Chương 161: The Hero of the High-Cloud Quintet
"....not you again" Blade, the former member of the Quintet of the Xianzhou, sighed in resignation.
"Loosen up Bladie" added Keith "That's what the pink-eyed woman told me to say to you should you fail to give an articulate or energetic reply."
"...." Blade looked at the smiling purple-haired man in front of him, thinking about what this man's existence meant to him.
Death.
That was all Blade could think about it.
That was his dream and his goal, and Keith was the only one who could help him die for good.
He had been contacted by Elio, Destiny's Slave, through Kafka, who had used her ability to make him listen to the offer the Stellaron Hunters had for him. 'Wouldn't it be interesting, watching the immortals die?'
So with that, he got on board. After a lengthy talk with Elio, he knew there was a future in which he could die, a true death that would erase his consciousness from this world forever, and he realized the way just after seeing Keith, the man who sparked a sense of familiarity in him, who had forsaken everything he once had to turn his whole existence into a 'Blade'.
A single talk with Elio after it revealed the unbelievable truth, Keith's body was the body of an Emanator of the Abundance.
Unlike Blade's body, which had been that of a human before getting 'infected' by the abundance staying inside the corpse of the Emanator he had so foolishly consumed.
For the first time, Blade had been at a loss for words, because what was causing so much pain to him was present in the happily smiling Keith, but it was even worse, Keith was even more 'immortal' than him.
Of course, Blade knew that his circumstances were way too different to Keith's, and he felt nothing but exasperation seeing Keith jump around.
Blade only had pity for Keith, who didn't realize the kind of cursed life he would need to live.
Because everyone got tired of life at some point, everyone. But the only ones who couldn't die and embrace the sweet release of death were the ones Yaoshi didn't want to let go, and in this case, both him and Keith, and Blade knew that while Keith was happy now, he would inevitably be in the position he was in now, begging for a clean last and definitive death.
But Blade was hopeful, because he knew about the Foreign in Keith, he was the only one Elio had chosen to reveal it even if it was only to get him on board, at least this soo, knowing Elio, he would have found a way to convince him one way or another. A fraction of Keith's soul came from beyond the domain of Aeons, which made Blade think that maybe in the future Keith would be able to break the 'rule' making him immortal.
So he would persevere, keep fighting against his natural desire to seek death, and protect Keith so he could turn into the kind of existence Elio knew he was going to turn into, and release him from the curse of life that made his life unnecessary long.
"What are we going to do today teacher?" asked Keith with an energy that made Blade wince.
He had agreed to protect Keith, but the purple-haired man seemed to have a particular idea of what protecting him meant.
'You can protect me only when you are near, but you can teach me how to protect myself so I will always be safe'
And following this creed, Keith had thrown himself into learning the art of the sword.
Blade had taught him the basic postures in the first weeks which Keith had seemed to understand fairly fast, and everything after that had turned into a unilateral beating.
There was no way Keith could defeat the man who had been fighting for centuries against the Spawns of the Abundance and had been lauded as one of the Quintet, the heroes of the Xianzhou.
Blade realized that Keith was quite smart, even if he wasn't a genius of a kind the world hadn't seen before like his once companion Jingliu, but that wasn't all there was to a sword fight. Keith's body didn't stop getting stronger even if wasn't at a breakneck pace, but it was still there, coupled with the vitality having the body of an Emanator of the Abundance granted him, it was quite complicated to teach him how to fight to use all the tools he had at his disposition.
But...wasn't Blade the only being in the world able to teach him how to do exactly that?
Yaoshi wasn't to be trusted and the vast majority of Emanators of the Abundance didn't use any weapons, much less swords, so Blade was the perfect teacher for Keith, whose body was similar to Blade's and could fight in the same way the suicidal man did.
And that was what Blade did.
He taught Keith the basic form and ruthlessly beat him up.
"Agh!" Kenshin grunted in pain after feeling a deep cut being made in his arm, but stood up ready to fight.
Blade looked at the cut in Keith's arm with a pondering expression.
Because there was a blatant difference between him and Keith, and it involved regeneration.
Despite Keith's body being closer to Yaoshi, which meant Keith was 'more immortal' than him, the purple-haired man's regeneration was very, very slow.
What Blade could regen in seconds, Keith needed hours, which didn't make any sense.
Keith's body IS that of an Emanator, but the regeneration speed was the same as one of the lowest-ranked fighters from the Abundance.
How was this possible?
After extensive tests made by Ruan Mei, who had also shown a certain degree of interest in Blade's condition, Blade got his answer.
The Foreign in Keith's soul was slowly affecting the immortality of the Abundance, eroding it. Keith was immortal, and would always be for as long as his soul hadn't completely eroded Yaoshi's 'curse' and the connection between him and the Aeon of the Abundance wasn't cleanly severed, but that didn't mean he healed fast.
If Blade was decapitated, he would regen his whole body in minutes.
If Keith was decapitated, he would regen his whole body in centuries, if at all. In the worst case, Keith would lay on the ground, with a missing head and unable to die, but also unable to feel.
A kind of torture even Blade, who was begging for death with an immortal body, feared.
So while Keith couldn't be definitely killed, he wasn't an immortal warrior who no matter how much time passed wouldn't tire and would stay on the battlefield forever, like Blade could. He would 'die' if you wanted to be practical about it, as his body would stop working until the 'Life' within him took him out of Death, but no definite end would come, at least if there weren't special conditions in place.
CLANG
Blade's sword collided with Keith's, who gritted his teeth in an effort to keep the stalemate.
He was very strong, way stronger than Kafka at least physically, but Blade was at another level.
For now at least.
--------------------------------------------
Keith lunged forward, swinging his training sword as strong as he could.
Blade's sword blocked his, and Keith immediately jumped back, knowing that the red-eyed man was way faster and stronger than he was.
So he made some space, and looked with rapt attention at the other man's stance, searching for an opening he had no hopes of existing.
Blade only stood in his place, looking apathetically at Keith, knowing that no matter the move Keith would make would be one he would be able to stop without any problem.
After all, the difference between fighters couldn't be any bigger.
One was a hero of a nation who had been fighting for millennia and had a culture built around swords, while the other was...
A noob, a complete amateur who wanted to learn how to fight only because it might be a useful future and liked to move his body after years of being imprisoned into a malfunctioning one.
But a fight was a fight, even if was between 2 people who started from different points, there were still 2 combatants.
SO Keith lunged forward again, delivering an overhead slash.
That was blocked without much effort.
But it was alright, because Keith was already lifting his foot to-
"Agh!" Keith flew through the air, and crashed into the wall on the opposite side of the room making a dent on it.
"You are too obvious" said the black-haired man, lowering the leg that had sent Keith flying through the air.
"Did you-...have to...kick that hard?" asked Keith, feeling how his stomach's contents tried to escape.
"You have a tough body, better use it" replied Blade, watching how Keith slowly stood up.
Keith readied himself, and stood in front of Blade once again.
'I need to hit him, at least once' decided Keith, who despite having 'trained', aka being beaten to a degree a normal human might have wondered about the existence of god, for a dozen times he still hadn't been able to hit the other man even once.
And he had a good day today, he felt full of energy, better than yesterday and worse than tomorrow, which for some reason seemed to be a usual thing these days.
"You are going to the healer today" declared Keith, standing on the stance Blade taught him after pester- convincing him.
"I can't die, do you think I can get hurt?" was Blade's curt response.
"Then imagine how hard I'm going to smack you" said Keith before moving forward, swinging his sword.
-------------------------------------------------
Sounds of battle echoed in the training room, swords colliding, slight tremors as the fighters jumped around, and grunts of effort.
The battle was as one-sided as expected, Blade was still unharmed while Keith presented bruises all over his body.
But the battle continued, and Blade was now focused on it.
Because just as Keith thought, it was a good day for him.
The blades of both fighters clashed against each other once again, but this time the slightest of stalemates was reached for a single moment.
But it was more than what Keith had ever gotten from these fights.
And yet, there was no happiness in Keith's face, only concentration.
He had been exerting more than what he knew he had, and he was starting to feel strange.
Almost like when you were playing a sport, and on a particular good day, you felt different.
You had complete control of your body, you felt faster, more coordinated, stronger.
What a sportsman might call being in the Zone and a normal person would call it a good day.
Keith was in a state of pure concentration, observing Blade's movements, eyes and expressions, all to get a small chance to hit this man.
Nothing escaped Keith's eyes, who felt how he was avoiding the attacks that would have sent him flying. He couldn't dodge everything, as the bruises over his body showed, but the difference was obvious.
CLANG
The swords collided again, and Keith side-stepped the kick that had been sent with no hint, and counterattacked.
CLANG
Blade defended once again without trouble, which didn't mean it was easy.
The fight was still easy for him, as it would always be, but Keith was putting up a fight, the best he had seen the purple-haired man ever do.
Blade pushed his sword, sending Keith back a few steps, but in the next second he found himself looking at a pair of dark purple eyes once again.
CLANG CLANG CLANG
The sword's swings, representing a clash in themselves, gained speed and strength by the moment, and something started to change, slowly but surely.
Keith was having a good day, and he felt his whole body obeying him like it had never done.
Including... some parts he knew he didn't have, but he felt he should.
Like an armless person who just upon waking up tried to use his now missing arm, he felt that there was something lacking within him.
And he had no clue why, but what he knew for sure was that he was feeling something strange.
A mix of loneliness, desperation, impatience, guilt, overwhelming regret and... hope. An amalgamation of feelings whose strength was enough to make him question his own life, but intensified even more with each attack Blade blocked.
He had always been able to detect hostility, lies, and certain 'easy' emotions to detect if they reached a certain level, and Keith briefly wondered if having a new body was also developing that ability.
Or... it might have been the recurrent dreams in which blurry faces and places always made him wake up sweating.
But even those thoughts were soon lost in the fragor of battle, only those feelings of guilt and hope remained.
CLANG
And as Blade always warned him to avoid. Keith started to unknowingly put his feelings into his sword.
So it was Blade's turn to stand in his place in shock, because as a master swordsman, it was impossible for him to miss those feelings.
A mirror of his own.
But knowing Keith, it was impossible for him to feel all these, so Blade quickly understood what happened.
Keith was somehow feeling what he himself felt.
And the result disgusted him.
It was like facing a mirror in which everything you loathed and regretted was exposed in front of you. Regret at ingesting the flesh of an Emanator of the Abundance, guilt at betraying what the Xianzhou stood for, impatience to find death, despair with every moment his body wriggled with the curse called life, and hope... that the one in front of him might be able to help him.
So Blade, in a show of emotion even the man himself wasn't aware he was still capable of, swung his sword to attack for the first time in all the months he had been training with Keith.
But just as he always warned Keith, emotions had their place on a battlefield, and such a place wasn't the sword.
Keith, immersed as he was in the flow of battle, sensed the newly born hostility and immediately dodged what he felt would crush any defence he might put in its path.
The slash, having carried too many emotions in it, failed, and Blade opened his eyes in surprise.
After all, he had just lashed out, not wanting to see his own emotions reflected.
He had been consumed by his own feelings, something that hadn't happened since his time in the academy, centuries ago, but Keith was unaware of the turmoil brewing inside the shocked immortal man, and seeing a chance, he attacked.
And Blade, despite having been lost in his own thoughts, blocked without a problem.
Such was the difference between them.
Once again was Blade exposed to his own feelings, and once again the immortal man felt a wave of disgust and repulsion coursing through his being.
Not of the feelings, but the life they symbolized.
His own life.
And the feeling of facing all your mistakes at once was too much for the broken man, who felt something he hadn't sensed until now breaking within him.
The dull red eyes, showing none of the vibrant aspects they had in his youth, when hopes and expectations were everything inside Blade's mind, acquired a cold glint.
The sword attacks turned sharper and more precise, and the footwork started to turn into what once made him a legend in the Xianzhou.
But centuries of apathy and seeking death had dulled the once brilliant swordmaster, allowing his feeble opponent to exert some resistance.
And yet... wounds started to pile up.
Keith felt Blade's emotions, but not knowing what they meant or why they appeared in the first place, kept fighting.
Because he was having a good day, and wanted to keep inspecting why he felt like he did, so he ignored the cuts and wounds he started to receive.
Every second in which Blade's state of mind kept the black-haired man locked in a fight against his past, he turned stronger, faster, better.
But Keith also improved, as his opponent's bare emotions were also increasing, allowing him to predict more attacks.
And yet, the difference was once again, made apparent, as Keith wasn't able to keep up, and wounds started to increase, both in number and depth.
But the 2 fighters were not common people.
One was immortal, and the other had a body crafted from the remains of a being who embodied Life.
So they continued, uncaring about the state their bodies might end up in.
The clash turned fiercer and faster, until a fight no one could have imagined these 2 people were capable of having unfolded.
Both fighters changed, for good or bad, and after this fight they would never be the same.
Keith started to predict with enough time to completely dodge some attacks that would have grazed him, and avoid deep wounds that turned into superficial ones. The more he fought in this state against a Blade lost in his emotions, the more precise his ability turned out to be.
Almost as if was being attuned.
And with it, came small windows in which Keith sent some attacks at his enemy. Even if they failed, it was a show of improvement and strength, one Keith knew he must exercise.
But the one who changed the most was Blade.
An apathetic man who preferred to allow a sword to pierce his heart if that meant hurting the enemy even more. A suicidal style born out of the desire to die, that had corrupted the beautiful swordsmanship of the brilliant man that served as a general in a war far too big to be considered a battle between mortals.
But now, under his emotions and trying to do his utmost to remove the blame of his past shown in the emotions the blade of his opponent carried, apathy had no place. Only a desire to win, to triumph over his opponent, to prove him wrong, was left.
And the place Blade fell to was the same one he had repeated millions of times.
The style taught in the Xianzhou, the style he had fought his teacher and friends with, the one he had forcefully turned into a part of himself after thousands if not millions of repetitions.
The style of one of the 5 Generals of the Xianzhou.
Gone was the suicidal instinct to allow the opponent to pierce his flesh, while in its place a firm determination to defeat the enemy while avoiding any injuries came back.
Weak and almost timid attacks his opponent sent were met with a ferrous defence devoid of uncertainty, and the counterattack was one destined to obtain victory.
The feet that until now had been static in their place, as they had not been needed, started moving centuries again.
A little twitch at first, almost timid steps later, as if they didn't remember the place they should have been in.
But soon, they darted all over the place, with a mastery born of years of repetition and rigorous training.
The sword that had been held by a single hand, as that was all Blade had needed, was soon firmly held by 2 hands, in a stance destined to apply as much strength as it was possible for his once mortal body.
And soon... the General was back.
And with it, came the end of the duel.
In a fraction of a second, a black sword with red lines over it was held overhead, and a downward slash was delivered, so fast that only a red flash could be seen.
Keith suddenly found himself unable to sense any feelings from his opponent and saw how a blade was heading towards his face.
And for a single moment... another figure appeared.
A blurry figure, also holding a sword overhead, but unlike this black one, it had been of a beautiful light purple colour, a colour he liked a lot for some reason.
And faced with this purple sword... Keith---
His body, his whole existence, tried to react to that purple sword, almost on instinct.
But... it lacked the tools to do so.
Almost as if an armless person was used to grabbing his glass of water with his hand, but suddenly realized he lacked an arm.
Keith's soul tried to move, but it was unable to, because it didn't have what was needed to react.
"MOVE!"
A voice interrupted the trance Keith was in, and he found his body moving before he could understand why.
And the blade arrived.
A red flower bloomed from the deep cut in Keith's chest, who fell back, too shocked by the situation he found himself in all of a sudden to feel any pain.
The purple-haired man fell to the floor, alive.
The black-haired man realized what he had done and the state he had been in, and grimaced.
And a purple-haired woman quickly approached the downed man, covering her bleeding nose and shedding tears of blood after using her ability against someone who had something Foreign inside him, overcharging her own body in the process.
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