The Primeval Era-Chapter 69: Guests I

On that floating landmass of stone, surrounded by lightning that crackled and roared with power that had nothing to do with weather, there was a heavy silence.

The Saint of Stone and the Holy Daughter looked at the scene of devastation displayed in the pool of Mana between them, watching as the young warrior they had been observing finished his grim work with methodical efficiency. They had witnessed him cover ridiculously vast distances with a few leaps, had seen the expression of his power as he reduced a force of dozens to scattered remains across the stones below.

The bodies were cooling now.

The threat to that small tribe surrounded by purple stones had been eliminated with a thoroughness that left no room for survivors or revenge.

"What a unique thing."

The Saint of Stone spoke first, her stellar blue eyes still fixed on the image of the young man.

"I wonder what his Land and Sky Physique is, because the type of power he displayed should be exceeding the Third Circle, Blood Ignition, and even potentially approaching Marrow Crystallization in terms of raw output."

She tilted her head slightly, her ancient features creased with genuine curiosity.

"But my disciple, what do you think of his actions? He was decisive. He took down the entire force that was threatening his tribe with speed and efficiency that most commanders would envy."

Her stellar eyes turned to meet the wing-shaped pupils of the young woman before her.

"This could have actually not gone better, if anyone told you otherwise. But what do you see from his actions? What would you critique?"

The Holy Daughter considered the question with the seriousness it deserved, her analytical mind processing everything she had witnessed through the lens of the lessons her master had been teaching her.

When she spoke, her eyes shone with the sharp light.

"He wasn’t wrong by any means, but he didn’t know, nor did he check, the composition of the enemies he was destroying."

Her voice was calm and measured.

"Within that force were Dross just like him, Tribesmen from Unbound territories who had been coerced and controlled by that Sworn woman’s Land and Sky Physique. They weren’t there by choice. They were puppets dancing on strings they couldn’t see or resist."

She paused.

"He killed them just the same as he killed the Sworn. Made no distinction between the puppeteer and the puppets, between the guilty and the enslaved."

Her wing-shaped pupils flickered with something that might have been conflict.

"But the situation is difficult to judge from the comfort of distance. Was he supposed to not defend his people and instead go around checking and asking each enemy whether they were Sworn or Dross? Was he supposed to interview them mid-battle to determine their level of culpability?"

She shook her head slightly.

"Another method he could have used was to attack and incapacitate the leader first. If he had identified her as the source of control and eliminated her before destroying the others, all those under her influence might have surrendered when her power released them. The puppets might have become people again, confused and frightened but alive."

Her voice grew more contemplative.

"But all of this is conjecture, and hard to say with certainty. He couldn’t have known about her controlling Physique from that distance. He couldn’t have identified which among the dozens was the true threat and which were victims. And in instances like this, where life and death hang on decisions made in moments rather than hours..."

She met her master’s gaze directly.

"It’s best not to dwell in hypotheticals and what could have been. He protected his people. They survived. The threat is eliminated. Whether a better outcome was possible is a question that has no answer, only endless speculation."

...!

Her analysis was cold and thorough, the product of years of training in the Sacred Grove where every decision was examined and every action was weighed against alternatives that might have been chosen instead.

The Saint of Stone was about to respond, her stellar eyes warming with approval at her disciple’s measured assessment, when something changed.

Her gaze rapidly shifted and became cold as ice forming over a winter lake.

She looked out toward the sky beyond their floating sanctuary, beyond the crackling lightning and churning clouds that surrounded their temple, and her ancient body went rigid with tension that she rarely displayed.

HUUUUM!

The sound resonated through the air like the warning cry of some vast beast, a vibration that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.

Outside the storm of lightning that wreathed their floating piece of stone, the Saint’s stellar eyes locked onto a figure that shouldn’t be there.

A figure that had no business being in these forgotten territories, so far from the centers of power where beings of his stature normally resided.

A man adorned in the garments of Anointed Ones.

He floated in the open sky as casually as another might stand upon solid ground, his body held aloft by forces that most Warriors couldn’t even conceptualize let alone replicate. His attire was simple in its construction but grand in its presentation, a sleeveless tunic of treated hide so fine and so white that it seemed to glow against the blue of the sky behind him.

The hide had been worked with techniques lost to most of the world, supple as cloth but strong as armor, adorned with subtle patterns that pulsed faintly with Mana woven directly into the fibers. Bands of hammered copper circled his upper arms and wrists, the metal inscribed with runes that flickered with pale light. A mantle of white fur draped across his shoulders, the pelt of some creature that had been ancient when the Covenant was young, secured at his throat by a clasp carved from a single massive pearl that radiated quiet power.

His hair was white, not the white of age but the white of snow that had never known impurity, falling past his shoulders in waves that moved slightly despite the absence of wind. His skin was fair, almost luminescent, as if he had never known the harsh sun of the Lands of Stone. And his eyes...

His eyes were dark pupils that pulsed with a terrifying light, black voids that somehow burned with an inner radiance that made looking directly at them feel like staring into an abyss that stared back.

He was currently smiling.

Beneath his feet was a swirling cloud of Mana, a platform of condensed energy that held him aloft with the stability of solid stone. The cloud itself presented many things that told of the power of this being, the density of its formation speaking to cultivation that had progressed far beyond what most Warriors could achieve.

But the sheer fact that he was floating calmly in the skies told even more regarding his state of power than any examination of technique could reveal.

Flight was not something many could do.

Flight was the province of the truly mighty, those who had so thoroughly mastered their cultivation that the very air became their servant. In all the Covenant of the First Stone, perhaps a dozen beings could achieve sustained flight without assistance.

And the Saint of Stone recognized this man.

He continued smiling as he spoke, his voice carrying clearly across the distance between them despite the roaring of the lightning that should have drowned out all other sounds.

"O Saint of Stone, crazy to find you here in a place like this."

...!