A smile that could enrapture the heart of anyone runs across his face, and feeling its power over me for a moment, I start blushing like a maiden, but a stone soon smashes me on the top of my head, returning me back to the present.
Looking forward, I see the man with bandages across his face turning away from me, and I start to grit my teeth as I glare at him.
Wèilái, holding up his arm, says, "I apologise for my subordinate actions. Fu can get rather strung up over things like perceived respect. But don't let it bother you."
"No problem, I am used to dealing with annoying, irrational people."
Fu's eyes stare daggers at me, and I meet them, making sure my own animosity is embedded in his soul. I push my body against my restraints as I send the force of my body and soul forward to dominate over his, yet as the ropes binding me are cut in one swift motion, my body throws itself forward, and I crash right into the ground.
I grab my forehead and start rolling around on the ground, as Fu says, "This is why you should live a calm and tranquil life, because you never know when one's actions could throw them into a storm of chaos so overwhelming that they might just crash."
I see, I know why I have been staring at you this entire time, Fu. It seems you have the making to be the biggest pest I have ever seen in my life, as if the spirit of oppression that follows me, looking for my destruction, has found a new place to reincarnate.
Getting off his seat, Wèilái gets on one knee, lifts me up to the anger of Fu behind him, and says, "Now that we've finished up here, we should head outside. Come on, follow me."
Turning around, he moves through the door he came through, and there I also follow him as I exit, and my eyes freeze as they try to take in all the details, as in the distance, I can see it clearly from here.
The Divine Lotus. A giant overwhelming natural occurrence that looks like three large lotuses placed on top of one another, each of them is blood red with jade fused through out it's body, and from the centre is a golden light that shines everywhere my eye can see, almost as if there is a heavy aura emanating across the land staring from it.
Its beauty is beyond anything I have seen; it doesn't even feel like it belongs in this world. It feels like something alien plopped upon this world. My eyes wish to stare upon it, yet my flesh rejects doing so, as every moment I look at it, a feeling of powerlessness and despair washes over me as if it's trying to devour me whole.
All I wish to do in the face of it is bow, and worship the sight in front of me, as I leave everything I am or I hope to be in its clutches. In this moment, I can feel something more than myself; I can truly feel something divine.
Grabbing my cheeks, I say, "Am I crying?"
Wèilái beside me, says, "It's a rather intense sight for the first time, enough to make you give up on what you are, but if you wish to walk with me you must conquer that feeling, and keep moving forwar-."
I slam my fist against my chest, and turning to him, I smile and say, "The world is so beautiful, more than ever before, I wish to want with you." I underestimated it before, but this is the world that heroes conquered, a world that can bring even a man like me to the divine, a world that lords itself over oneself every single moment they live. It's the dominance of this all that I seek more than anything, and no matter what, my hand shall reach up into the sky to take it all for myself."
For that is the path the young me chose when faced with that despair of inferiority, as it was something I felt every single day for my life, and in the face of that reliance on protection passed down through the land, I would never even for a moment bow my head.
-Break-
Location: Ghost Country, Jin; Northern battlefield
On top of a siege tower, I stare down at the large battlefield from a view I never would have been able to see before, and there I see the true size and scale of the rampage that breaks through the land, rising up bodies in each and every corner.
It's a confusing mess of blood, screams, and metal, yet one man can direct and control all of it, Wèilái. His words to his messengers that come on and off the tower allow him to take greater control of the battlefield than anyone else here.
His eyes gaze upon this swarm in front of me, and he can perfectly understand how to push it his own way. In the tempest, he is the sole warrior who can turn it in whatever way he wishes, and staring at him, I say, "Amazing."
He quickly breaks his concentration and turns to me with the same earnest smile he always shows me and says, "Is everything okay?"
"Y-Yeah, I was just a bit entranced by your skill."
"What a compliment."
"Is it really? I am no tactician."
"I wouldn't say a random farmer who was able to get into the good grace of the Emperor of Dá is worth looking down on, but you're not formally trained, yet smart enough to understand the depths of my skill. A compliment from such a person is something I will always take."
He smiles shines bright and paired with his silk skin tight top, green top, as well as a short black jacket around his upper body, combo mined with a pair of black decorative trouser and boots, but more than all the large overflowing long jacket mainly coloured black, but has ferocious designs of a silver wolf, and a gold dragon across both half's of the jacket individually, make the sight in front of me look like it should be in a museum.
Looking ahead toward the battlefield, I see explosions go off one after another, and there I hear Wèilái say, "It seems he has finally arrived."
Staring down, I see a man with a strange mask on and a forest of tattoos that looks like tiger stripes, and a large coat hanging off his shoulders, rips and tears through the battlefield, and as he moves, explosions come over and over his body.
He holds a giant axe, and as my eyes stare at it, I say, "Is it changing shape?"
"Very percetive, Baji is just turning on and off his Legacy?"
"Wait, a Legacy? Like one of the legendary warriors of the past that current lives in the present? I never thought I would get to land my eyes on one of them!"
"Captivant, do you enjoy the battlefield?"
"Why do you ask?"
"You've been smiling the entire time we've been here, especially even now."
"I do. I find the strength of humans who wield it for their resolve and dreams fitting. Gripping a sword and putting your life on the line to move forward is the pinnacle of everything we call human. Those who cannot stand run away, and those who do not train die, but the rest burn with all they could ever be in this moment to deny the end of their lives and I love it more rthan anything else in this entire world, because from it whether they want to or not a hero will rise from the ashes of the fallen men and women here to change the world in some way and I love that, I can't stop seeing it grow and explode each and every da-."
A strike from Wèilái's fist slams into the top of my head, causing me to grab it in pain and stare at him, as I say, "What the heck was that for?"
"A lesson to you, so remember these words I tell you very carefully, you can never dominate an enemy you don't love more than yourself."
He has a rather stern but regretful look on his face, staring out into the distance in front of himself, and seeing this, I say, "Why are you doing this? I made the guess you see something others can't see, but still I don't understand why a man like you would pick a fight with the Guardian of the Lotus."
Staring up at the sky, he says, "The Guardians of the Lotus have created a world of stability and peace in Enotita, making it so that people can live apart from one another, and only effect their own lives and countries, for the people of Enotita that had to deal with constant warfare for most of our known history, nothing could be sweeter than the control stagnation brings.
It is a world without fear, yet people need to learn fear. They need to understand danger; they need to understand that no matter how many imaginary walls they draw and try to enforce around them, I need to remind them they don't exist, that there is always a war going on in the background, whether you choose to accept it or not, and the only tool for survival without extinction is together.
So I wish to destroy that, I wish to destroy a world where we can live apart from each other, I wish to destroy all the other nations in this land and bind them together as one. To bind Enotita together as one, I wish to be an envoy for the terror that is to come in the future, and help those who shall face it move past it. It is not fair for our selfishness to lead those who inherit our legacy to live lives full of bloodshed.
Yet my opponent is strong, most of my empire is nothing more than a kingdom in the modern day, about 65% of Dá fall under the control of the Guardian of the Lotus, to the point where Western Dá is considered another country with its own borders. Even now, the 12 Ordinances of the Heavens, the families that descend from the 12 generals of the first Emperor mostly side with the Guardians of the Lotus, the Dá Empire is nothing more than a shell of its former self, and in the view of it all, I have a task near impossible for a random bastard sired from an inferior king."
"I don't think yo-."
"But it doesn't matter, because that voice has spoken to me. The force that emanates from the Lotus warns me of the future and of the trials the young shall move through. It tells me that light that once protected this land shall meet again, they will all meet again and stand up for those who stood against them."
"Who will meet again?"
"Don't you know when Nightfall, we as humans truly understand how often the light watches over us. I will fulfil the promise the 3rd Emperor made, and I am sure you will fulfil the one you made as Mister Nightfall. For we all have a job to do, and if we don't, our descendants shall face those struggles we passed on, so let's overcome them all. Now watch me."
Placing two fingers in his mouth, Wèilái whistles, and soon thunder appears in the sky, covering the entire battlefield. It all soon covers forming into a giant stream of electricity, and attached to the top is a mass of flesh and cloud, that forms the head of an elderly dragon, and as it lies in front of my eyes, I say, "Isn't that-."
"The Behemoth of the Heavenly Sky, the Qīnglóng, and my steed."