"Medicine is just another type of poison, and the dose of poison makes the medicine," Whitehall muttered, alone in the part of a cave with plants with multicoloured leaves covering the surface. The room was teeming with life aura.

  Once the Beast King had left, Mocha had fallen from the trees and landed on his head. The lizard had led him into the cave and told him to keep cycling until he reached Jade. When Whitehall protested due to only having life madra present, Mocha just stuck a tongue out and leapt out of the room. The lizard activated the scripts as he left, which formed a barrier that locked Whitehall in.

  Whitehall tried deactivating the scripts, but his madra was too weak and did nothing. He reckoned it was designed only to be deactivated by someone with a Jade or above advancement. Now, he sat alone, trying to cycle the life aura into his venom-madra-filled core. He was failing miserably.

  'If medicine is just another dose of poison, then maybe a different dose of life aura can make poison,' Whitehall thought. He tried cycling in the life aura in small amounts, increasing it over time. At first, his spirit rejected the life aura, ejecting it out of his body. As he increased the amount of life aura he took in, however, the aura began to poison him, looking to heal him, and when nothing else could be healed, it started harming him instead.

  Whitehall seized the minuscule levels of venom aura from the overwhelming life aura. Although it was working, it felt… inefficient . His madra channels burned in pain as he channelled life madra through it. Whitehall stopped before he could cause any permanent damage to himself.

  He needed something else: a new perspective. He closed his eyes and sat. He was not cycling but instead thinking. After a while, his eyes snapped open. Could it be?

  Medicine was a cure for a symptom, and poison was just another dose of medicine. Whitehall focused on the life aura and absorbed it into his spirit. This time, however, he imagined a medicine to cure people from the burden of life—a medicine meant to cure someone from being healthy—a medicine to remove the symptoms of living—the perfect poison.

  He urged the life aura as he absorbed the madra and twisted it with his will. He commanded the life aura, ordering it so that its goal was to heal the burden of life. And it worked. The madra flowed through his channels freely as he understood that healing and poisoning were the same. A pill that can advance a sacred artist straight to jade from copper can also halt their advancement. Every medicine has its side effects.

  An elixir for eternal youth eating on your lifeline .

  Whitehall paused his cycling as he felt something wet and sticky climb onto his shoulder.

  "About time you figured it out."

  Whitehall looked down onto his shoulder to see a sacred beast talking to him. It was a snail, an average-looking snail.

  "This one is honoured-"Whitehall started saying before the snail cut him off.

  "I almost got tired of waiting and was about to explain it to you directly."

  "Why didn't you just-"

  "Meh," the snail snorted. "You're not too bad for a human child."

  "I'm not a chil-"

  "Alright then, see you later," the snail leapt off and crawled away—a very slow crawl.

  Whitehall just sat there, unsure what to do as the snail crawled ever so slowly.

  "Excuse me-"

  "Atterist," the snail said, not letting Whitehall finish his question.

  "What?"

  "Your path. The path of the Atterist." The snail continued to crawl, not bothering to look back.

  That's good to know, Whitehall thought. It did not have the most scary-sounding name, but at least it was not a mouthful.

  "Thank you," Whitehall said.

  "I know what you're thinking," the snail said. "Fine, name it whatever you want."

  "Wait, that wasn't-"

  "I come travelling all this way to teach a human the fundamentals of my kind's path, and all he does is talk trash about our path's name."

  "But I didn't-"

  "You know our core teachings already!" The snail yelled. "That was the deal we struck with the Beast King. No way I'm spending any extra second with an ungrateful human."

  Whitehall pressed his fists together and bowed. "This one is grateful for your-"

  The snail suddenly disappeared in a flash, leaving echoes of its final words. "Goodbye!"

  Sadi sat in the darkness. She eyed the whole room, looking for any spec of light. She thought she saw a speck and rushed to absorb the madra. There was nothing.

  She reckoned if she lit a fire, it might work. Does fire even release light, madra? She wondered. Having run out of ideas, she decided to give it a try. Except, she had nothing to light a fire with. All she had was a torn Heaven's Glory robe that was more rags than clothes.

  She yelled to the darkness in frustration, closing her eyes. Sadi breathed deeply, exhaled, relaxed her muscles, and fell backwards. She lay on the soft earth. Sleep will help, she was sure. "Goodnight," she said to no one in particular.

  As Sadi drifted away slowly, she began to see colours. She could not identify exactly what the colours were, as they seemed to disappear before she could focus on them. She opened her eyes and saw mostly darkness. But now and then, she saw the light of different colours that disappeared as soon as she tried to focus on them. She could not even be sure what colours she was seeing.

  Sadi sat up in a cycling position. Her face was grim in concentration, but she soon relaxed and began to smile slowly.

  Sunda stood outside the sanctuary that she had made. There was a reason why the Beast King had asked for this place to be made for the weaker sacred beasts to hide. Sunda reckoned he would not have done so if it had not been for the presence of his two new apprentices.

  Nonetheless, a great danger was coming. It may not be after them. But it did not need to in order to inflict great harm. Not many things could scare the ancient bird, but this was one of them.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  "Get ready!" She yelled.

  Nearly a thousand Highgold and higher sacred beasts came to attention. Large mammals, reptiles, birds, and even the smallest bugs have gathered here. Their species do not matter; if they are advanced enough, they are strong enough. Some began to cycle their madra, while some prepared their techniques.

  A dreadgod was coming.

  The sky turned red, and the Sacred Beasts of the Wastelands braced for battle.

  The Beast King hovered above the Wastelands. He watched Akura Malic engaging the Bleeding Phoenix in the Blackflame Empire. Their battle destroyed mountains, and the Phoenix was driving the Monarch back. However, there was a method in the way that Akura Malice fought. She was not winning, sure, but The Beast King would not call in losing either. She was redirecting the dreadgod.

  "Chicken's going to come this way, isn't it?" Hissed the Komodo sacred beasts herald floating on a thousand-mile cloud.

  "Yes," The Beast King replied unhappily. He almost snarled but held himself back.

  "Three Heralds versus the bleeding pheonix," replied another herald sacred beast, this time a tiny horned beetle. "That is not good odds."

  The three stayed silent, watching the ongoing battle of Akura Malice and the Bleeding Phoenix.

  "Will Northstrider come to our aid?" The Komodo asked.

  "No," The Beast King replied.

  The horned beetle sighed. "What's the plan then?"

  "I say we give the dragons a present," The Beast King answered.

  The Komodo hissed enthusiastically, "Oh, that would be fun."

  "The dragons would retaliate," the horned beetle replied. "Malice wouldn't be happy. She would be weakened just from this fight."

  "Even better. That'll teach everyone that we are not some fodder to throw their problems at," The Komodo said.

  "Agreed," The Beast King nodded.

  "Then so be it," the Horned Beetle reluctantly agreed. "But I'm leaving once my life is in danger."

  Malice fired a large arrow of shadow with authority that nearly warped the space between her and the Phoenix. The arrow found its mark, straight on the Phoenix's chest. Blood madra dispersed from its chest, and the Phoenix screeched. Realising its prey could bite back, the Phoenix turned away and left the Blackflame Empire.

  Straight towards the Wastelands. The three Heralds, who were waiting for it, unveiled their spirits. Malice snapped her head towards the jungles of the Wasteland. 'Interesting,' she thought before disappearing into her shadows and reappearing at Moongrave to nurse her wounds.

  Sadi did not know what had happened. She was cycling the light madra in the dark when the round stone covering the entrance to the room was suddenly yanked away.

  "We must go now!" A black crow entered and wrapped its claws around Sadi's shoulders before flying out of the room with great speed.

  "Where are we going?" she asked. In the cave, there were many movements of Sacred Beasts, and to her surprise, injured ones were being transported in to be treated. "What's happening?" she asked.

  "The Beast King and a few others are holding it back far away," the crow began as it dropped Sadi in the middle of a line of Sacred Beasts. "The stronger ones among us are holding the bloodspawns from entering, but more and more are getting wounded."

  The crow pointed its beak towards where most of the injured were being treated. She saw Whitehall among the ones treating the Sacred Beasts. He looked slightly older now.

  "Who are we fighting against?" Sadi tried to ask.

  "They won't last forever," the crow continued, ignoring Sadi's question. "We'll need to go deeper. All light artists will lead the way deeper into the cave systems." It pointed in another direction where sacred beasts were gathering.

  Whitehall's madra channels were burning. His iron body should have prevented it, but the strain he placed on them caught up. He was healing the minor wounds, using smaller doses of venom aura to accelerate the natural regeneration of the injured sacred beasts.

  Whitehall had long since run out of madra and was now carrying injured from the entrance to their makeshift emergency hospital. Every time he went close to the entrance, every part of his body shivered and screamed 'fear.' He was unsure what they were fighting out there, but whatever it was, it had injured hundreds of Truegolds and Highgolds.

  Whitehall saw a glimpse beyond the cave through a small crack in the entrance. The battle was fierce, as Sacred Beasts clashed with other beasts made entirely of what looked to be blood. But what caught his attention was the colour of the sky. He felt his stomach twisted in revulsion, disgust, and fear. The sky was blood red.

  The Beast King smiled a bloody grin. The Phoenix was fleeing from the Wastelands, the blue sky slowly replacing the red as the dreadgod went further and further. His beard had burned off his face, revealing a hairless face for the first time in half a century. It would grow back in a few hours.

  "Worth it," the Komodo hissed. She was missing a tail, and numerous scratches and wounds covered her body.

  "We were lucky," the beetle said, now missing a quarter of its horn. "It was weakened from its fight against Malice."

  The Beast King stayed quiet; his smile grew as he watched the direction the Bleeding Phoenix was fleeing towards.

  Seshethkunaaz, the Monarch of the Dragons, felt a disturbance in fate as he sat on his throne. He was in the throne room of his massive Qasr, decorated by gold ornaments and the skulls of his enemies. He activated his divination technique, Sands of Time, and his eyes widened. Previously, only the structure of the Akura symbol was being shredded by the Bleeding Phoenix. Now, however, a symbol with the image of a dragon joined the Akura's. The Bleeding Phoenix clawed through them both.

  He felt the Bleeding Phoenix approach his territory mere seconds before screams of alarm and panic of dragons blasted throughout his empire. The Phoenix was on its way, and it was coming fast. Sand swallowed his childlike body; he entered through the Way and appeared far above his empire.

  He unveiled his spirit, unleashing it to its fullest. Hundreds of lower Sacred Artists probably died due to the sudden pressure of an unveiled Monarch spirit, but what he did worked. He felt the Phoenix's attention snapped to him. Seshethkunaaz summoned the sand from the desert, which spun around him, forming a sand vortex. The vortex grew larger and larger until it rivalled the size of the Phoenix.

  A part of him hoped that the Phoenix would find them not worth the energy and flee. The Phoenix's spirit was battered and wounded, but the bird screeched in defiance. It was going to be a fight, after all.

  Seshethkunaaz sent a mental message to Xhorus and Yuushi; they were to evacuate the area around him immediately and lead the battle against the dreadbeasts and bloodspawns in the distance, lest they will make the situation worse. He was going into a fight with a dreadgod, a battle where his precision would be crucial. Or risk the Phoenix calling his brothers.

  Among the Monarchs in Cradle, Emriss Silentborn was the oldest, and when it comes to reading and manipulating fate and the future- she was a step above the others.

  She had never been so surprised when her eyes, which had shown her the same branches of the possible futures every time, suddenly showed her different iterations—new iterations. It is as if that branches of the future had been shrouded, and only now have it taken place were it being exposed to the Way.

  What she saw in the new branches of fate terrified her. They were very similar to what she had seen in the older branches; only when she paid close attention did she see slight differences. Her eyes did not show anything beyond that. However, Emriss knew that the changes may be small for now, but the consequences could be catastrophic.

  Elder Empire

  Iteration requested. Asylum

  Date? Request Rejected

  Report Complete

  Malin leaned against a weathered wooden post, his bare feet sinking into the warm sand as he watched the merchant ships glide into the harbour. The vessels were grand, their sails billowing like clouds against the endless blue sky. He waited, his fingers drumming idly against his thigh, as the merchants and sailors began to disembark, their voices carrying over the salty breeze.

  The newcomers were unlike anyone Malin had ever seen. They wore clothes of such fine fabric that they seemed to shimmer in the sunlight—thin, white tunics that draped loosely over their frames and billowing trousers that swayed with every step. Perfect for the relentless tropical heat, their attire was a stark contrast to Malin's own. He glanced down at himself: shirtless, his skin bronzed by the sun, and clad only in a pair of oversized shorts, hand-me-downs from the village elders. The fabric was frayed at the edges, and the waistband hung low on his narrow hips.

  "Sweet bread, good sirs!" Malin called out, his voice cutting through the hum of the crowd. He straightened his posture, trying to appear taller and more confident.

  A man nearby turned to face him. He was tall, with hair that seemed to shift from brown to a fiery copper under the glare of the sun. His long leather jacket, the colour of rich mahogany, reached down to his calves, and his boots were caked with the dust of distant lands. His gaze was stern at first, but as his eyes fell on Malin—on his bare chest and ill-fitting shorts—his expression softened.

  "How much for the bread, kid?" the man asked, his voice deep but not unkind.

  Malin hesitated, then held up three fingers, suddenly self-conscious under the man's scrutiny.

  "Calder, we need to go!" a woman's voice called from farther down the dock. Malin's eyes flicked toward her, catching the glint of emerald earrings that swayed as she moved. They were the colour of the sea at dawn, and for a moment, he forgot to breathe.

  "Alright, alright," Calder muttered. He dug into his pocket, pulled out three coins, and tossed them to Malin. "Don't spend them all at once, kid," he said with a faint smile before turning to join the woman. He didn't even take the bread.

  Malin stared at the coins in his palm, then at Calder's retreating figure. "Wait!" he called, but the man was already swallowed by the crowd. Malin's fingers closed around the coins, their edges cool and unfamiliar against his skin. He held one up to the light, squinting at its strange markings and the odd, metallic sheen. It was unlike any coin he'd ever seen—foreign, just like the man who had given it to him.

  For a moment, Malin stood still, the bustle of the harbour fading around him. He wondered where Calder had come from, what far-off lands had shaped him, and whether he'd ever see him again. The coins felt heavy in his hand, not just with their worth but with the promise of something more—something beyond the horizon.

  The day had been surprisingly busy, and Malin had sold every last piece of bread before the sun dipped below the horizon. By the time he reached home, the sky was deep indigo, dotted with the first glimmers of stars. The village was quiet; the only sounds were the distant chirping of crickets and the soft rustle of palm leaves in the evening breeze.

  "Mom, I'm home," Malin called as he pushed open the creaky door to their small house. The familiar scent of wood smoke and dried herbs greeted him, a comforting reminder of the life they had built together.

  "Oh, you're early today," his mother said, looking up from her seat by the fire pit in the centre of the room. An empty pot sat atop the flames, waiting to be filled. Her hands, rough from years of work, rested in her lap. "I was just about to start making dinner."

  "There were quite a few new ships at the harbour today," Malin replied, his voice tinged with excitement as he knelt by the corner of the room. He pulled out their worn coin jar, its clay surface chipped and faded, and began carefully depositing the day's earnings. The clink of copper coins filled the small space, a sound that usually brought a sense of pride. But today, Malin paused, holding up the foreign coin Calder had given him. "One of them gave me this," he said, handing it to his mother.

  His mother took the coin, her fingers trembling slightly as she turned it over in the firelight. Her eyes widened, and for a moment, she seemed unable to speak. "Who gave you this?" she finally asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

  "One of the foreign sailors," Malin replied, his brow furrowing with worry. "Is it fake?"

  "No, Malin," his mother murmured, her voice filled with awe. "It's gold."

  Malin's breath caught in his throat. Gold. He had only ever heard stories of such wealth—tales told by the village elders of faraway lands where the streets were paved with riches. He had never imagined holding a piece of it in his hands, let alone owning it.

  "Oh gods," his mother gasped, clutching the coin tightly. She began to mutter prayers under her breath, her words a rapid stream of gratitude and reverence. Malin followed suit, his voice joining hers in the familiar rhythms of their faith. But even as he prayed, his mind raced with possibilities.

  One day, he thought, his heart swelling with determination. One day, I'll become a merchant. I'll travel to those far-off lands, and I'll provide for us. No more empty pots, no more worn clothes. Just a life of abundance for me and for her.

  The fire crackled softly, casting flickering shadows on the walls of their humble home. For the first time in a long while, Malin felt a spark of hope—a tiny flame that burned brighter with each passing moment.