up a hand to block it. The flesh was seared from his bones all the way down to the shoulder, and the skeletal remains of his left arm hung limply as he laughed.

“Hahaha! You’ll have to do better than that! I’ve been preparing this for far too long to be stopped by some half-assed divine tribulation!”

He was nearly ready for the final act. He just needed to weaken the space a tiny bit more. Just a few more seconds and he’d finally be—

The third lightning bolt seemed to skip a few places and blasted him with such power that half of the mountain below him was shattered by the force of it. As for Jianmo, his body had been completely obliterated. Aside from the sword, and his demonic core, not a speck of dust remained of what he had been. It was more than enough.

The demonic core quickly moved to the sword, and sank into the hilt, resembling a decorative jewel on the crossguard. By its own volition the sword—Jianmo—struck out, slashing the air in a wide arc at a speed fast enough to create a sonic boom, had there been any air in the space it cut through.

The space, stretched and weakened by his actions, split apart. The sound was like nothing that could naturally be produced in the world. A sort of crackling, shearing noise that grated on the ears of anything that heard it. A tear in the fabric of reality had been created in the place that Jianmo had cut. It quickly began to reknit itself, but Jianmo wasn’t about to let that happen.

He continued to force the gap in reality open even as a fourth lightning bolt—not as powerful as the third, but still formidable—struck his blade. He wanted to laugh, but he had no mouth. It was too late for that! He’d already succeeded.

He was sorely tempted to throw himself through the gap, just to finally rid himself of this boring realm, but even he was unlikely to survive such an uncontrolled portal and besides, hadn’t he promised that little disciple of his? Instead, he summoned an artifact from within his domain. Just a tiny, innocuous little gemstone. Blue, oval, and smooth—it was a relatively unremarkable little thing, yet it was the most important thing in the entire word.

A key. A key to Jianmo’s freedom, to this world, to his master’s legacy. Jianmo hurled it through the spatial rift, and then released his hold over it, allowing the rift to close naturally. One final thunderbolt struck Jianmo, but it was so weak he barely noticed it.

He looked around at the damage he had wrought. The mountain was reduced to rubble, and there were now a number of permanent spatial anomalies. The essence that had leaked in from between realms was already beginning to permeate the area and take hold. In a few years, this place would become completely inhospitable, a few centuries and it would be a nighmarish hellscape of void and gravity essence.

Well, that ought to turn a few heads.