Legend of the Empyrean Blacksmith

PRISON BREAK (IV)

Hidden beneath thick, tall branches and a rugged cliff was a small clearing which currently sported a massive carving on the ground . Bounded within a large circle with a radius of six meters was a seemingly chaotic entanglement of lines crossing over each other and looping around to formulate a six-headed spiral which nestled away in a single thread into the center, creating a looping circle with thousands of cross-sections, all culminating into the dotted ring at the center with an eye-like pattern within it .

Lucky and Hannah stood on the side, looking as though they were going to pass out form merely looking at it . Alison and the man carefully stepped through the circle, placing the finishing touches, ensuring they didn’t miss anything by accident . The massive formation took them almost five days to draw up, without having rested more than just a few times altogether . Hannah mused that, even back in the Sect, perhaps only the truly large-scale formations outmatched this one in complexity .

" . . . do you get anything from it all?" Lucky asked, shaking her head .

"Only that it’s a great way to kill a libido," Hannah replied, sighing . "Formation masters are . . . eh, quirky . Let’s go with quirky . "

"I was gonna say batshit insane nutbags," Lucky added . "But let’s go with yours I guess . "

"No word from Lino still?" Hannah asked in a lower tone, her expression briefly flashing into one of worry .

" . . . you’re way too obsessed with him," Lucky shrugged . "He’s fine, probably causing headaches wherever he may be as he always does . "

" . . . I worry," Hannah sighed . "How can I not? It’s not as though you don’t know what he is like . "

" . . . I worry too," Lucky glanced at her, smiling faintly . "But, what can we do? He won’t stop being who he is . So all we can do is trust him . "

"Yeah, but I was thinking more along the lines of trusting him to meet other women or to, you know, plant a fucking orchid or something," Hannah said . "I genuinely do not trust him -- at freaking all -- when there’s a role he fashions for himself to play . And there’s always a role, especially when he’s surrounded by people who want to kill him . "

"He won’t do anything rash until we return," Lucky said . "Only set things up . Would you like to instead to that busywork?"

" . . . yeah, good point," Hannah chuckled . "Here they come . Shush, you fat cow . "

"You’re just jealous of my abs, you tiny stick . "

"You’ve clearly never seen me topless, then . " Hannah fired back .

"Who would want that? It’s just two potholes surrounded by bones . Ugh, just thinking about it makes me wanna vomit . "

"What are you two talking about?" Alison asked with a faint smile, and faint hope, that they were finally getting along .

"About how Lucky is jealous of the fact that I’ve got bigger tits than her," Hannah said . "And a better ass to boot . "

"Heh, tits I’ll give you, but the only way you’ve got a better ass than mine is if the beholder is blind and you bribed him with the rest of your shitty body . " Lucky said with a grin .

" . . . ah, so nothing decent," Alison said, her smile turning pained . "You two are so similar it’s a wonder you don’t get along as well as twin sisters . . . "

" . . . . " Lucky and Hannah remained indifferent on the surface, yet quickly summarized their relationship inwardly -- it was indeed like that of two sisters . Always at each other’s throats until an external threat imposes on them .

"Is it done?" Hannah asked, dispelling her thoughts .

"It is," Alison replied . "And, from what little I know of formations . . . it should work . . . maybe . . . probably . . . "

"It will work," the man chimed in as he joined them . "It has to . "

"You look ready to give it a whirl . " Lucky said, cracking a smile . "Anything we can do?"

"Just don’t step into the circle once miss Alison lights it up," the man said, smiling back freely . "Or you might start remembering things too . "

"Sheesh, don’t turn this into a horror story . " Hannah and Lucky said at the same time, shuddering; Alison glanced at them strangely for a moment, once again realizing just how similar they were .

"What horror story?" the man asked .

"Well, let’s just say I don’t drink fucking cheap ale for its taste . " Lucky said .

"Let me guess," Alison turned to Hannah . "Wine?"

"Wine, ale, mead, anything, really," Hannah shrugged, smiling . "So long as it gets up there and screws things up . "

" . . . aye, aye . . . "

"Anyway, let’s get this over with," the man exclaimed lowly, turning toward the formation with a fiery gaze . "However it may turn out, I wish to take a moment and thank you for freeing me . . . and giving me these few weeks of respite . Even if I don’t live past today, at the very least I’ll die a free man rather than one hanging inside the barred cage in the sky . "

" . . . you’re gonna be fine," Lucky chuckled as Alison and Hannah got swept away by the atmosphere for a moment . "Someone who can survive this hellhole for so long certainly ain’t gonna croak because of some fuckin’ formation . Now get in there and remember all the tits and asses you’ve touched so you can stop staring at ours . They’re not made out of gold mate . "

" . . . "

"Heeeh, she wouldn’t be Lucky if she didn’t take every single opportunity to make a charming moment awkward . . . " Alison chuckled bitterly, scratching her nose, as the man flushed red in embarrassment, turning on his heel and heading toward the literal eye of the formation at the center .

Hannah and Lucky withdrew further back as Alison stepped to the very edge of the formation, crouching down and pressing her index finger into a small hole wedged into the bounding circle . Taking a deep breath and waiting until the man nodded faintly from the distance, she closed her eyes and channeled a very specific amount of Qi into the formation . As per man’s instructions, she didn’t do it gently but rather unleashed it into a raw stream that quickly swallowed up the sandy carvings as golden light filled the canals .

Luckily for them, the shrubbery and the cliff above managed to contain the majority of the light, but as a precaution, Alison had drawn up a formation surrounding the whole area that took care of the rest .

Along with the light, a low hum of a beast shuddered out as ground beneath them quaked . The golden light soon filled the full circle, which is when Alison stepped back and pressed her hands together in front of her chest, mumbling a prayer . The golden shimmer bound inwardly, quickly taking over the darkened wedges, loops, swirls and spirals . Gold was soon adjoined by a faint flicker of crimson halfway through, and then an even fainter coral at the very center, just outside where the man stood . As the last bit of emptiness was filled with color, the entire array shook and brightened, flames rising briefly, dousing the large circle .

The man cried out lowly as he felt the sensation of being burned permeate his chest and soon his extremities . Rather than from the outside, the fires burned from within, seemingly desiring to burst out of his flesh and join those on the outside . The man’s muscles bulged, but he stood straight, clenching his jaw to the point his gums began to bleed, trails of crimson trickling out of the corners of his lips .

The tattered clothes he wore soon went up in flames, revealing beneath them a body nigh void of any muscle . His stomach was concave, his collarbone sticking out above his dented chest, cradling into his apple-sized shoulders .

It didn’t take long, however, for the man to falter and, with a cry of anguish, collapse onto his knees . He heaved his arms up and held onto his temples, looking up at the sky with eyes wide open, terribly red .

Alison was half a moment away from breaking apart the formation before Hannah suddenly stopped her, pulling her back . Lucky stood on the side, her expression full of complexities .

The fire went on, though the man had long since stopped paying attention to it . It was no longer the flames that caused him anguish, but the surging, comatose-inducing pain inside his mind . What his eyes saw wasn’t what was in front of him -- but what his mind conjured up . The latter, however, were images he couldn’t understand . Black, swirling eyes . Beautiful laughter . Fires consuming the world . Anger . Fury . Pure, unadulterated wrath . World bending over . Endless chaos . Famine . Pestilence . Dread . Horror . It was him . Not them . They knelt . Bowed . Pressed their foreheads against the stone until their skulls were cracked open . A woefully wicked grin . A sensation of pleasure . Loss . Grief . A breaking point . Madness . . . all around him, consuming everything, including himself . Madness in its most primal form, without make or reason . The image was clear now . There, beneath gushing, black and white flames, he hovered . Crimson, glowing eyes . Black, feathered wings . A pair of cleavers in his hands . His topless torso bloodied . The hall around him consumed with strewn corpses, most incomplete . A throne . A crown . A woman . Fiery hair, warm smile . He broke . Fell on his knees and wept . Chains . Anguish . Fear . Dread . Horror .

The flames around him settled as his shoulders slumped, his arms falling at his sides . His dull eyes regained their vigor, the atmosphere around him had changed completely within a fraction of a second . He had remembered who he was, what he had done, and why was here locked up inside a cage in the sky . A long ago, he had sown chaos across the world . . . and he reaped all he had deserved . He was Primul, the very first Human Empyrean .