Oh god you see them too don’t you? You see them too. Oh god. They don’t want to be seen for a reason. We started massacring them ever since we attained magick. Blast us, they said. But they give some of us the privilege of seeing them. Those born with the natural, innate Gift to speak with them. “Spirits?” No, I don’t think that’s what you’re supposed to call them. They’re entities, being hard to define. They're... They're Unseen. When they have to show themselves to us they show themselves as humanoid. Because of course they do. But their true forms… the ones you see, the floating faces, the phantom hands… oh god. Only the Buddhas can truly look at them outside of their heavenly form… You can see the Unseen (Gods, Spirits, Ghosts, Demons, and the like) even without them apparating. They know you can see them. Having Bullet Hole Ajna makes magick easier.

  You realize the truth. Spirits, gods… they express themselves in forms understandable by human rationality. Their truest form—one uncaring of human epistemology—is that glimpse at the corner of your eye, the impression of the sun after blinking before sun-blindness, the face you see when looking at the mirror. Many of gods and spirits are non-malevolent. The kindest ones are the ancestors—they still have some semblance of humanity.

  You’ve bared your soul and have become like the Unseen. Others call them anito, others hantu, others hyang. They are utterly beyond your capacity to fully comprehend due to the difference in their orientation. They are like you but also not like you. The atoms all have their own way of orientation to the world just like you. It’s not consciousness—that’s a human thing—it’s just that… orientation. The very materiality of this world lives in constant conditioned arising. You have suffered the truth, and now must live with the closest thing you’ll ever have to actuality. Truth.

  From the Moonfiend Sutra

  Koago flickered forward. Speed blitzing into Teo. His parasol-blade cut three times. Teo met it with her shield three times. Koago's blade wasn't very wide, nor was it meant for chopping, so it could not slice cleanly through the rattan shield.

  Not that it mattered too much. Koago reappeared behind Teo after she had committed both of her weapon hands, and pulled out a ritual dagger. "I offer your heart to the Unconquerable Maiden," he said, and the dagger cut deep.

  Teo roared. Desperately, she twisted her longknife and flung the parasol out of trajectory, into the trees. She turned around and clashed blades with Koago, who met her every longknife swing with a flickering shade-dodge.

  Tarramju raised his gun to shoot at Koago, but Koago snapped his fingers and the bladed parasol came spinning back towards him, and he had to dive out of the way to avoid being bisected cleanly.

  Meanwhile, Yantong fumbled for his compound bow, which was folded on the ground. Jyo and Ramn marched forward against Koago with shields and spears readied.

  There. Xing used her Lightness skill to leap into the air. As she did, she corkscrewed—just like she did when she was practicing aerial dance—and in doing so she generated momentum for her giant sword-axe. Then, she descended down like a comet, straight onto Jyu.

  Jyu desperately raised his shield just as the sword-axe crashed onto it. She shield held, but the force of the impact cracked Jyu's shins and soles, causing him to cry out in pain and fall to his knees. Xing grinned widely at this.

  Still utilizing her Lightness, she twisted from that position of having-slammed-slash and vaulted over Jyu, all the way to Ramn. Ramn pierced up with his spear, quicker than lightning. Xing spun again, parried it away with the supreme range of her sword-axe, Darkness Cleaving Sunrise.

  The momentum of that spinning parry she used to cleave into Ramn.

  "Ramn!" Jyu screamed out. But it was too late. Like a hot knife rending through hot butter, Darkness Cleaving Sunrise sliced through Ramn's clavicle. Blood splattered like crimson ink. Xing completed her vault by flipping over Ramn and bringing her sword-axe along with her. The movement was enough of a slashing motion to cleave Ramn diagonally.

  Xing breathed in deep. She could feel her Ardor Furnace agitated. Looking up, she saw Jyu. Eyes wide, framed by the splattered blood of his fallen comrade. His great best friend that took a chance with him and agreed to go with him to check out the job opportunity of becoming a bandit.

  He died a gruesome death because of me, thought Jyu.

  Xing exhaled, twirling away to get into a chambered slicing position once again. Always have your blade ready to cut. She remembered the words of Koago. Ramn's body fell limp onto the floor.

  ———

  A few weeks back, while Xing practiced a diagonal strike with the greatsword, using a boat's long oar as a stand in for longstick trianing, a question arose in her mind. No doubt brought about by the motion she was doing—if a human were hit by this attack, no way were they going to survive it. Especially if the greatsword is well-made enough and constructed to cleave through bone. "Master. Is killing condoned?"

  Koago raised an eyebrow. He sipped from his tea. "What mean you?"

  "I'm thinking..." said Xing, letting her arms go limp while she held the oar.

  "That's good," said Koago.

  Xing rolled her eyes. "I was thinking that all these arts will cause us no doubt to kill people. Slay them. So does that mean we can kill them? Does that mean killing is right and just?"

  "Killing is a vile act," said Koago. "That is the truth of it. To take someone's life is the ultimate consummation of taking someone's first and ultimate right: to live."

  "Okay," said Xing. "So why learn the martial arts, then?"

  "But!" Koago spoke as if he hadn't stopped speaking. "But... sometimes we must kill. Killing is sometimes justifiable, under the Whole of the Law. Remember: even the Conquering King Sanja Kitama, in all his effluvient omniscience, had to kill a skyship captain who was going to slay 500 other Nascent Martyr-Saviors that were there on that skyship. It is all a matter of skillful means, in idea that finds full manifestation within Martial Arts of the Law."

  "Skillful means?"

  "The ability to adapt," said Koago. "The ability to retrofit the Law—for it fits anywhere!—to the context of the sufferer, and thus grant them a clearer road to salvation. Remember, we cannot save other people. We can only help them save themselves. Kitama Sanja showcased a peerless use of skillful means when he killed the skyship captain. The Law says that clinging is suffering. The Law's Perfect Wisdoms also says that Compassion is the Mother of all Buddhas, and that Wisdom is the Key to Compassion. So great Kitama Sanja Omniscient wielded his wisdom and compassion in tandem—he slew the murderous captain and saved numerous lives. But this is how the world works: everything that arises has an origin. And so therefore, this very act of murder is an origin for the arising that Kitama Sanja will have to suffer thirty-three kalpas in the Hells."

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  "An Omniscient? In the Hells?" Xing performed Tiger Swipes Her Paw, cutting a horizontal line through the the training log she was using, splitting it in half. Top and bottom removed from each other.

  Koago nodded. "Mhm. Mhm. What an impossibility, you may think! But the Law says: Clinging is Suffering. And one form of Clinging is Clinging to Karma and Consequence. If you unlash yourself from what you deserve, then you are one step closer to the Uncreated Mind of Omniscience."

  "So... what he did... that killing someone so that he wouldn't perform a grievous and sinful act, and then taking on the negative karma for yourself instead so that another will not have to suffer through Hell..."

  Koago grinned. "You understand clearly, like light upon monsoon morning. We kill so that others will not have to. This is an Secret Tenet of the Ultramystic Sect, but this is also the implicitly agreed upon vow of all martial heroes of the Realms Belligerent."

  "I see. So it's a kind of... martyrdom?"

  Koago nodded again. "The path of the Martyr-Savior, the idea coming from the Razrunan concept of the "Bodhisattva" or the "Awakened Essence" or "Enlightenment Hero", is already like this. And so many martial heroes ineffably walk down the Martyr-Savior Path, though they do not know it. It would be prudent to realize too that the different Roads are all different paths to Enlightenment. The Martyr-Savior Path has many different tributary roads that lead to it. And, ultimately, the intentionality of an action (and consequently, of following a Road) determines whether you run the right Road or are instead running perpendicularly away from it."

  Xing rested her arms. She placed the oars down. Sweat glistened upon her pale brown skin. She wore nothing but a chestwrap, since they weren't going anywhere that day. Her sweat silvered her arms, armpits, abdomen, collarbones. She walked over to the silver-violet ewer and poured herself some cold water. As she did, she said: "So it is okay to kill?"

  "Some people need killing," said Koago. "To kill everything indiscriminately is the sign of either a reckless idiot or a psychopathic tryhard. To spare everything indiscriminately is the sign of misplaced compassion and moralistic thought-prisons. It is the mark of an Enlightened Warrior to be able to choose who to kill and who to spare. When it comes to the issue of the consequences of killing, to reduce it to simple commands such as 'Do Not Kill' or 'Kill Everything' is the mistake of broken winged cranes still trying to glide across the pond."

  ———

  Xing meditated upon the truth of enlightened killing and the burden of killing. If one were to be a martial artist, if one were to be someone that traveled the dangerous martial underworld, one would inevitably be forced to kill. It was a matter of life—it was not the ideal way of dealing with things but it is the reality that must be observed and realized, so that we can properly change it. One would have to be okay with slaying someone. With taking a life. And realizing the karmic backlash it will plant upon your next life... unless you approach the act with the proper volition, to make sure to alleviate their suffering for the present life.

  Xing sighed. She had her left hand in a proper Life-Release Mudra—pinky, ring, and middle fingers pointed up, pointer finger curled down, with the thumb supporting the middle of the pointer finger, like the pillar of heaven supporting the cosmos. "May your next life be better than the next. May your consequences be purified immediately and wholly."

  This was Xing's first act of killing. She could see the motes of Ardor flurrying around her, invisibly. It was so subtle, it was like trying to watch ants be carried away from atop a hurricane's crest. It stoked her Furnace, but it also left a pit in her stomach. A drop of haunting regret into the vast well of her soul. What will this mean for me?

  Though, if one were to consider things for what they truly were, Xing took the act in a much greater stride than others in her place. Perhaps seeing her family killed in front of her eyes had hardened her to the act of killing. Or perhaps having lived around such conditions and environment hardened her heart for the act of taking a life. It still made her head float, and her knees felt like they would split in two. But she could still fight, doubtless, and she could still run.

  Jyu stumbled backwards. Eyes wide, mouth agape. Fear and sorrow gripped his face like a god.

  An arrow flew straight for Xing.

  She realized it before she felt it. Reflexes kicked in—thank the gods for the training—and she leapt out of the way while spinning her sword-axe in an arc in front of her. This was Dragon Feather Fanning, another common form of defense against ranged attacks, only usable by those that have cultivated their Ardor into the level of being able to harness it for Lightness. It was a Diamat Sword technique that necessitated the fusion of Lightness and Diamat Sword.

  Her spinning blade deflected the arrow. Silver glinting in the dusking sky. It exploded overhead. A wave of concussive force shook Xing, but she held fast to her feet.

  Jyu was going to be out for the count, Xing knew this. She didn't need to kill him any longer. The enlightened warrior knows who to kill and who to spare. The tall and lanky one had no more recourse from the weight of his actions—better for him to move on to the next life rather than surviving a living hell, both mentally and physically, in this life.

  So she turned her attention to Yantong, who was hastily readying another arrow.

  But even so, out from overhead, from a high tree atop a hill, another arrow zipped through the sky. Xing was a tad too late to avoid this one completely—she spun to the right, pirouetting, but the arrow still caught her right under her left eye, drawing a long slender line across it. Xing grunted in the hot searing pain, but that subsided immediately as adrenaline and Ardor flurried through her chakras, sending psychic Breath to every meridian.

  She flickered forward to Yantong just as he was about to pull his drawstring back. Her foot speared into Yantong's belly. Xing gripped Darkness Cleaving Sunrise and sliced up, savagely. The technique known as Dragon Whips Up Rainwater. The sword-axe cleaved straight up, and through Yantong's sternum.

  He could not say anything else as he fell backwards. Blood fell down like rain.

  Koago handily dueled with both Tarramju and Teo, with both his parasol-blade and bladed parasol. The bladed parasol, which hovered beside him, moved as if it had a mind of its own. And no doubt it did—Koago had awakened the very weapon-soul within this Treasure, known as the Lavender Shade of Bamboo. It moved spinning in the air like a top, going to and fro ctaching and parrying attacks as if Koago had a live shield to protect him.

  "Just die already, fuck!" Teo tried a desperate gambit—she kicked down low. Easy to avoid, but the kick sent dirt up. She followed that dirty maneuver with a kick to the chest. It connected, sending Koago back a few meters. He would've fallen had the parasol not caught him at the last moment.

  Then, Teo was there, beneath Koago's right arm, cutting up. Her blade burned bright orange, as if it had been superheated. "Blazing Core Saber Strike!" She announced, as she carved up. The heat was so strong that Koago could feel it a few good feet before it even connected with him.

  Koago performed Now You Don't Method. As the Blazing Core Saber Strike made contact with his clothes, he disappeared in a flurry of cloth. Reappearing behind Teo, he unleashed his own combination of strikes. Each one made to end Teo's life.

  Teo spun around and did not relent. She met each stroke of the Lavender Shade of Bamboo's blade with her own, and some of it she parried with her bare hands. She felt no pain even as her fingers were lacerated from Koago's own attacks. They traded blows in this way for a few rounds, a flash of steel, an exchange of ideals.

  But ultimately, Koago was the better fighter. Teo slowed down on one of her slashes, as she had never truly cultivated her Breath, and Koago took advantage of that. Every slash he made was a bait to make her more tired until...

  ...one last bait slash. A high slash to try and cut her down. She met it with a double attack—a fist to swat away the high sword, and a horizontal slash to the chest to try and end it all as well.

  Koago deflected the horizontal slash with a flick of his wrist, summoning the flying bladed parasol (which, at that point, had been dealing with keeping Tarramju out of the fight) to his side. The parasol caught the burning longknife.

  Then, Koago kicked the parasol forward, so that it slammed into Teo's chest. "Oof!" The wind knocked out of her Koago moved the parasol out of the way and unleahsed seven cuts in the span of a single second, each stroke unmitigated.

  Seven perfect cuts.

  Teo fell down sliced apart, ribboned.

  Koago's final strike was an up-arcing heavensward slash, which ended with the parasol sheathing itself around the parasol-blade, completing Lavender Shade of Bamboo once again. Teo was no match for Koago in the least, but he admired her grit and conviction.