all death is temporary.

all form is empty.

all being is cessation.

to find revolution is

to reveal the lucifer-womb.

to consummate the lucifer-womb is

to attain violence.

Blue Lotus Sutra

None of them moved to open the door.

The tension thickened.

Who would knock at this time of night? Raxri looked at Sintra Kennin, and they both shared a similar line of thought. Could it be the mantris? Goton and Isura? More of a hope, than a rational guess.

Akazha and Ampalila scowled. Stared at the door with thorny apprehension. Cats ready to either pounce or flee. Raxri found Akazha's gaze; the witch shook her head.

Ampalila leaned backwards. A shadowy silhouette of a gun jut out from her side. Ready to fire. In the direction of the door.

Sintra and Raxri readied their hearts. Their burning powers and airs flurried. Raxri's hand gripped lightly Puksa.

Sintra unsheathed God's Brush Stroke.

Akazha, kept her hands in a starting mudra position, so she can quickly perform the hand signs as needed. Then she asked: "Who's there?"

Silence. Whoever was on the other side was considering, thinking, debating with themselves. Akazha chanted under her breath. Performed the hand signs, wove magick into form,. Her heart gripped by anxiety—it took her more time than usual to clearly shape the magick.

Then a voice. Low, husky. A woman warrior's voice—"This is Rengka, First Shark Knight of the High Chief Trasan. Please open the door, no harm shall befall you." Raxri was surprised to hear a deep woman's voice instead of a man's voice. They'd always thought the Shark Knights would've all been men.

Everyone kept silent. All trained on the door. Raxri's eyes focused. The First Shark Knight... what will they do?

A bout of silence.

Rengka spoke again. "Please. I will not enter until you open this door."

It was Akazha who replied: "For what reason would the vaunted First Shark Knight Rengka visit our humble abode?"

"The High Chief and Ocean Lord Trasan summons ye once more to his presence."

A silent chill of wind. Ampalila furrowed her eyebrows in a mix of apprehension and askance. Anxiety levels through the roof. What did everyone know, at that point? Raxri, Sintra, Akazha, Ampalila: all in the dark. All the odds stacked against them.

Raxri turned and asked, in a loud whisper: "Should we not comply and just go?"

Akazha shook her head. They might be trying to trap us, she said implicitly. Raxri knew this to be true.

Ampalila nodded. "Something ticked them off..." Ampalila's head tilted to the side as she thought.

Raxri asked: "Think you the Shark Knight will just leave if we abide here quietly?"

The Shark Knight's gauntlet slammed the light wood of the home. Was that the smell of lacquered steel...? "This will be my last warning! Should you choose not to open this door, the consequences will be most dire."

Ampalila rolled her eyes. "Of course they would be. Why wouldn't it be?"

Raxri turned to Ampalila.

The gunmaster sighed. She said: "Ready yourselves if we're ever going to go into a fight." She turned to Akazha and nodded. "Akazha. Open the door."

Akazha nodded. She finished her hand signs.

—A silent and invisible arrow of pure annihilative magick floated above her head.

She walked over to the door and pulled it open.

First Shark Knight Rengka's jet black hair was layered into two: part of it fell beautifully to the small of her back, the other part she tied up into a knot atop her head, kept fast with sharksteeth. "I am glad you chose the path of least resistance." Her teth had been filed to points as well, like a shark's.

Akazha bowed with her hands folded in front of her chest in heart reverence. "To you as well. Please, come in and have some betel nut chew."

"I would be delighted to."

Akazha made way for her vaunted height. She was not bulky: she was wide and broad like a true athlete. Intimidating, powerful, strong. Raxri could feel her presence. Her Force burgeoning from her. Flower of Inner Mystic Fire. Proof of her intense cultivation. An Adamantine forms within her. It was so intense to the point that Raxri wanted to look away. It would not have made a difference. The revulsion of Forces is the dialectical understanding of violence.

Both Sintra Kennin and Raxri Uttara rose to their feet to give the heart reverence. Ampalila did not move. Still staring, a scowl on her aged face. She said: "So what does the vaunted First Shark Knight of Imos Port Town wish from our lowly, nameless lives?"

The tall woman—beautiful, like a statue, or an oil painting—returned the heart reverence. Beauty almost otherworldly. If Raxri hadn't known any better, she would've been a god.

"I am Rengka. The First Shark Knight." Said to affirm her title. Said as part of a ritual. Before bloodshed. "I am come with a peaceful request. The High Chief Trasan of Imos, the Shore Lord of Southeastern Pemi, summons thee to his court.

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"Obey. Or suffer appropriate consequence."

Akazha frowned. "And if we do not go?"

Miffed. Rengka repeated the command: "Suffer the appropriate consequence."

There was a rapier on her waist. A buckler shield on her right hand—forged to look like a blossoming flower. Her swordhand was her left--that will be a hassle, thought Raxri. Her sinewy approach was the tiger. Her face and skin pale. Porcelain. Her hooded eyes betrayed no guile. No hatred.

This is all duty.

An impasse. Our four dear warriors and martial artists looked at each other. Anxiety broiled in their hearts. What to do now?

Raxri nodded. Surprisingly it was they that chose the next course of action. "We will not go."

Everyone tensed. Rengka was a keening thunderhead.

For Usisi, thought Raxri.

Fool, thought Sintra Kennin. They will get us all killed. "If you will give us time to fix our belongings, as we have just returned from errands. Then we will be able to visit and give our full attention to the High Chief Trasan."

"That will not be needed," Rengka said. "You will come with me to him. Now."

Ampalila exhaled. "Our core objective is to escape," she said.

Sintra and Akazha nodded. Raxri, frowning, could only ascertain as to what she meant. The objective is to flee. They can get behind that.

Rengka raised an eyebrow. Was about to ask—

—Ampalila's arquebus ripped through the air. Her Force blossomed from her heart. Into her gunstock. Through her barrel. Through her igniter. Through her pan. Golden ribbon of light. Single brutal ball sent hurtling through the world.

The bullet crashed, broke, ripped into the malachite aerosteel.

The First Shark Knight did not make sound. Did not betray to the world her hurt. She was a True-Knight. Indomitable. Unbreakable. Immune and impervious to pain.

Ampalila's hoarse scream: "Go!"

In battle it must be known that time is slowed down so much that it feels like it is being cut into slices of moments. That is to say: the very act of violence is a violent act against time. Against reality.

Raxri was leaping backwards. Puksa already in their hands. Toward the window.

Akazha spun away from Rengka. The invisible spear of magick manifested as scarlet fire. Blossoming from her hands.

Sintra Kennin's body grew into a hulking war form. An abomination amalgam of dragon and man.

Ampalila danced. Her hands moved in a folk jive. She was reloading her gun in the span of a moment. She will have shot another bullet by the time it took Rengka to—

—Rengka unsheathed their rapier and dove forward.

Next cut.

Rengka was quicker than the others. That is the unfortunate truth. Her rapier cut through. Pierced into Ampalila's open mouth. There are some truths we cannot ignore. That is why they are called Ultimate Reality.

What is wicked and abominable about Rengka's rapier is this. Rengka's rapier is known as the Thrice-Folded Branch Needle Pestilent Thorn. Or just Pestilent Thorn. She took it as a reward after besting the forest god Haju Yaya. From the mountain-forest province of Yatong Lixe. In the northern prefectures of the Greater Shennin Area.

No. That is too kind a story.

Rengka (born Suji Kaxo) wrestled Haju Yaya into the form of the Pestilent Thorn. With the help of an alchemist and the blessing of an immortal. Every sword stroke of the rapier is pain to Haju Yaya. The demigod's karma is expended for every death. With every being killed.

And in pain, Haju Yaya expands. The forest fighting tooth and nail to take the soil it requires. He fights against Rengka's herculean Force. It is up to Rengka to subjugate the expansion. Pestilent Thorn expands like a vine-complex. Or a wireframe. Or a wicked and gruesome tree burgeoning in an instant.

This was not in Ampalila's thought-archives.

Pestilent Thorn bloomed, blossomed, burgeoned. Jade green. Razor sharp. Ripping Ampalila's skull apart.

Ampalila's bullet fired. It ripped through Rengka's aerosteel plate.

It is that aerosteel that makes Rengka so quick, was Ampalila's final thoughts. Her mindstream lit another's. The conglomerated consciousnesses of the atoms that made up her dispersing into her next rebirth.

The aerosteel upon Rengka's left abdomen crumpled and fell away. Revealed her pale sides. Her muscle was all underneath her flesh. Without her armor, one realizes: she is built like a dancer, not as a knight. Her being here was a violence as well.

Rengka was fine, otherwise.

Raxri steeled themself. They knew now was not the time to grieve. They knew what they were getting into.

A stream of scarlet fire washed over Rengka. Akazha's ire. Raxri suddenly became afraid. Was Akazha next?

The flame was enough, though. The fire struck and Rengka grunted in pain. She had to focus on her Iron Body Technique to prevent her flesh from succumbing to fire. Now is not the time.

The flame was enough.

Sintra Kennin's war form was that of a drakeman. It stepped forward. Hammered its giant fist into Rengka's side. She flew out of the house.

Then--

Sintra Kennin moved forward to grab both Akazha and Raxri. "We can return for Ampalila later."

Akazha's voice was grim. "The ocean will claim her due, yet."

Sintra Kennin transformed into his dragon form: long, sinewy, serpentine. Scaled and feathered. Antlers like deer. The mien of a tiger. And then they were away.

From his mighty iron tower. The only iron tower in that shore. Dark Lord Trasan stepped out of his bedchambers and onto his balcony. Far above him, against clouded sky, against Sword Moon, the streak of a river dragon prince.

Has Rengka failed? his eminence thought.

No matter. He decided.

He unsheathed the knife by his waist. It was a keris. Its head was of the goddess Durg. The Unconquerable Charnel Maiden. Her Graveness. Six arms. Breasts large. Eyes wide open. Her wrathful form. Her body of magick.

Trasan chanted. Low. Low. Only the universe needed to hear it, after all. The universe needed to hear how it will be violated once again. This act is a sign of disenlightenment. None know it yet. With enlightenment comes power. But it is not true that with power comes enlightenment. The chant is the ancient chant of Jamasatt. An ancient and dark god. From the bottom of the sea. An emanation of Durg.

He raised his knife as he chanted. Its eyes glinted. He took out a bell and rang it. Once. Twice. Thrice. Knife plunged deep into his own heart.

Pain is beyond him, now.

Instead of blood, darkness flowed from the wound. A dark and wretched messiah. Like ink. It spooled out. Spiralled. Reached up. Pierced his crown. Ripped open his brow and he screamed. He screamed. He is still screaming. As his third eye blossomed and the darkness flowed from it and formed into a single piercing javelin.

This is magick of the Charnel Tradition. Black Magick: Spear of Gleaming Dark.

His screaming stopped. His power calcified. The javelin broke into a bursting beam. Melting others. Eating others.

The Spear of Gleaming Dark shot through. Laser-like. Through the night. Through the darkness. cutting even the moon in two.

Would it slice through the dragon? Who would ever know? Let us see. Perhaps the World has a modicum of kindness and mercy.

---

Heaven Dancer and Hell Witch rode astride the River Dragon Prince.

They did not notice the blood on their skin. Or on their clothes. They rode in shocked silence. Even Sintra Kennin. The demigod prince did not speak into their minds. Like he was wont to do.

The silence was conversation.

They said to each other: what now? What do we do? What just happened? What next? The world must end. Must we tell her second?

They sailed over the night sky of Imos.

"Ampalila is gone." Raxri broke the silence with tautology. They acted without much reason; without much thinking. Resting on the natural state of their mind. The safest thing to say at that moment.

A silence filled the air. It was an agreement. Solemnity. The moon shone bright. Thin. Sword Moon.

"Heaven moves without us," said Sintra Kennin. His voice boomed over the winds.

Akazha said: "No time for grief. Not yet. Seek us the mantris Goton and Isura. Imperative that we speak with them. So we know our next course of action."

Raxri nodded. "Right--"

Darkness ripped through them. Not just darkness.

Dark.

Primeval tranquility. Fulminating silence. The stuff of pure contingency. Summoned from unreality. By magick unbroken.

It was pinpointed. Right as Sintra Kennin's scales--damn that pearlescence! Luster unwanted!--glinted off of the Sword Moon's gleam. Dark sliced through the cloud and gashed straight through Sintra Kennin's side.

A cry. Guttural. Low. Hateful. "DARK HAS STRUCK ME!"

Akazha cried out. Knew not what to say; she simply cried out. Raxri gripped Puksa and looked. Where the javelin of darkness erupted from.

There! Like a pintpoint prick of light shining against the void. Willow hair flying about him. Pale skin gaunt against evil skeleton. The Ocean Lord of Darkness High Chief Trasan, decades into his wretched practice.

It was true that he was a shadow of his former conquering self. But the shadow was stronger. His magick's measure of violence outshadowed his blade's.

He did not look at the three of them with glee nor with malice. He looked at them with duty.

Sintra Kennin barreled down. Down. Down. Spiral. Like the world. Like the Whorl. Like the Six Paths of Woe. Raxri and Akazha clung on for dear life as he barelled down.

Our dearest river dragon prince plummeted, plunged, into the darkness of the forest behind Dark Lord Trasan's haunted palace.

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