Chapter 11: Chapter 11: Faith

It was time to put the cross-sword Tiar’s left hand had become to the test. Thinking about how to use it to destroy all the continuously multiplying wings around him, he thought of Bara and what she had said earlier.

Servants of Order usually created weapons to fight their enemies. That much was true, but the Viktar had considered that perhaps this principle could be applied to something more than weapons. What if those bound to Order could use the tools made by them to generate other creations? What if they could create something new with each swing of their sword, for example?

With the thought of his preferred shape for creation – the shuriken from his time as a Distroya that manifested as a cross after his transformation – he poured whatever might he had in the weapon that served as an extension of his arm and swung it. It cut through many of the black-feathered wings, out of the wounds inflicted on them starting to come out numerous white bubbles.

In short time each of the bubbles became a white cross-shaped shuriken with a dark blue orb in its center, the crosses starting to fly around while tearing apart the wings they had come out of. Tiar’s creations then clashed with the other wings, running restructuring formulas over the multiplication formulas Myrza had embedded in the manifestations of her deva so they could end their existence.

Considering the first swing was so successful, the Griffin Slayer kept on swinging afterwards, the number of his crosses growing with each strike as the number of wings decreased more and more. Eventually, no wings were left at all in what had become a sphere of crosses, Tiar finally being free to pursue his chief target.

The shuriken he had already created weren’t going to be needed for that, though, so he sent them on a different task by pointing at Negite’s central plaza on the ground under him with his cross-sword. Bara and the others there were surely in need of help against the members of the Bloodguard and all the weapons the champion of Order had made in such short time could help turn the tide of the battle in their favor.

Tiar himself shot downward in search of Myrza, his eyes finding her after she had just landed on the plaza and from what he could make out from the distance between them, she was headed for Bara. Most likely she had already seen what the pink-skinned beauty was capable of and planned to eliminate her first as the rebels’ only remaining secret weapon.

Her teacher would never have that, using his ability to reach a target by the shortest route possible, Order energy enveloping his surroundings moments later to disappear just as fast and reveal his restructured location to be above the Bloodguard Harpies’ commander. She turned around as she saw his shadow falling over her, but her reaction was still too slow to respond to the attack of his cross-sword.

The weapon cut her in half vertically with a single swing, crushing in what remained of the pavement stones on the ground to leave a smoking scar there with its weight, the Viktar not being all too surprised by what followed. Myrza’s body melted away into multiple wings that flew at him, even with his vision partially blocked being able to see the real villainess had emerged from a mini-typhoon of Chaos winds behind Bara.

This Chaos Harpy had already proven she possessed great intelligence, so presumably she had switched with a clone made of her wings the moment she had seen Tiar’s shadow while the original became one with the wind to sneak up on his apprentice. Even the Bloodguard’s commander wasn’t expecting the attack of all the cross-shaped shuriken her enemy had used to escape her prison, though, if one were to judge by how shocked she appeared once the barrage of weapons fell down upon her forces.

She herself was hit by the barrage, her surprise quickly turning to annoyance as she teleported away, Tiar following suit to ensure her demise after neutralizing the wings her clone was made of. Reaching her just as fast as the last time, he impaled her with his sword on one of the plaza’s six obelisks next to the tip of which she had teleported.

The two were now face to face again, their places being exchanged in comparison to how their previous clash had ended. Their expressions weren’t exchanged, however, because the Viktar remained chillingly serious and the Chaos Harpy – disturbingly pleased with herself, enough to even grin all too wide.

‘Heh. I thought you might not escape my prison at all, much less so to do it so quickly. You’ve proven you’re strong but couldn’t you delay a bit longer? I barely managed to kill any of the rebel scum down here.’

‘Is your praise of my power meant to convince me to share the secret of how I escaped the prison with such swiftness?’ – he kept on looking at her while teleporting one of his shuriken to the side of the original that had appeared behind him with a miniature firestorm held in her hands – ‘Or do you have no interest in that at all and were simply buying time to launch an attack at me from behind?’

Tiar now turned to face the real Myrza while the clone he had impaled crumbled into disappearing feathers, the Chaos Harpy still attempting to use the technique she had prepared as she spit blood from having the side of her stomach cut and pierced by the shuriken. Before the firestorm could be fully unleashed, Bara’s teacher took out his cross-sword from the obelisk, slicing through the attack and taking the villainess’ right eye along with that.

She screamed in agony as her firestorm vanished, covering her missing eye while a fire of fury was set ablaze in the other. Myrza took out the shuriken from her stomach, ignoring the restructuring formulas it had already sent through her body and channeling her own three devas through the weapon, swinging at the Griffin Slayer’s face.

‘By my life I’ll cripple you for all eternity before I die, Orderling!!! YOU WILL NEVER FORGET WHAT I’VE DONE TO YOU HERE!!!’

Her wrath reached its climax as her end drew near, fighting her with the calmness Order had given him now, Tiar realizing he had been in the same condition as her earlier. He had been the one to lose control because he had always been taught than when all else fails for a warrior of Chaos, letting one’s rage run rampant is the key to victory.

However, true power lied elsewhere for Order. To wield it, one needed to maintain control over their emotions. To always be focused. It wasn’t about battling desperately to change the outcome, but accepting what is, whether it be victory or defeat and finding the cause behind it. Learning from it. Becoming stronger and smarter by embracing the potential of what can be done once one lets go of strong emotion instead of clinging to it.

Using what he had learned, the Viktar deflected Myrza’s swings again and again with the same composure, feeling how her attacks became weaker and weaker under the effect of exhaustion and the restructuring formulas that kept spreading further throughout her being. Finally, she tried to strike in such an obvious and feeble manner that Tiar simply increased the length of his cross-sword a bit to cut her arm holding the shuriken corrupted by Chaos.

More screams echoed through the air as the harpy’s torso started twisting inward into a whirlpool of restructuring that was dark blue at its center and turned white toward the periphery, her opponent only observing her suffering quietly now. The arm she had lost was also restructured into oblivion as it fell due to the formulas run across it when being cut off by the sword, the Griffin Slayer remaining unfazed even when Myrza spent her final moments cursing him.

It wasn’t anger he felt for her then, neither was it pity. It was nothing. Dwelling on meager pebbles on the path of Order’s advent was unnecessary, much less so sparing any amount of time to feel something for them. So the final victor of the two’s battle moved on to ensure all other threats for the Great Power he served were dealt with, starting with a check on the state of the Bloodguard fought by the rebels.

Discovering them soon enough, he was most pleased to see all of the elite harpies in Negite had been wiped out. That had not come without a price, however. For Bara, the herkleri prince, his guardian and all other herkleri and almeyas that still had a will to fight had suffered numerous injuries, some of which being more than severe. All of them were currently piled up on heaps along with the remains of the monsters they had defeated, the blood of all the species on the battlefield having mixed on their skin to an extent where one could not tell whom it had belonged to originally.

Quite a few of the cross-shaped shuriken that had been rained down on the Chaos Harpies earlier were still active, their delaying of the standard enemy units in the area providing Tiar with an opportunity to stabilize those most precious to him among the wounded. Bara took precedence within that group, once he knelt next to her noticing the deep cuts across her torso and limbs, at least her face having been spared of those. A smile even formed on that face when she took notice of her teacher despite her heavy breathing and the blood flowing between her lips and out of her wounds.

‘Did you beat her?’

Having remained serious up to that point, his apprentice’s greater interest in his affairs rather than her own condition brought a small smile to his face – an effect she often had on him when the two were together, no matter the circumstances.

‘I wouldn’t be here otherwise, child. And I see you’ve taken care of all her subordinates, no doubt mainly because of your skill and stubbornness. Well done, Bara.’

‘Don’t start praising me as if the battle’s over, Arit. I fought as hard as I did because I believed you would return to heal me and the others so we could then finish off these monsters once and for all.’

‘And here I thought you wanted to rest after all this.’

‘I’ve rested all the years until I met you. No more. So stop worrying about me and start healing us. The harpies will soon be upon us.’

‘Your left arm … is that a cross-sword?’

Looking over at the herkleri prince who had said that and his people Tiar realized all of them appeared astounded, their eyes fixed on his left hand. Bara who hadn’t noticed the change in her teacher’s appearance until then also looked at his cross-sword, while being surprised by this, her expression having a tinge of confusion to it as well.

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‘Yes, prince. It is a cross-sword.’

‘H-how …? How did someone like you even …?’

 ‘Did you change your hand into that weapon, master?’

‘Well, Bara … it didn’t exactly happen by my choice. Thus I don’t know how to return it to its previous form.’

‘But this cross-sword … is it something special?’

The prince’s old-crown guardian answered the female almeya while not taking his eyes off the Order-infused weapon for a second.

‘It is a weapon the likes of which no one in this dimension has seen for 300 years, Bara. And one many here have never seen but have only heard legends of.’

All herkleri around had tears in their eyes, their surprise giving way to happiness as they crawled toward Tiar despite of their wounds, reaching with whatever strength they had just so they could touch the cross-sword. The Viktar wondered if any of them had ever smiled with such profound joy from the moment they had been born under his rule of Chaos.

‘A holy blade … the heavens sent us a holy blade once again.’

 ‘Is it real? This isn’t the doing of some illusion-weaving villain?’

‘What I feel from the blade … it can’t be an illusion. It’s really here.’

‘They have not abandoned us. God has not abandoned us.’

‘Then this man … he is the harbinger of Order?’

The herkleri now reached out to touch Tiar himself, their faces lit by awe while they started to pray to him.

‘Use it! Use the sword! Heal us! Lead us!’

‘Bring Order to this land! Bring Order to all of us! Please!’

 He deferred no longer, piercing the ground under his feet with his cross-sword, a mixture of white and dark blue energy starting to leak out of the blade in greater and greater quantities. Entire waves of it formed soon enough, crushing in the piles of wounded warriors and wrapping around them, the restructuring of their bodies commencing.

The pain-ridden screams that followed swiftly didn’t distract Tiar one bit, his disposition being considerably different when compared to the time he had first used restructuring to heal Bara in the ruins of her home town. He was calmer, more focused and much, much more confident.

It was clear now: the answers to any questions he had would present themselves, whether by direct or indirect means, but contrary to his original belief, this would not happen all at once. The right time for each answer would first have to come. Tiar would have to earn it. And most importantly, he would need to have faith.

That faith, the faith all those around him shared –was the true key to prevailing over evil. As long as they had that between them, they needed not fear anything or doubt themselves ever again. The God of Order would provide the faithful with all they needed at any given time.

When the worst part of the restructuring was done, the prince and his guardian were the only ones who had managed to retain a calm demeanor and weren’t praying, the Viktar now pulling the boy to his side and supporting him. It was time to put into practice another lesson Order had taught him – to put others before oneself.

‘I will be the tool for all of you to use to restore Order, but the one who will lead us … will be this boy!!! My sword will be swung in his name!!! HE is Yut’s future and all of us must now put our faith in him!!!’

The herkleri cheered while still having tears in their eyes both from happiness and from the pain of the restructuring they had undergone, meanwhile the child prince using the opportunity to whisper to Tiar.

‘I didn’t ask for this.’

‘Do you think I did? Each of us has a role to play. This is the role you were always meant for, so embrace it. As I shall embrace mine.’

‘A former dimensional lord serving as a tool of the people? That would be a great step-down. Are you ready for such a sacrifice?’

‘No more than you are to rule. But I hope that with each other’s support we’ll both be able to stay true to our purpose.’

For the first time since the two had met, a genuine smile graced the herkleri leader’s face while looking at Tiar – someone who until recently had been his sworn enemy.

‘You’re proposing quite an interesting contract. And I shall accept it.’

‘For which you have my sincerest gratitude, prince.’

‘Elgo. My name is Elgo.’  

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