Chapter 101: Side Story 9 – Another Blood Mage in Al-Shan?

"How different regions of the world spawned people with predilections for different affinities has always been a question for scholars. Was it the differing environment they grew up in that was the cause? Or was this something more hereditary in nature? The question of nature against nurture is still oft debated to this very day." - Angus MacLeod, Dean Emeritus of the Levain Institute for Higher Learning, speech in FP 665.

 

Al-Shan Empire, Shan-Hu Island, Autumn of the year 674 FP

 

"We must say, city magistrate, that your men and children had shown some truly deplorable behaviour. We are not impressed."

 

The city magistrate, a slim old human man with grey hair and beard, as well as a balding head, prostrated on the ground as he trembled visibly. He struck the ground with his head as he bowed deeply with enough force that his forehead bled, and begged for mercy with a look of true fear in his mien.

 

"This servant deserves death! This servant failed to raise his successor right! Please grant this sinful servant the mercy of a blade!" Pleaded the old man with true horror in his voice. In his mind, he scolded his own foolishness, his blind trust in his pampered only son, and his lack of suspicion on his son's behaviour. The calamity that befell the family today, was one he dared not blame others but himself.

 

And that rotten scumbag his son turned out to be.

 

Before the prostrating magistrate stood a youth, no more than fifteen years or so, who carried himself with a regal air that would not have felt out of place in a much grander personage. Beside the youth was a young woman who looked at the magistrate's son with a look of utter disgust on her beautiful features.

 

Said son clutched the stump of his right arm as he was forced to his knees by imperial guardsmen who had appeared seemingly out of nowhere. His many cronies - the magistrate recognized many of them as sons of rich merchants or other influential people - were similarly forced to kneel with their faces pressed to the ground.

 

Of their lackeys and thugs, those were put down by the guards or by the buff man who had stood beside the youth when the altercation started. The buff man had slaughtered people as easily as if he only strangled chickens, his heavy glaive swung without mercy, limbs and heads sent aloft where it passed.

 

The young man received a sheet of paper from one of the guards, who saluted after she delivered the missive and left. He read through the paper as a frown formed on his brow, some visible anger on his noble mien.

 

Both the magistrate and his son, as well as his son's cronies, sweated profusely when they noticed the changes on the youth's features. The son even fainted out of fright when the youth crumpled the paper in his hand out of anger and fixed him with a baleful stare.

 

Yet to the magistrate, the youth looked with eyes that conveyed pity, and sympathy. He beckoned to some of the guards, who helped the old magistrate as he rose, trembling, to his feet.

 

"Your son, and all his cronies, are to be executed in public in three days. We deem their deplorable actions worthy to qualify them for death by the thousand cuts. Do you have any objection?" Asked the youth as he stared the old magistrate in the eyes with his piercing, clear gray eyes.

 

"This sinful subject accepts the punishment! The emperor is wise!" Said the old magistrate haltingly. Death by the thousand cuts was a punishment reserved for those who committed truly deplorable crimes, or those made examples of. His son and the cronies had the unenviable distinction in that they ticked both qualifications at once.

 

Some of the cronies yelled in protest only to be violently made to shut their mouths by the guards, while others blanched when they realized just what kind of mess they had gotten into. A few fainted out of fright when they heard the old magistrate call the youth "emperor".

 

"As for you… Magistrate Huang, your records showed little faults, and we asked the people. They vouched and begged for mercy on your behalf," the youth continued nonchalantly, as if he had not just sentenced a dozen young men to horrible deaths. "We deemed that your faults were that of a parent who failed to see the flaws of their child. We have found you not complicit in their crimes, yet your ignorance of it demands punishment to sate justice. You are hereby stripped of all official ranks and removed from your position. Please have your office cleaned for your replacement within one week's time."

 

"This subject thanks the emperor's mercy! May the emperor reign for a thousand years!" Said the old magistrate as he bowed deeply, so deep that his torso was level with the ground.

 

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Xain Haroone, Emperor of the Al-Shan Empire, sighed deeply as he laid back on the bed while his head rested on Layla's thighs. It looked like they would have to cut their trip short after all, for there was little chance that today's incident would remain unknown.

 

He had made that a certainty when he sentenced those filth that paraded as men to a very public and very gruesome execution.

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"Do you think I did wrong today, Layla?" Xain asked his wife. "Wife" still felt like an odd term for him to call her, as he had once thought of Layla like an older sister when they were young.

 

They had gone on a trip around the empire incognito, as he had wished to see how the people lived their lives with his own eyes. Halmout had vehemently argued against it on grounds of safety, but relented when Xain agreed to be escorted openly by Hu-Lao, and discreetly by a cadre of space mages paired with a squad of imperial guards, who could be teleported to him instantly in times of need.

 

Most of the journey was uneventful. Over the past month they had toured the southern islands of Hadj-al-Zafreed and the smaller islands near it, then took a turn to the east towards Shan-Hu. It was in a smaller town to the north of Shan-Hu where they ran into the current situation.

 

A local tyrant, second generation of a rich family, or a Fù-Èr-Dài as they were commonly and mockingly called, had taken a fancy to Layla. Xain had politely avoided conflict at first, as he naively thought a complaint to the magistrate might have solved the situation.

 

He never got the chance to make such a complaint, when the Fù-Èr-Dài returned with friends and thugs in tow and tried to do things more violently. One of the "friends" was the magistrate's son, and Hu-Lao had not taken kindly to their approach.

 

His imperial guards were also promptly teleported to his side, and a brutal beatdown was delivered so swiftly neither Xain nor Layla needed to have raised a finger in the process. News of the altercation reached the magistrate, and unlike his rotten son, he recognized the young emperor by sight.

 

His guards had swiftly investigated in the time the magistrate had taken to arrive, and their findings were damning. Apparently the magistrate's son, and his cronies, had ran an underground brothel that catered to all sorts of sick fetishes - mostly their own.

 

Xain had no regrets that he condemned those filth to a horrific death. Even now as he laid and rested, his guards worked with the city guards and stormed the brothel, where they were to collect evidence as well as to free the poor souls within.

 

"I get why you sympathized with the magistrate," Layla stated kindly while she gently stroked his hair with one hand. "Many people are blind to the flaws of their precious children. We must ensure this fault will not befall us in the future, my dear emperor~"

 

Her words were light and her tone playful, but Xain heard the steel hidden behind the silk in her voice. He patted her hand reassuringly, determined in his heart that should one day a child of his turned rotten like that, he would put them down himself.

 

The trip had been pleasant for the young imperial couple at first, but this latest episode had sobered them, and allowed them to realize the truth. Even as peace reigned and the country rebuilt, there would still be places where cruelty and injustice had free reign.

 

Something he wished to change during his lifetime, at the very least.

 

Their private moments were interrupted by a polite knock on the door, and Xain rose from the bed. He called out for the person outside to enter, and saw that it was Hu-Lao, who had a disturbed look on his valiant face.

 

"What is the matter?" Xain asked the man bluntly. That Hu-Lao made such a face must have meant that something was very wrong, as Xain had rarely if ever seen the stoic general look disturbed like that.

 

"We… might have a bit of a situation, your Imperial Majesty," said Hu-Lao as he bowed politely. "We have stormed the brothel and freed the captives within but…"

 

"But what?" Xain cut in somewhat impatiently.

 

"One of the captives… might well be a Blood Mage."

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