Chapter 657: Fallen but not Forgotten
The Night of the Silent Winter
This was the name of a battle that was only known to the members of the Zhen Clan, the Zhu Clan and the Royal Bai Family.
This was the night that the Five Petals of the Blossoming Scales Kingdom, became the Three Forests.
For this is was the night when the Pai and Gao Clans were wiped off the face of empire, alongside their cities of Birch Scale and Yew Scale.
The act of wiping out an entire city is normally not a very quiet procedure, nor is the act of inter-clan civil warfare.
There’s normally lots of burning, screaming, violence and death involved when destroying a city and slaughtering all of its inhabitants. It’s the type of thing that’s very hard to do without anyone noticing…but that’s exactly what happened.
In one moment, the combined forces of the Zhen Clan, Zhu Clan and Bai clan, led a coordinated effort against the Pai and Gao clans with the aim wipe them both out.
Now, depending on who you ask or what primary sources you use, the reason for this scorched earth policy varied greatly.
The Zhen Clan insisted it was a result of the Pai and Gao clans consorting with enemies of both the domestic and foreign variety, the Zhu Clan believe it was a difference in ideology that caused the rift, while the Bai Clan simply claim that the Pai and Gao had become too ignorant and violent to ignore.
Either way, what was known was that the Pai and Gao clans were the ones to start harassing the others clans into conflict.
A fierce battle broke out between the clans that once called each other brothers, a battle that was characterized by massive loss of life among both the civilians and the cultivators.
Many people at the time knew that this fighting wouldn’t end until one side or the other had been obliterated, collateral damage be damned. From the way the people were fighting, this wasn’t a war for resources, but something significantly more personal.
However, something unexpected occur during the course of the battle.
As quick as the blink of an eye, the release of a sigh and the drop of a pin, both Yew Scale and Birch Scale froze over into winter white hellish landscapes.
Every person, every beast and every building in these two cities, were frozen solid in a thick layer of icy aether that threatened to freeze even the onlooking Zhen, Zhu and Bai warriors.
Official records never state how this event occurred, whether it was the result of a powerful aether treasure or a lost aether art, but there were many, many reports that detailed what had happened to both of these cities and clans once they became frozen hellscapes.
Soon after the cities of Yew Scale and Birch Scale were frozen solid, the river that the two cities were built atop of suddenly began to become violent, raging and surging like a massive sea serpent or an angry dragon.
On that night, many swore they saw giant, writhing tentacles emerge from the depths and drag the frozen cities into the depths below, sinking them into the Roaring Tide Continent’s abyssal zone. Many warriors at the time assumed the tentacles belonged to a powerful aether beast king and saw the frozen cities as an opportunity. But, there are records that claimed the tentacles belonged to something else entirely, something that defied the natural order.
With how quickly and how strange the battle ended, the Three Forests agreed to refer to this moment as “The Night of the Silent Winter” and vowed to never reveal what had truly happened this evening to the masses and empire at large.
For years after this incident, the Blossoming Scales Kingdom was at peace, with the Three Forests leading the way.
However, as time passed on and the Pai and Gao Clans faded into memory, a new threat in the form of the Fallen Clan arose to disturb the peace.
And thus came a new status quo: The Three Forests vs the Fallen Clan.
A battle that would rage on and on and on, until one side or the other was obliterated.
…
But pray tell, what crime did the Pai and Gao clans commit in order for the entirety of the Blossoming Scales Kingdom to hate them so?
The Pai Clan were farming folk who simply lived off the land, while the Gao Clan were traders, plain and simple.
Neither truly had the power to overpower the other two clans and the Royal Family, nor have they really showed the [desire] to do so…so why did they attack in the first place?
Nobody knew for certain, but…there was one detail that everybody seemed to forget about in regards to the history of the Fallen.
A detail so small that many, many historians and warriors alike dismiss it over immediately due to how common of a phenomenon it was.
They found a way into the abyssal zone.
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[What’s that sound?]
*Thoom*
*Thoom!*
*THOOM!*
[Bad noises. Need to bail!]
Not taking any chances, since she just developed an understanding of what those words meant, the skeleton zako(?) stopped harvesting parts from her latest victims and proceeded to roll away from what she considered to be the blast zone.
From what she could hear, something or someone was breaking through the floors of this prison in an upward fashion in her direction.
Evidently, she wasn’t the only one to have this feeling.
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The Fallen Clan warriors, who were initially excited about the arrival of whomever this “War Elder” was, suddenly became silent as they realized that the person they were waiting for was arriving to their location, not through the stairway or a teleportation method, but by breaking through every single floor between their cell and this location.
Noticing this behavior and sensing the incoming torrent of energy, even the Puppet Elder and the Gate Elder had to move out of the way before it was too late.
By the time they evacuated from the point of impact, the anticipated event finally happened.
*AAAAAOOOOOO*
*BOOM!*
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[!!!].
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The man who had broken through the prison floor was a skinny, dirt-covered old man that was dressed in prison rags, and had an absolutely wild combo of grown out hair and an unkempt beard, with one of his arms resting on the inside of his clothes.
Despite how he looked though, everyone in the room could sense the dense aether rolling off of him and detect the faintest hint of an [Avatar] flickering in and out of existence behind himself.
Like a god of war, the man floated down with his arms crossed and began to survey the situation with a stern face.
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Once the prisoner had made his existence known, three type of reactions occurred.
The first, was excitement.
To the Fallen Clan warriors, this old man was known Gao Ao Long, the War Elder of the Fallen Clan that was incarcerated after being defeated by the current matriarch of the Zhen Clan, many many years ago.
The second, was dread.
To the Zhen Clan warriors, this prisoner was Gao Ao Long, the Butcher of Titans, a warrior that had killed over a dozen Aether Grandmasters, half a dozen Lords and a whole handful of Aether Kings. He was the type of man who’s record was so vile that people debated whether to wipe him away from history, or use his existence as a tale of caution and woe. That debate raged on even to this day.
And the last reaction was simply…fury.
[That arm…why does he have it…]
She didn’t understand why she was feeling this way or why she even made that statement, but she could tell that this feeling was innate and instinctual.
The moment Gao Ao Long made himself known, her attention wasn’t directed at his hair, his clothes or the sheer bloodlust radiating off the man, but to the arm that was resting inside of his clothes.
She could feel the [Chaos] coming off of that hidden limb…and how it didn’t belong to him.
And for some reason…that made her angry.
[That doesn’t…belong to you…GIVE IT BACK!]
CREATORS’ THOUGHTS
Mizako
They’re apparently updating this site/app to allow me to add characters…with pictures…
Hmmm…
Wonder if it’ll let me tag the artists who made them…
