Chapter 346: Through Fire or Stone
Zhen Xi felt the world fall away as the energy of the sudden blast to the back of his head began to suffuse with the rest of his body.
Before his eyes, the desert and stars began to warp…and merge….and disa…ppear….
‘I feel…warm…’
…
…
…
“Gah! What the fuck?! Where…whoa…”
One minute, Zhen Xi was in the middle of a desert, surrounded by pigs, cacti, sand, stars and a caravan.
The next, he found himself standing before a mountain with an elaborate looking building carved right into the side of it, with a massive stone door entrance flanked by statues of boar riding warriors.
When he craned his neck upward to stare at the sky, he found it to be covered in smoke, ash and moving constellations of golden stars that seemed to be swim through the aforementioned smoke and ash as if it was the most natural thing in the universe.
“Am I in another world?,” Zhen Xi asked himself as he became enamored with the sight before him.
It was intimidating to be sure, but it also seemed to inspire something in his heart…he just wasn’t sure what that something was.
When he brought his focus back to the ground, he noticed that the door in question seemed to depict an epic battle of some kind but the warriors participating didn’t look mortal, well, not all of them.
While he was never the religious type, he swore that the beings depicted looked to be like the “angels” and “demons” he had heard some travelling missionaries talk about before on the streets back home, but some of others were just as strange.
There were warriors that seemed to have an unnatural grace to them with willowly builds, warriors that seemed to be a sturdy as stone, despite their short stature, and warriors that looked to be twice as large as the average man with a ferocity to them that seemed unmatched.
Stranger still, he could name these warriors for some reason.
“Elves…dwarves…orcs? I’ve never heard of them before, so why do I know what they are?”
Zhen Xi’s eyes then wandered away from the door and towards the statues.
“Then what does that make these warriors?”
The boar riders, as he was calling them, appeared to be dressed like knights, fully cladded in armor and wielding massive spiraling lances. Even their mounts, sturdy looking giant boars with equally spiralling tusks, appeared to be armored in the same manner.
Zhen Xi approached one of the warrior statues, curious as to what the material of the statures were made of, when the sound of a booming voice caught him off guard.
[YOU KNOW IT’S RUDE TO KEEP A LADY WAITING, RIGHT?]
“Whoa! What?!”
[DO YOU NEED SOMEONE TO OPEN THE DOOR FOR YOU?]
On cue and as if obeying the booming voice, the war mural door opened inward, allowing the smell of sulfur, brimstone and mead to blast outward and assail Zhen Xi’s senses. Surprisingly, he didn’t find this mixture all too unpleasant.
[NOW THEN, ARE YOU COMING IN OR WHAT?]
Logically, Zhen Xi shouldn’t listen to a magic booming voice that seemed to speak beyond reality and enter a rather suspicious albeit majestic building that seemed to radiate this aura of agitation and passion.
On the other hand, he didn’t have any other plans and he felt spiritually and physically compelled to listen to the voice.
With a shrug and a touch of hesitation, Zhen Xi went pass the threshold and entered the strange building.
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=Huh. He actually did decide to go inside. I figured he would have been a tad more hesitant.=
=Maybe, but you and I both know that the definition of a hero can be very, very different.=
=Or stone.=
<=Or maybe...?=>
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*Boom…*
“Of course the door closed behind me when I entered…only way now is forward…”
The building that Zhen Xi had entered turned out to be a lot bigger than he anticipated, and turned out to be a grand hall, or so he thought.
Flanking his left and right were long tables made of black stone with a matching long bench beneath them.
Interspersed above the tables were torches embedded in pillars that appeared to be made of a different white stone, making a sharp contrast with the tables.
At the very center of the hall, well what Zhen Xi thought was the center, was large fire pit, burning with a deep red flame. From this flame, Zhen Xi could sense dense Ignati aether mixed in with…something else.
Drawn to it like a moth, Zhen Xi walked forward to get closer to the strange pit of flames.
“I don’t mind the heat, but it is really dark in here,” Zhen Xi mumbled to himself.
[Would you prefer it to be brighter?]
“Again?”
*FWOOM!*
“Whoa!”
One by one, the torches in the hall grew brighter and brighter, allowing Zhen Xi to see even more details about the hall he had just entered.
“By the gods…”
The tables he had assumed to be empty were actually filled end to end with sumptuous food and tableware made of various precious metals and stones.
The pillars themselves were actually frames to massive portraits depicting fierce warriors that seemed to radiate an aura of liveliness and ferocity that both frightened and inspired him.
He felt as if he studied the portraits long enough, he could unlock some secret involving the “Dao of Ferocity”.
“Wait… what’s Dao?”
[Is the lightning better now?]
“Huh?”
The voice this time around wasn’t as booming as before but it was still forceful. And this time around, he could identify that the source of it was none other than the fire pit that was right in front of him.
“Are…are you the one who owns this hall?,” Zhen Xi asked the flames.
[Not exactly.]
*Crackle.*
Immediately after answering Zhen Xi’s question, the fire pit began to stir as a valkyrie dressed head to toe in damascan steel armor arose from the flame and began to walk towards Zhen Xi with a swagger found only in warlords who knew they were at the top of the world and had no equals.
‘Wait… what’s a valkyrie? What the heck is Damascus steel?,’ Zhen Xi wondered as more unusual words entered his mind.
But before he could question further about why he knew these words, the warrior woman was now fully in front of him.
“By the heavens…you are tall,” Zhen Xi commented while staring up.
For context, Zhen Xi was about six feet tall, while the woman staring down at him was a full foot and a half taller than him.
It was very, very rare for something other than an aether beast to be bigger than him.
The valkyrie stared at him for a full minute, with jade green eyes that seemed to burn a hole right through his soul, before finally speaking.
[Why have you stalled?]
“Huh?”
The valkyrie leaned in closer to Zhen Xi’s face and simply repeated her question.
[Why, have you stalled?]
“What are you-?”
*Snap! Snap!*
*Boom! Boom!*
Interrupting Zhen Xi’s question, the valkyrie raised her hand and snapped her fingers twice, causing two doors to suddenly manifest behind her to her left and right.
“What the fuck?,” Zhen Xi quietly muttered at the appearance of the doors.
[You have stalled,] the Valkyrie repeated, [so now you must choose in order to progress. Will you be valiant and be the first to rush into danger? Or will you be stoic, and be the last bastion that repels all danger?]
Zhen Xi stared at the doors behind the Valkyrie, taking in the details of both.
Both of the doors gave off a feeling of [Courage], of [Heroism] but in very different takes on the idea of what that meant.
The door on her left was a red door that appeared, for a lack of a better description, made of solidified flames and gave off a feeling of aggression, passion, recklessness. When the dragon rears its head to attack, is it not better to rush and take it before it can even try to breath it’s flame?
The door on her right however was yellow in color and appeared to made of stone so tough that it could break metal. It gave off a feeling of stoicism, patience, passiveness.
Why bother attacking when they can just break their bones and blades upon your walls?
[You carry with you the spirit of the Boar, a beast known to go where it pleases and fight even vipers and wolves if it so desired. And yet…here you stall,] the Valkyrie began to lecture, [and so to make it easier for you, I have opened two paths. Now choose your future…]
“Choose my…huh…”
Zhen Xi wasn’t sure why but something about that last sentence…woke something up in his mind, something he forgot a long time ago…
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[Alright, color me confused, what is she doing?]
[What…makes…a…hero…?]
[What’s makes a…oh…I get it.]
