THE FORSAKEN LAND OF GENèSE

  600

  As one of the seven high ranking motifoirs in Shindholm, Sir Rudeus Penn possessed a tool worthy of his expertise.

  His Decanohedron was a three-by-three, ranked third in terms of sheer processing power, boasting a larger work area for calculations than, say, the two-by-two, used by the students roaming the halls of Alexandra, or the one-by-one, a prop used by the uneducated for simple accounts.

  One of the perks of having a three-by-three was the time it took to reset.

  None. Within a blink of declaring a new constant, each side was blocked in satisfying uniformity. There were five colours for this equation, each representing a variable and a constant: white for the enemy, the fallen comet; black for the horde of darkness lining the rim, sky-blue for the free-spirited mercenary, slacksteel grey for the armoured soldier, and purple for the prideful scholar.

  While this scholar, especially, was usually quite anal about assigning a variable to each side—the more possibilities considered, the better—Sir Rudeus Penn wasn’t going to let such trifles cost him the world.

  Upon declaring the variables, its layers turned without rhyme, scrambling the colours across five active faces.

  Then, it started working back to the result.

  Meanwhile, Windshear clashed with the destroyer’s weapon, creating a shockwave that echoed inside the crater. Before the soundwave bounced back to their ears, the mercenary and the destroyer had already created several more.

  Jonah fought like an animal, his movements wide and reckless.

  His swings were the epitome of untrained, tunnel-visioned and telegraphed, each time, pulling his sword arm back to the farthest extreme and bringing the instrument down like a lightning bolt.

  “Clear!”

  His opponent kept its longsword close, redirecting the mercenary’s swing at the last possible moment. A wind blast travelled over its shoulder and ripped into the earth.

  Boom!

  The invader shook its head pitifully.

  While it lacked the eagerness that drove its opponent, it eclipsed the mercenary’s prowess in every other aspect of combat.

  While parrying another blow, its posture was relaxed, and it executed a flurry of jabs with a level of foresight that left no openings.

  Jonah was fast, capable of raising his arm on his enemy’s left, then bringing it down after appearing on their right.

  His enemies were always trapped in a whirlwind which showed no signs of stopping, but this particular foe navigated the flow without breaking a sweat, as if it were born in greater storms.

  Still, it remained on the defensive. That is, because while the mercenary’s wind-up was deceptively long—Jonah raised his instrument high, prophesying his next attack—his swings were entirely too honest. And therefore, impossible to predict.

  “Tailwind!”

  A tailwind pressed down on the mercenary’s instrument, augmenting the strike.

  Sudden acceleration, impossible to predict.

  Windshear went right past the invader’s defences. No. It didn’t even get the chance to build it proper.

  Jonah’s cleave split the crater down the middle, shooting a blanket of bleached dust to the heavens, evenly split along the shallow fissure.

  Rudeus Penn glanced at the Decanohedron bearing hope.

  Its rotation slowed, this close to finding a solution.

  Click……

  Click…

  Click.

  Then, a voice spoke up in the emptiness. Hatred whispered like a serpent’s hiss. “What… is this place?”

  The destroyer revealed itself in the sky, peerless between the heavens and the earth.

  The Decanohedron sped up. Either the instrument needed more time, or that sixth variable was essential to finding the solution.

  Penn realised the robe, concealing his presence as he observed for anything that could fit into the equation. Nothing.

  Apart from its prior injuries, there wasn’t a scratch on it. It had sensed the mercenary’s attack, escaping into the air before the weapon fell. Similarly, it must have sensed company above the ground. “I asked you to speak.”

  Its gaze pressed the scholar to do just that. “Forgive me, your Divinity. My tongue was tied between remorse and awe.”

  He dismissed his hover so that there would be no misunderstanding. The implication that he was trying to match the destroyer’s height could be a fatal mistake. “My name is Sir Rudeus Penn. I am a scholar from-”

  “Lower yourself.”

  “Of course!” The scholar pressed his forehead to the sand, feeling no movement in the air. Not even the slightest breeze.

  'What a fool!' That Windshear Ffang likely exhausted himself with that monstrous attack. How much time could he possibly buy for them both?

  “My name is Sir Rudeus Penn. I am a scholar sent by her majesty to welcome your descent. This world has long awaited your arrival. Your comet has touched down in the Forsaken Land of Genesis, but the name of our planet is Earth.”

  “Earth?” The silhouette chuckled briefly. “What a fitting name for you all. Thank you, speck. You may speak no longer.”

  It ascended further into the sky. “Your plants come from the soil, and your animals feast on the greenery. Your predators feast on the animals. And even you humans, the least corrupted, who they claim to be made in our image, are the lowest of the bunch. Created by accident when one of our own breathed life’s embers into dust.”

  Rudeus risked an upward glance.

  “Everything below the sky is dirt. And everything above it shines like mud.” He saw a river of boiling ichor flowing from its wound. At the same time, the golden band above its head was losing its shine, cracked beyond repair. “But she so loved the world that one day, she would give her only begotten son. That whosoever believeth in it shall not be lost, but burneth everlasting.”

  Its cocoon of six wings unfurled, feathers plucking off. “The clouds deserveth not your sacrifice, the hearth of your bosom,” said the fallen one, speaking to the mud he’d sunk beneath.

  Thousands of radiant feathers, like miniature comets, illuminated the blank canvas of space, orbiting a singular existence—a lonesome heavenly body. “And this dirt deserveth not mine.”

  “Yo!” Jonah’s voice boomed within the basin, knocking the cloud of dust aside.

  Rudeus glanced at the cube, which was beginning to pick up speed. No. No. This couldn’t be right. Something about this wasn’t making sense!

  After the last attack, his playmate, the wind, had been circling the crater, collecting smoke and ash. Now, these dark products of destruction gravitated toward him, whirlpooling around a single human being in the Center of the Universe, who rejected such heights in favour of his earthly desires. “Why the hell are you trying to destroy my planet?”

  And a chorus of many multitudes did respond, layered distortions speaking in the same tongue, “Why will I destroy this planet?” echoed the multitude, then said with such calm confusion that the scholar almost thought that the question itself was ridiculous instead. “Because it is my right.”

  Jonah said nothing, but those words made the air turn cold.

  Windshear hummed the mercenary’s disdain. “And who the hell are you to make that decision?”

  The invader ceased, seemingly without reason, as if his ascent was blocked by an invisible cage. “I am.”

  The decanohedron stopped spinning altogether. ? Expression Incomplete. ?

  Thousands of miniature suns reshaped into spears and discharged into the crater, filling it with harsh white light and heat. Jonah’s image flickered countless times, reappearing where it was safe, then vanishing from where it wasn't.

  Shades closest to the spit retreated from the edge.

  “Help!” screamed the scholar when the downpour came. Steel Soldier No. 47 leapt to the rescue, shielding the scholar with its body. “What the hell are you doing? Summon the instrument I gave you earlier!”

  Seconds later, the three of them were under a flat, reflective shield.

  A heavenly downpour inside the crater, showing no sign of cessation. At those words, one might imagine the crackling of thunder, the rumbling of stone, but there were no clouds here, and the earth, after being shown such contempt, was too ashamed to cry out in anguish. Its feathers—these projectiles were neither wood nor metalwork. Silent and weightless. Fatal without force. They pierced the sand and dimmed, reappearing behind its back to be sent out again.

  Their conversation occurred in such deadly silence.

  The mercenary grinned. “Oh, hey. How’s it going, man, tin-can man? Your brainbox find a way to beat this thing?”

  “Not yet! Equation incomplete. I need you…” panted the scholar as havoc wreaked around them. “…to draw out… another variable.”

  Jonah raised an eyebrow.

  Penn cleared his throat, finding some dignity in his wet trousers' pockets. “There’s a golden band floating above its head. If you damage it with one of your attacks, I can implement the result into my calculations. Are you capable?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  The eunuch stumbled over his words, having conjured a lecture in advance. “What?”

  The mercenary yawned. “You heard me.

  “You! Don’t tell me you’re planning to hide here with me! What if it focuses its next attack? I need time to run more calculations! Have you still not grasped the extent of what we’re dealing with? The destroyer is—"

  “I know.” Under the shadow of the steel man’s shield, they were like birds trapped in a cage. Unable to see the sky, much less set out of the shadow. He scratched his cheek with a sheepish grin. “I had no business coming here, huh?”

  Heaven's blinding light made him into a tiny silhouette. Regardless, the young mercenary captain was leering at the open world, as if itching to take flight. “That queen of yours told me from the beginning that I wouldn’t stand a chance. She was right. It’s injured, confused, and still way stronger than I thought.”

  “But you know what pisses me off the most?” asked the mercenary. “It’s been going easy on me because it thinks I’m nothing. I’m not alive because I’m strong. I’m alive because I’m weak.”

  Sir Penn sneered with contempt. “So, after all that peacocking about being fearless, you’ve given up. Is that it?”

  “Did I say that? Huh...” Jonah raised his hands to prove the point. They weren’t vibrating as they often would as a side effect of his bestowment. They moved at an irregular pace, like his bones couldn’t find peace. “I guess I was wrong about myself.”

  “To me, not backing down from a fight has never been about bravery or pride. If I run away from an enemy just because they’re too strong, it means that wherever they set their flag down is a place I have to avoid,” he explained, reminiscing under tribulation. “All the epic mountain views, their pretty wives and daughters, and the sick-as-shit discoveries on the way there are permanently closed off from me.”

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  “So, I take back all my… peacocking, for now. I’m scared as shit.” Jonah half-chuckled. Heh. Peacocking. This eunuch—what a pervy guy. “But I’m going up there, and I’m not coming back down until one of us is dead. If I don’t, then I’ll go to bed thinking it’s invincible. And I don’t wanna still be shaking when I wake up.”

  The scholar inhaled sharply. He was now showing consideration.

  Things were not going according to plan.

  Windshear’s vibrations accelerated, blurring the young man’s silhouette.

  “Oh, yeah. And when I said I wasn’t sure, I wasn’t talking about that ring, or your brainiac mathematics. It’s just that this whole time, I’ve been calling myself the wolf, the top of the food chain. But then, I wasn’t all that mad when it called me dirt.”

  Back in Dunreach, the furncase was where all the stories happened. When the old man wasn’t lecturing about responsibility, the old lady was reading the script.

  Jonah didn’t have the attention span to listen to the verses, but if one of them had the angels, he was peeking over the book.

  Solvanel had nightmares about the ones that came for little boys who misbehaved. He, on the other hand, was bloodshot-eyed awake under the bad, waiting for one of the angel-traps to go off. How cool would it be to keep one as a pet?

  He never did manage to capture an angel—because his traps weren’t enticing enough. What the hell do angels eat anyway? He didn’t know. And even if he did get one of them, the old man would probably sit on it by accident.

  This angel didn’t look like the ones he had envisioned. It wasn’t all that scary, nor did it seem very happy to be floating. Maybe its owner was the old lady, since she was dead now.

  Who knows.

  “Maybe it’s the dirt that gets to do the shining. And all the stars are stuck in the mud. Or something like that, anyway.” Jonah made a face, clearly wondering what the hell he just said, then cracked a smile at an idea. Brilliant and charming, as none of his enemies had the chance to remember it before they were caught up in his whirlwind. “Speaking of which, when you see my brother again, tell him I finally found something that’s as depressing as he is. I bet you it’ll piss him off.”

  Before the scholar was able to respond, a gluttonous vacuum swallowed its playmate into the open, rescuing the mercenary from safety’s boredom.

  “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Run my legs, not my mouth, I know!” Jonah giggled at his only friend’s complaints as they tumbled out, scarcely regaining his footing a blink before a beam penetrated his skull. “Anywho, I bet ya’ can’t tell me where we’re headed~”

  No response.

  “Yer kiddin’ me. I was hopin’ ya knew!”

  Sir Penn grimaced, hearing the echoes of a madman’s conversation.

  Jonah ran straight ahead, taking lengthy strides that brought him to the crater’s curved walls. Weapon in hand. Breathing in the heat. Certain destruction in the ever-changing maze of light that lay before them. In other words, it was business as usual.

  “Break the band! You have to break the band!”

  “Yeah, yeah,” muttered the mercenary, taking the first vertical step. He gossiped to himself. “I know. I know. So pushy!”

  After countless battles with the mercenaries, any respectable motifoir would know their statistics down to the decimal. As a precautionary measure, in case they went rogue, he’d memorised equations based on their leader’s bestowment, specifically.

  Blesseds of a certain calibre were wise enough to hide their weakness. This boy was the sole exception who took pleasure in putting his weakness on show.

  “Is there a connection, Number Forty-Seven?” The scholar asked without turning around. Its armour creaked a nod. “Open a direct channel to the queen. Bypass if there is a queue because this message is urgent.”

  Its armour creaked a nod.

  Rudeus took a deep breath. “Your Radiance?”

  There was no response. Fine. He’d just leave a message.

  [Good day, your Radiance. I suspect that when you’re listening to this message, I’ll already be dead. But if this is the end of the world, then I figure I have nothing to lose. You, of all people, have a right to know exactly what doomed us all, especially because it was entirely your fault.

  Jonah ‘Windshear’ Ffang is reckless. He is arrogant. He is strong. However, in the late stages of this reckless and uncontrollable youth, most of his strength lies dormant—potential. The warriors who made better for this equation, before the queen overstepped her boundaries and dismissed them all, are kinetic. Their willpower is tested. Their bestowments are potent. Their instruments are sharp. And their judgment—even sharper.

  Aratiri of the Thunderclap.

  Samson of the Lion’s Mane.

  Sveva, the Chimera.

  Simon Magus, the principal and the pinnacle of the Tower of Mages.

  Those are some of the pinnacles of humanity whom you overlooked in favour of this boy. Perhaps in time, he would have joined their ranks, but my calculations foretold that right now, this man—no—this boy is far too close to human.

  However, his recklessness and arrogance are beyond the extent of human right.]

  Jonah raced in circles, climbing the crater walls.

  [He’s showing his arrogance as I speak. I don’t know what he’s thinking. No. I know exactly what he was thinking. Or rather, that he isn’t thinking at all.

  Do you remember my question before the throne?

  Arrogance is a feeling paired with dominance. And humanity never knew the meaning of the word. So how could a single man, knowing he isn’t the strongest of his species, call himself the owner of a world where mankind is at the bottom?

  You told me that the first step to change is desire.

  I told you I was talking to the king.

  I believed that he was pretending to be fearless, fooling others and then himself. But speaking as a man who has had the displeasure of getting to know the prodigious fighter, I will admit these things are not so.

  He truly believed in his dreams of today. And you reinforced them by recommending him for this journey. Hence, when he came face to face with the enemy, your words must have been ringing in his ears. Now, his spirit has been utterly crushed.]

  But if so? Why was he still running?

  That fool. He could never make that jump. He’s not fast enough!

  Jonah held the instrument to the side, carving a line in the wall. It was then that the scholar realised something was off. If the mercenary was carving that line, then who had he been tracking this entire time?

  Click…

  Rudeus’ ear picked up the noise.

  He glanced at the instrument with his mouth wide open.

  Click…

  The gears of solution were turning again.

  Finally, one of the kingdom’s all-knowing understood. That man wasn’t the real Jonah. The real Jonah was already on the third lap. The other was no more than an afterimage, who had just completed the second.

  Click…

  [I wonder what favours he must have done to you to make him earn your favour. Some of us noticed how you’ve been walking with a limp. His talents are something to be considered, certainly, but they’re not enough.

  Had I any heart to care for the mercenary, I would have told him as such when he was shivering like a frightened babe in my arms. You are not weak, my boy. The enemy, instead, is too strong!]

  Jonah cleared the third lap, rapidly approaching his limit.

  [But in truth, I know that’s why you chose him.]

  Click…

  [An expression with the mercenaries may not come this far, while an equation without them would come this far and fail every time. If the warrior were old and cautious, and then strong enough to be considered a threat, he would be killed on the spot, or worse, become a vessel for the invader.]

  “Tired?” panted the mercenary. “Nah. I can do this all day!”

  The destroyer spared him a glance, but nothing more.

  Its barrage continued in the middle of the crater, pummelling the shield, more interested in venting its anger on the sand itself than anything else. Steep Man No. 47’s armour groaned.

  Click…

  [And according to those early calculations, if the warrior were confident and weak, then he might live long enough to make the result. But for the equation to come to fruition, you suggested a man with no attachments. One who yearns to live but isn’t afraid to die.

  When he met the young mercenary, I do admit to doubting myself.

  It was only for a time, but I understood.]

  “I want you to push me, Windy. Really push me!”

  Click…

  [Only a child would gaze upon the heavens and question their right.]

  “We can’t let that guy outpace us!”

  Only his partners wouldn’t be surprised to know he’d forgotten he was facing an enemy. Jonah had made up his own. It was a Jonah who’d just completed his initial lap. A stronger Jonah. A healthier Jonah. One who didn’t know how hard it would be to keep his legs moving.

  [But the mercenary simply can’t keep up.

  He isn’t as fast as he used to be. Before he felt fear for the very first time. Since then, his doubt has grown heavy. And this world that so many were trying to better—it needs a pair of shoulders that can’t feel the weight.

  But this seed of doubt wasn’t planted by the sky.]

  Click…

  [One night, there was a battle in the lost forest one night. You’ll be pleased to know that your roguish boytoy emerged victorious. Quite the childish squabble, really. But it showed the kind of man we are dealing with. And more importantly, it proved you wrong.

  Jonah ‘Windshear’ Ffang. Before then, his heights were immeasurable, and his victory was all but guaranteed.

  The equation fell apart when he spared his little brother.

  Jonah’s failure started with his connection to the earth.]

  Click…

  [Now, he is questioning his right to question the heavens].

  The lines in the wall stopped as the afterimage pulled ahead.

  Jonah was panting while hanging by his sword.

  [The boy lost faith in his journey. Hence, this world will come to its natural end.]

  Rudeus lowered his head.

  [I’m so disappointed. I can’t bring myself to look.

  There is a reason behind it all.

  I’ve been saying this to you for years under my breath:

  Take a visit to your library for once and look for a book titled ‘Motifoirs — A Pattern in History’. You’ll find it on the nearest shelf on the right.

  If you know how to turn the pages, you’ll see a pattern in our history. Every motifoir that ever lived. The greatest and the small. Going all the way back to the very first. Was a male.

  Humanity exists at the bottom not because of our physical limitations. We’re stuck here because we are burdened with the one variable that the shades lack. Emotion—this is the plague that weakens advancement. But while men are susceptible to the plague, like our now docile and inglorious king, women are natural-born carriers.]

  Fingernails digging into his palms, blood dyed the sand as he pictured the two thrones. Over the past few years, one had grown larger than the other. Before her arrival, the subjects bowed in front of a single throne. Then, they bowed between two. And now, they bend the knee in front of the one on the right.

  [I agreed with your suggestion in the end, but only when you made it clear that you’d never agree with mine. The king knows my history. You know my expertise. The people worship my calculations. They call me the next Solomon because I’ve never been wrong!]

  The soldier’s knees were buckling. Its shield was losing its form. Whichever one of them broke first, his end was sure to follow. In pace with his anger, Rudeus Penn mouthed off a lifetime of frustrations. Speeding up so as to not be interrupted by his own demise.

  [While I earned my place in the world, you swallowed yours under a man’s belt. And you continue to use your position to undermine my own. This is the fate of the world, sister! How could you exempt the boy simply because he’s your son?] The equations involving that boy were the most marvellous he’d ever seen. [When it comes to laying down one’s life, discipline is just as reliable as recklessness. The next time your hormones fluctuate and wake up wanting to play Solomon, know this…]

  A beam of light penetrated the shield, splitting their defence right down the middle. The next one would kill him for sure.

  [I told you we should have sent Jude. End recording.]

  Seconds later, the scholar opened one eye to see that they were perfectly fine.

  It… stopped? How?

  The line in the wall hadn’t extended, but the mercenary was gone. Rudeus watched in horror as Jonah’s afterimage took his place, hanging off its sword with the angel’s shadow cast upon its face.

  The afterimage breathed in once…

  Then exhaled.

  It breathed in again…

  Then disappeared.

  “Delete recording! Delete recording!”

  The line extended, turning upward at a steep angle.

  A figure appeared over the destroyer.

  A cyclone embraced him.

  His body was straight from head to toe.

  He was holding his breath, having dismissed the air between them.

  The real Jonah was falling. And the madman was doing every reckless thing imaginable to pick up speed. Rudeus was soaked in sweat, choking down a dry gulp.

  Jonah closed his eyes, focusing on his breathlessness.

  The emptiness in his lungs. The lightness of his shoulders.

  The freedom of his fall.

  “Manifest!” Windshear emanated a light as he closed the distance. Its cyan glint ripping through the void. He reshaped the catalyst into a rotating blade. It wasn’t as bright as the comet, but it was impending. Anyone looking at the sky would think it was a second star.

  However, it didn’t stay up there very long.

  For this was the kind of star where if you blinked, then you would miss him. But by the time you saw him coming, it was already too late.

  The destroyer’s wings curled to shield itself.

  The light went right past it.

  Windshear thudded against the softness. Its feathers quivered in the breeze. “O’ spiteful grain of dirt. Why must you dirty my wings?”

  Several beams circulated at the tip of its wings. “Be purified.”

  Click…

  “Oh yeah? Take a look behind ya’, starlight!”

  The Decanohedron lifted off the ground, its segments rotating rapidly. Five scrambled faces were slowly coming together. First was the sky-blue, the face of reckless youth—solved!

  Rudeus Penn gasped.

  Understanding dawned on the destroyer’s blinding visage when it traced the mercenary’s trajectory. Far below, sunken in the sands, there was a crater within the crater, where a body lay mangled with a bloody feather between its teeth.

  By jumping into the sky, the human wasn’t trying to outshine it.

  The real human was already dead, or close to it. It hit the ground long ago. It had been holding a clash with his afterimage.

  The destroyer’s golden band exploded in a shower of decadent light. Flakes of gold cascaded from the sky. Six wings dimmed out of existence. And now, the fallen one was falling for the second time.