A middle-aged woman with thick square glasses fumbled with her words as she tried to explain 3D printing chocolate to the crowd of cultivators swarming around her stall. Several of them were comparing the geometric chocolate sculptures they’d bought, some marveling at their intricacy, others mocking the flawed seams. Despite her stand having incited three duels between the visiting cultivators, sales seemed to be doing well. The woman’s pockets bulged heavily with coins.
Similar, albeit less crowded, stands dotted all six blocks of the Boulevard from the WW II memorial statue to the Three Towers, where cultivators were building a great palace to be suspended between the city’s tallest skyscrapers. The framework was reminiscent of a hundred oriental birdhouses fused together.
Almost overnight, a grand festival had fallen upon Townberg.
Enormous banners of the Humming Blade sect hovered above, held aloft by awakened birds. Lanterns, likewise floated by birds, ebbed warmly through the gentle fall of evening snow. Music echoed throughout the Boulevard as a man slapped dozens of harmonically vibrating blades together, creating a symphony of shifting frequencies. They were a perfect match for the vocals of a woman beside him, who sounded as if a grove of birds lived in her lungs. Bird themes and birds themselves had taken over Townberg. Even the snow had taken a shade of decidedly birdpoopy whiteness at the street corners.
As we passed the chocolate printing stand, I gave Hungmangyongnon my nod of approval. The man nodded back, and continued with his best efforts to keep a semblance of order among those who had yet to receive their treats.
“Uuuggghhh. Queue too long. But I wanted some. But the queue— But want! But argh!” Nelly rubbed hands on her face, rotating from one conflicted expression to another.
A few cultivators glanced our way, mostly with disinterest.
They wouldn’t recognize me or my bruhs, given that Big Dick energy could only be sensed by fellow Chads. Nelly’s dormant bloodline was far too rare for anyone but a lesser deity level cultivator or a fellow Dao cultivator to recognize. And Grog was Grog. We were safe to roam, whilst the demonic cultivators of Happyland stayed behind playing board games.
I rubbed Nelly’s shoulder, offering my deepest sympathies. “We’ll come by again.”
She continued making desperate Nelly noises, as we distanced from the chocolate printer, and the warm bakery display behind it.
“Bruh, you think we would get Big Dick energy from cleaning the place up a bit?” Maxman Fightmaster gestured at a mound of snow and discarded info-pamphlets, which all but blocked a very familiar alley.
Two days ago, Humming Blade cultivators had flown over and littered Townberg with ink-drawn booklets. Inside were detailed instructions on how mortals should properly kow-tow and show respect to cultivators of varying power and affiliation, as well as a schedule of the month-long pre-wedding festivities. Unbeknownst to the cultivators, the internet was already awash with memes mocking the ‘cimp’ depicted in the kow-tow instructions.
And unbeknownst to Silent Feather, her underlings had already been cured from ‘This One’ syndrome.
Even so, despite tapping into Big Brain mode until my vision blurred with distant galaxies, I could not see the entirety of Silent Feather’s schemes.
She was a powerful foe, truly a worthy whetstone to sharpen my wit against. I’d already deduced that this wedding was a safety net she’d purposefully set-up. If I made myself known during the wedding, I risked a very real possibility of there being enough powerful cultivators to end me, no matter how much Big Dick energy fighting them would generate. However, she was likewise hindered, for if others learned of a rogue agent such as myself running free in her domain, Silent Feather would lose a tremendous amount of face, quite possibly enough to die from shame.
This was a set-up for a side objective. But what was she after?
“Mhehehee…” Shiver of laughter began trembling Nelly. She closed her mouth, nudging Grog’s ribs.
The gorilla laughed in gorilla.
“Whoa. Bruh, look. They’re wearing pots.”
Copper jars hung off of the body of a cultivator woman like Christmas balls on a tree. Seals glowed on each of them. Beside her strode a huge man, who wore a massive iron urn as his pants. The lid he’d repurposed as a wide-brimmed hat. On the man’s shoulder rode a tiny white-whiskered man with eyes and moustache peeking out of the jar.
Clenching my nose muscles, I detected a complex mixture of Qi-infused pickling juices, precious salts, and mystic herbs.
“Pickle dicks,” Nelly observed, then winced like she’d eaten a basket of lemons.
Though the mental image tickled my lips towards a smile, I maintained my stoicism, for it would’ve been a misstep on Dao of Chadness to make fun of how another man contains their manhood.
Nelly wheezed as she inhaled, shouting at the cultivators. “PICKLE! DI—”
Instant utilization of [Final Butt] managed to draw her attention. A few cultivators glanced our way, but the situation had been disarmed.
As we walked on, Nelly kept bouncing from one otherworldly sight to the next. Humming Blade sect had invited half of the sects occupying Middle-Countrystan.
There was a sect wearing pelts of arctic beasts as mantles, a sect with such smug smirks that their very presence generated ‘cringe Qi’, constantly hooting cultivators who cosplayed owls, a sect with moss and weeds growing on their clothes and hair, and a hundred other sects and clans.
Fraction of my Big Brain mode noted them down, filing down details for when I’d eventually face them all in glorious battle.
“Mortals! Fates smile upon you today in allowing you to heed my words, for I have for you the chance of a lifetime,” shouted a flamboyantly gesticulating blonde cultivator in yellow-gold silks. He stood atop a waste container covered with a fancy tapestry. “Come! Come! Gather around and perk your ears. You heard that right. This humble gentleman that I am has the absolute pleasure of inviting you to the mortal class of the Grand Wedding Tournament! Display your Terran martial skills before the eyes of a hundred sects, earn glory, rewards, and a place of honor at the wedding itself! Come on now, hurry over here and sign up! The offer’s only up for…” He checked a clock. “Two days and eleven hours! My my, you best be quick if you want to make it!”
“Bruh.” Maxman Fightmaster’s eyes twinkled with adventure.
“Unga?” Grog’s gaze was similarly captivated.
“Yup!” Nelly nodded, arms crossed. “Infinite bananas and more. Every wedding has bananas.”
Dese Nuts squeaked sarcastically on my shoulder.
“Bruh, do you think…” Maxman met my gaze.
I nodded, anticipating his thoughts. “Indeed. You could make tremendous gains at the tournament. Plus, participating is bound to give you great Big Dick energy, perhaps enough for you to start sensing it yourself.”
“I could finish my Alpha Foundation.”
I laughed, patting his shoulder. “It’s good to be eager, bruh, but Alpha Foundation is a long road. It takes years to align yourself with the Dao of Chadness. However, this is a good opportunity for you to take long steps on that path.”
Grog made a gorilla noise.
“And for Grog.”
Nelly made a Grog noise.
“Not for you Nelly.”
“Blaah…”
“As I was saying, tournaments are perfect for us. The amount of spectators and ramping difficulty guarantees tremendous Big Dick energy generation. You couldn’t ask for a better way to cultivate.”
“Why don’t you enter then, bruh?”
Grog made a curious noise.
“It wouldn’t be Chad of me to battle other mortals. The audience might not know, but the deception might corrupt the Big Dick energy I receive into… Well…” A memory flashed through me, one that had been encoded into the movements of my H*-Man action figurine. Memory of a darker path that worshipped success over all else, a path which the second head of Gigachad Sect had fallen into, after losing his hope in the world. Path of the Alphahole.
“I’ll tell you another time bruh, but you should join if you want to.”
Maxman Fightmaster and Grog ended up joining the queue of Townberg residents eager to join the tournament.
Passing by a group of cultivators setting up floral arrangements for the pre-wedding ceremonies, I chanced to spot one very familiar ex-gangster. At first, the scrawny boy shied away, pretending not to notice us. He twitched, when I called him out.
“Frederic, right?”
“Ahahah… Yeah, that’s me.” He glanced at the other workers in Humming Sect worker uniforms, as if asking for permission.
“I thought your business was going well.”
Behind us, Nelly let out a gasp over something and spoke squeaky squirrel sounds at Dese Nuts.
Frederic the florist rubbed his neck. “It’s yeah, went alright, just…”
“Fre Lick!”
“Yes, shifu!” Frederic snapped into a cultivation bow as a world-weary woman rolled out in an ornate wheelchair. Though her voice belonged to a drill sergeant recovering from a twenty-pack a day addiction, biceps bulged under her silks, which she wore as elegantly as her years.
Her wrinkles creased as she gave us a smile. “Apologies, dears.”
I nodded. Our eyes met briefly and there was an immediate understanding that went beyond words. In her, I felt the shimmering embers of a kindred spirit.
“Fre Lick, you donkey’s assmite of an apprentice, which cockwomble told you to balance the feng-shui of the street-side arrangements. We won’t spit of a copper for good work, if we miss the deadline.”
“Shifu,” Frederic bowed. “I was using the opportunity to practise your techniques. Not a breath over ten seconds was spent on a single arrangement.”
“Hrmph.” She glanced at other workers.
One burly man, an almost Qi-less foreigner nodded. “Boy speaks the truth.”
“Hrmph! Fine, but if I…” The woman went on a lecturing rampage, then transitioned to covertly complimenting one of Frederic’s arrangements, and giving him flower arranging tips. Chadness oozed from her, spiced with a pinchful of what my old friend might’ve called ‘tsundere’. In another life, she might’ve been a bruhette of Gigachad sect.
“Take care of my friend here,” I said to the woman.
“Hmrph. As if I could let him bother anyone else.”
“And take care Frederic. You can always message me if anything comes up.”
Frederic blinked moisture from his eyes. “Thank you, Chadman.”
I was glad to have run into him. It’s good to remember, that despite how easy it is to paint my enemies as straw-man caricatures to make their deaths easier to justify, most of the people behind them were regular folk with their own circumstances. If I ruthlessly crushed cultivators of Earth, the echo of my actions would doubtlessly result in tens of millions slain from others mimicking my actions onto the powerless masses that arrived with the Qi empowered superhumans.
To truly save Earth, I had to deepen my ethical understanding.
And perhaps there lay the path to completing the Big Brain stage?
“Dese Nuts, do you think…” I couldn’t see the squirrel anywhere.
“Dese Nuts went to unga bunga boink-boink with girl squirrel,” Nelly reported, pointing at a vigorously shaking tree nearby. “Hundred-thirty-second member of his harem.”
“He works fast.”
As if to defy my words, shaking of the tree grew even more violent.
We left my bruh to his duties and continued our tour through Boutique Boulevard. Nothing much was gained in terms of progress against Silent Feather, or on Big Brain stage, but I’d not have exchanged the leisure hours with Nelly for any amount of Big Dick energy.
***
“Large bird has flown off the roost. This one repeats, large bird has flown off the roost,” crackled the voice of a freezing cold transmission talisman.
What a fortuitous timing. Ceremonial tea courting was two bells away. Time was for the bride-to-be to change into a near scandalous pre-wedding gown to stimulate her husband-to-be’s yang energy. Nobody would expect her to make a move at this hour.
Silent Feather’s breath frosted with her exhale. “Hoogieboogie darling, are you ready?”
“M’lady,” Silent Feather’s handsome husband-to-be tipped his peculiar fe-dora headgarb in a manner which invoked a sense of virtue and culture.
Ah. And how his beard fluttered in the morning breeze, like whiskers of a dragon? Was there anything quite so magnificent? Poems, if indeed they were dared to be written of his beauty, would demand a tapestry the size of mountains.
Silent Feather and her beloved took the servants’ exit from the Pavillion of Anticipation and slipped into the young winter night.
They sped across and over the crude flat roofs of the Terran city.
Silent Feather flew with the grace of a deathcrow and her hoogieboogie with unmatched gentlemanliness only he could possess. She gazed fondly at his movements, listened to his huffing and puffing. Despite his prodigious size, he rolled on, defying the embrace of ground like a cultivator, although he possessed neither Qi nor strength. How magnificent.
How unreal. She’d witnessed her father and elders momentarily take steps on their Dao, but not once had Silent Feather witnessed anyone capable of treading their every step across it. A single doubt. A single mistake of conviction. A single instant without Dao was all it would take for him to perish under his own power. Her hoogieboogie walked a path narrower than string-grass, yet he made it look as wide as the Voidsea. Not a single strand of her sweetling’s brave hairy chest was touched by fear.
No fears.
No doubts.
Only gentlemanly determination.
Ah. Was he not the most gorgeous existence to be born since and after the Ten-Gold Colibri of Iridescent Dawn?
Their run came to a halt on a rooftop opposite to the lair of the wicked one known as Chadman. Street-lights flickered. Shrouds of winter obstructed starlight.
“M’lady?” Neckbeardman asked.
“A moment.” Silent Feather cupped her hands and drew Qi from her winged core, moulding it in her palms into [Evening Bird]-technique. She released the shadowy imitations into the night and encircled the compound. To the senses of her birds, the walled building appeared devoid of Qi, radiating only strong yang-energy and a mysterious aura, which made the birds refuse to enter.
Studying the scene closer, Silent Feather identified five carved busts as the source of the protective formation. She was struck by their appearance. Those angled chins. Those sharp cheeks. Why, their masculinity exceeded that of a pure yang-cultivator after thousand years of isolation. How could she? Nay, how could anyone dare to so much as touch such imposing depictions of man? The very idea of disturbing the formation shuddered Silent Feather to her Winged Core.
“Guh.” Silent Feather clutched her chest, cycling her Qi to withstand the intense desire to show her respect to the statues. “We may need to wait for another night.”
“Could it be those carvings are bothering M’lady?” Neckbeardman’s brows rose in outrage.
“This one would not dare to imply such—”
“M’lady, thy wish is my command.” Neckbeardman leapt. He soared and landed with the grace of a duck, entered the compound, and, with a single imperceptibly swift swing of his ka-tana, cut a statue in half.
The formation weakened, but persisted. Only when Neckbeardman had destroyed all five statues did its pressure let up.
Silent Feather descended with her animated cloak of feathers.
“M’lady, the hideous carvings will bother thy no longer.” Neckbeardman knelt to kiss the back of her hand.
Touched by his affections, she blushed. “This one would promise herself to your waifu harem as thanks, if she had not done so already. Let us proceed.”
Four slashes of his blade transformed the front-door into an open window. Three low realm demonic beasts, one awakened primate, and several low realm demonic-Qi cultivators stood in the lobby before them, fangs and weapons raised. Behind the crowd, amongst others with weak or no foundation, peeked the girl.
An old balding mortal held a Terran transmission artifact against his ear, likely attempting to contact Chadman.
“Silent Feather!” The voice belonged to Soft Wings, one of the foundation realm cultivators she’d left in charge of the Tall Castle District of the Terran City. The girl smiled awkwardly, approaching them with hands held up in surrender. “Silent Feather, please hear us out. This whole invasion has been a mistake. There’s so much we could gain from the Terrans, about ethics, philosophy, and—”
[Carnival of Talons]
Caws filled the air as Silent Feather’s Qi constructs engulfed the Soft Wings. Black talons of a hundred carrion eaters devoured the traitor in a cloud of black, blood, and screams. Embarrassment rushed to Silent Feather’s cheeks. How dare she show such an unsightly underling to her future husband?
A conflicted look crossed his features. His knuckles tightened on the blade.
“This one apologizes, hoogieboogie. It would seem that honor of the Humming Blade sect has been besmirched by my inability to focus on nothing else but your gloriously gentlemanly visage. Other traitorous elements shall be clipped at the earliest fates permit. This makes our mission ever more pressing, so let our blades be swift and our steps fly.”
“M’lady… this is…” He hesitated.
Bang!
Metal clinged and ricocheted off Neckbeardman’s blade.
Barrel of a gun held by the balding mortal smoked. He glared at her. “This is your last warning. Get out of Happyland, or you’ll be—”
“REEEEEEEEEE!!! COOMER DISRESPECTINGH MUH M’LADY WAIFU?!”
Silent Feather swooned at the power of his shout. Such was its strength of Neckbeardman’s vocal technique that the room before them clutched their heads. Several mortals lay on the floor, unconscious.
Silent Feather released a portion of her Qi into several techniques all at once. Her winged cloak bloomed fivefold in size and deadliness. Feathers of Qi coated her features and Qi-talons sprouted over her limbs, ready to massacre all before her.
A hand stopped her. Neckbeardman adjusted his hat as his gaze grew grim. “M’lady. Defending your honor is the duty of a knight. Please step back.”
Had the demand come from anyone else, Silent Feather would’ve beheaded them. Yet now, despite his request dishonoring her in the traditional sense, she could not help but feel weak in her knees to be protected by such a gentleman. “Thank you.”
He stepped forward and tossed aside the sheath.
The demonic hounds leapt forward.
“Hup!”
“Ha!”
“Hya!”
Three hounds. Three cuts. No whimpers.
Demonic-Qi cultivators launched their attacks. Seven of them took on possessed forms. Of them three were of any note. One young man’s form manifested new bladed limbs from his back, becoming a nightmarish terror of claw and teeth. An older woman’s form moved counter to hers, attacking and defending even whilst its wearer cowered in place. A young woman’s form detached from her, reaching out to launch a barrage of fists, while the woman took on an utterly baffling posture with one hand over her face, and sang ‘Ora ora ora ora’.
“[The Last Gentlelord],” whispered Neckbeardman.
Gust fluttered his trench-coat and beard as he knelt with a blade by his hip.
Attacks were about to land on him.
Light glinted in his grin and glasses as Neckbeardman adjusted them. “[Nothing personnel, kid].”
Wind swept through the room and froze the lamps. Light blinked and in those blinks, Silent Feather witnessed a scene that left her frozen with awe.
Waves reverberated through his stomach and breasts. Sweat beaded down his round spotty cheeks. A symphony of huffs and sounds of exertion released from his lips. His supple lips formed a large O of intense focus, whilst his united line of brows curved into a sharp V. His jacket fluttered with the majesty of an ancient’s robes. His blade slashed across the backs of his foes. And if she squinted her senses really hard, Silent Feather could just barely see the moments in between the cuts when Neckbeardman rolled on the ground as he traveled from foe-to-foe.
Whilst he fought, the girl and her awakened squirrel and primate fled with a group of other mortals.
“Please deal with them, hoogieboogie,” Silent Feather said.
He tipped his fe-dora, said, “M’lady” and laid all her worries to rest.
***
I’d only just begun working on a long-term play against the Humming Blade sect, when the call came in ‘Code C!’ — Cultivators at Happyland.
Somehow, Silent Feather had breached the Protective Chad Formation, which should have stymied a cultivator of her realm. Somehow, whilst I was focused on Big Braining against her, she’d pulled off a true Galaxy Brain maneuver. I’d have been thankful for the opportunity to go against her, if not for the familiar stranger I ran into on the second floor when chasing the sounds of struggle.
There stood a two and a half meter tall man of enormous girth and beard growth. He wore an edgy jacket, a fedora, and a blood-stained Cl*nnad shirt. Through Big Dick energy, I sensed reality warping around his being, as if it was watched through stained glass.
This man was a Dao cultivator.
And an old friend.
“Kevin?”
“Titan.” Keving nodded, but did not tip his fedora.
I smiled. I knew what his presence here implied, yet I could not hold myself from embracing him with a brotherly hug. “Good to see you old friend. I feared the worst when you stopped replying to us. Damn. So good to see you. Still studying the blade I see?”
“Naturally.” Kevin wiggled out of my arms, wrinkling his nose. “And I observe that you have yet to quit the ‘lifting of weights’, as they call it.”
“You know it buddy. Leg day everyday, BOOYAH!” I laughed at my own enthusiasm. Just saying it out loud made me wanna go do some squats. “Though, to be fair, it’s also ab, arm, neck, nose, and back day everyday too now. My current routine is really fun.”
“Hmph. I can hardly fathom.”
“It’s been so great to see you again, my man. Hit me up later, alright? There’s something I must take care of.” I moved to circle around Kevin, taking a step towards the broken doors.
His big round arm lifted to block my path.
I met his eyes and saw them harden. His knuckles, covered by edgy fingerless gloves, tightened around his unsheathed katana.
“Don’t you find it stimulating to contemplate how both of us draw our might from memes? How we’ve led opposite lives, yet ended up tapping into the same source for strength. Truly a topic to tickle the intellectual curiosity, is it not?” Kevin asked.
“Oh, I forgot to congratulate you on that. Big cratz my buddy! And yes, Dao are manifestations of universal concepts. It’s only natural that concepts strong in the zeitgeist manifest a Dao.”
“Hmph.” Kevin adjusted his glasses, frowning. “That’s a criminal oversimplification of an infinitely complex intellectual debate.”
“It takes Big Brain to summarize large concepts.”
“Implying???” He frowned.
“Hey.” I laughed. “If you take that as an insult, it’s on you.”
His gaze narrowed. “Your [Big Brain] against my [300 IQ Gentleman Intellectualism]. Let us measure whose mental technique holds superiority.”
“That sounds like great fun. How about next Saturday? Maybe over a match of Heroes of M*ght and M*gic III? I’m in a bit of a hurry you see. My friends are in trouble.” I took a step around Kevin, but he pressed a hand against me and halted me with sheer body mass.
“My name is Neckbeardman.”
Implications how his cold-toned declaration clicked. He declared himself not the Kevin I knew, but a Dao cultivator.
“There’s no need for this,” I said, as he backpedaled into a strange combat stance, which caused the world to bend.
“Incorrect. This must happen. A Chad and Neckbeard cannot co-exist in harmony. This was inevitable.”
“They aren’t opposing memes. If anything, a neckbeard could easily be a chadbeard.”
Kevin sneered. “How amusingly predictable. You would be rather pleased if that were the case, wouldn’t you be? No doubt it would bring great joy to an uneducated Chad such as yourself to see a noble gentleman such as myself corrupted by your meme.”
“This is not a battle of memes, Kevin. We. Aren’t. Memes.”
“Now it is. Now we are. As we act in reflection of our Dao. Dao reflects upon us, transforming our personalities, bodies, and our very souls.” His legs fell into a quick-draw stance with both hands on the undrawn blade. “Prepare yourself, Chad, or I shall cut you down unprepared.”
There was no reasoning with him.
No more was he Kevin.
The man glaring at me was Neckbeardman, a powerful Dao cultivator, and my enemy.
“So be it, old friend.” Solemnly, I drew a deep fluttering breath, recognizing that I might have just lost a friend. Muscles on my thigh muscles flexed and I assumed the [Leg Day Everyday]-squat, which allowed explosive movements on demand. My chest hairs undulated, arranging themselves in a harmonious pattern to maximize my masculinity, and thereby boosting Big Dick energy generation. My ear, eye, and nose muscles flexed to their utmost limits, heightening my senses to take in the slightest motions at fraction of a second. Blood rushed through my brain, activating Big Brain mode, puzzling out a thousand Chadtastic combat solutions.
The air tightened in anticipation.
Wind fluttered his beard.
A stray frost-kissed leaf of the dead autumn wandered in through the open window. It danced pirouettes between us. Suspended by the winter’s breath, the leaf spun and spun, until, finally, it settled atop Nelly’s old permanent marker drawing that the cleaners had failed to scrub off.
The sketch depicted a stick-figure girl, a triangle man, and a round man, all smiling and holding little stick-figure hands.
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The fateful encounter begins!