"The Traitor Wyrm was the brother of the Divine King," I said, digging through my memories to try and unbury everything I could remember about him. "About… What, fourteen hundred years ago? Fifteen? I remember the general history of Shen-Long, which includes him."

"Well, I don't," Jackson said. "Can you enlighten me?"

"It was closer to fifteen, and yes," Yushin said. "He and the Divine King were both born as ordinary serpents, without so much as a bloodline to assist them. History grows spotty in this area. Shen-Long was not unified in this time, splinted into a hundred tiny factions, and the Divine King has limited memories of this era. What is known is that at some point, the Divine King and his brother found a potent enough source of chi to begin cultivation."

"Hold on," Jackson interrupted. "I've heard the term cultivation and life enforcement both used, is there a difference?"

Shé Rui tilted his hand back and forth in a so-so gesture – a very Cendel specific gesture he must have picked up from his wife.

"Life enforcement is a general term, in the same way mage is a general term. But just as there are many subsets of mages, there are subsets of life enforcement. Cultivation focuses on the intake of energy from the natural world based on the element you are naturally aligned with. Like an illusionist with a light affinity. Gather it within you to purify the body, then learn to project it out with specific techniques, akin to spellforms. If you can manage to reach the peak before Magyk stops you from expanding your dantien–"

"What?"

"The pool of chi within you," I explained. "It literally means 'field of elixir' or 'chi field', depending on how you want to translate it."

Shé Rui nodded his head to me, then turned back to Jackson.

"Regardless, if you can open all eight of the blocks in your way before you turn around twenty five, you can compress that power into a core within you, and then eventually break that core to become a nascent immortal, which is but one step below reaching divinity. I know there are other types of life enforcement, namely druidic magic, but I do not know how they differ from cultivation."

I frowned, trying to reconcile that information with the theory that life enforcement was just a set of specific rituals that had evolved out of proper magic. Honestly, with everything I'd learned, I was becoming increasingly convinced that theory was just a political piece, paid research in order to try and make wizardry look good. After all, Cendel was the only nation in the world to have two separate Erudite academies.

"Okay, I'm following along. That explains why the Divine King is so old, at least," Jackson said. "But how does all that turn a snake into a person?"

"A beast, even one without a bloodline, who reaches the energy drawing stage has a roughly one in ten chance to become sapient, and at the perpetual core stage, almost all can assume a human form," Yushin said. "At least, a mostly human form. They retain some characteristics of the beast they once were."

"But this means much of the history is unclear before the Divine King and his brother ascended to the energy drawing stage," Shé Rui said. "Once he had reached that far, he and his brother were powerful. A low energy drawing cultivator is a match for a third circle mage. The pair overthrew the local baron, who was by all accounts an evil man, and thus began their conquest. They unified over fifty different kingdoms and ten million people, ascending in power until both were at the very peak of nascent immortal stage."

"That is where the problem occurred," Yushin said, picking up while her uncle paused for breath. "On the other side of the continent, in the mountains, a powerful warrior had begun to conquer as well. It is said he too was at the peak of cultivation, but had combined his cultivation with the bloodline of being the demigod child of a goddess of swords, and the hermetic gold rank destiny mark of the blade with the destiny of the king. Three powers, each brought to the peak of what a mortal could wield. From those he drew his name of the Bladed King."

"It was too much for the Divine King and his brother. Time and time again, they were beaten back," Shé Rui continued. "So they too sought more power. If they could possess a second source of power and bring it to the peak, then they'd be able to defeat their great enemy. The Traitor Wyrm and the Divine King sold their names to a demon and an angelus, receiving new names along with blood to be refined into an elixir. It is said a long dead Erudite with an alchemy affinity did the refining, and thus granted a bloodline to each. Demon to fuse with the Traitor Wyrm's yin element, and angelus to combine with the Divine King's yang element. This is where history once again begins to diverge, as there is both the official story espoused by the Divine King and the true story."

"Officially," Yushin said, a note of scorn in her voice. "The Traitor Wyrm began to fall to the Creep, slowly progressing as the pair worked together to slay the Bladed King. Then, upon the death of their enemy, the Traitor Wyrm attacked his brother, and the Divine King was forced to fight back. Their battle raged on and on for thirty days and thirty nights, with the Traitor Wyrm slowly transforming into an aberrant, while the Divine King's goodness and light served to allow him to begin to manifest touches of divinity, allowing him to eventually slay the monster."

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

Shé Rui crossed his arms, his biceps bulging as he continued the story.

"The truth is that the Traitor Wyrm did not show any signs of falling to Three Corpse Disease, or as you call it, the Creep. Upon defeating their enemy he was attacked, viciously and brutally, by the Divine King, who sought to rule alone. They did fight, but it was not aberrant taint that the Traitor Wyrm developed, but rather, divinity. Much like the Divine King, he became a half step into heaven. And this is how the Divine King tricked him!"

I resisted the urge to narrow my eyes. While it was definitely possible that the story was as straightforward as Shé Rui was making it out to be, I fully expected that there was more going on behind the scenes than just that.

"The Divine King made a ploy that supposed that he was about to draw on enough faith to form his realm, ascending and using his final act to strike out and kill the Traitor Wyrm," Shé Rui continued. "And so, the Traitor Wyrm reached out to ascend as well, prepared to try and defend himself from the attack, only for the Divine King to not release the faith's power and not ascend. But it was too late for the Traitor Wyrm, and he manifested his own realm and was torn away."

Though I managed to stop myself from narrowing my eyes, I did bite my lip. While I doubted the Divine King's story was true, I suspected that the Traitor Wyrm's story also had a couple of holes in it. It was just too black and white. History had shades of gray.

"The Divine King sealed the ascension point, and built his palace atop it, telling everyone the Traitor Wyrm was dead, in order to stop people's faith from reaching him," Yushin explained. "But a small contingent of the Traitor Wyrm's faithful survived, hiding themselves in the Divine King's Court, continuing to show him loyalty. My mother even managed to visit him, and she bore… me."

The reaction from our group was rather mixed.

I simply nodded. The Erudite had mentioned her 'dark god' bloodline before and I'd suspected that she bore some sort of bloodline that was a threat to the Divine King. That would explain why Yushin was being hunted by him. I had thought that the Traitor Wyrm was dead, so I'd guessed she was a surviving descendant of one of the Bladed King's illegitimate children, or something of that sort. Sure, hearing the Traitor Wyrm had survived was surprising, but that was about it.

Salem, on the other hand, had gone white as a sheet, and opened his mouth several times before closing it. Eventually, he managed to speak.

"You're a demigod?" Salem asked, a note of awe in his voice. "How's… Bloody hells. No wonder you're so powerful."

But it was Jackson's reaction that was the most curious. He was normally so passionate, verbose, and boisterous that I'd expected him to leap up and declare that he'd defend Yushin from the Divine King himself, if need be. Instead, he simply looked contemplative, like he'd been handed a puzzle box and told he needed to open it somehow.

"Why not simply hide your bloodline?" he finally asked. "It's not fair you're being hunted for your heritage, but you mentioned your former guardian would train you before she died, and your uncle is training you now. Surely the safest thing would be to do what Emrys did, and simply hide it away?"

"Because, if Yushin can grow powerful enough, she can open a gateway that will allow the Traitor Wyrm to manifest an avatar on this realm," Shé Rui explained. "The avatar has a thousand years of our family's faith poured into it, and a considerable investment of the Traitor Wyrm's power. It will be able to kill the Divine King, or else force him to ascend and balance the scales."

"Do you want this, Yushin?" Jackson asked.

"It is my dut–"

"Duty can go to the hells for all I care," Jackson said, his voice rising with passion. "I didn't ask if it was your duty to summon this avatar. I asked if it was what you wanted."

Shé Rui moved then, and I was forced to tap into my bloodline just to follow him. He rose into the air, his hand extended, and wind formed into the shape of a blade. It vanished an instant later as the wind cultivator reasserted control over himself, but he still loomed over Jackson from his hovering position.

"It is not your place to–"

"It is not your place to force her," Jackson interrupted, his voice strong and confident, despite everything. "Yushin is her own woman, not a tool of the gods. If she wants to do this, then–"

"Enough!" Yushin said, this time cutting Jackson off. "It is fine, Jackson. I appreciate your concern. But the Divine King would see me dead just for my blood. Even if I did not have a duty, that alone would convince me he is unfit to rule."

Salem and I exchanged looks, his pierced eyebrow raising. I gave a half shrug, unsure what to say or do. As far as I was concerned, Yushin was my friend, and I owed her a debt. I'd help her if she wanted something.

"What do we do now?" I asked, and the attention shifted to me. "I mean, there are assassins trying to find Yushin's location. Do you need to run and hide, Yushin? Start veiling yourself every day, like you did before coming here?"

"I will lodge a complaint with the High King," Shé Rui said. "I would advise you to veil yourself, though, Yushin."

"Why's the high king gonna care?" Salem asked.

"This is his land," Jackson said. "What has happened already could be seen as grounds for war. I doubt he will want that, so soon after the Dreki invasion, but he can force concessions and prevent further overt attacks."

"With that said, I do not expect this to be over. While I doubt any assassin would be so bold again, I do expect some sort of political ploy," Shé Rui added. "Perhaps even claim that a splinter sect of his has betrayed the nation, and reward the king for putting down a rogue element, while in actuality, they hunt for Yushin."

"For right now, then, we should ac' as if things're normal. Deviation from our routine will make us more suspicious, not less," Salem said. "We need'ta jus' be normal wizard students."

"Agreed."

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.