Prologue

 

“Breaking from dark pits despair, and breathing in a gulp of air.

You found calming waters cleanse your strife, and solid ground to build your life.

With foundation built your will turned steel, with a burning passion none could steal.

To find the light that shines within, or lose your fight to demon king.” - By Davis Dallas, one of the four founders.

May

Before he could dirty his hands further, she must pass judgement.

With that one thought in her mind, May ran desperately through the dense forest. Looming branches blocked what little moonlight remained on this fateful night, making the pitch-black forest ground a treacherous place to run through. Had it not been for her purple right eye, her special eye, she would have fallen a thousand times over. Her special eye saw spectrums of light on planes no normal person could perceive. Even in total darkness, May could see the obstacles highlighted in a soothing hue of purple. To better navigate in the dark, May closed her normal left eye and ran for all she was worth. She just needed to be on time. For once, she needed to...

Smoke rose to the snapping of burning wood in the distance. Screams of humanity’s suffering echoed in the far distance. It was a sliver of hell on earth. May’s jaw hung open.

I’m too late. Unable to will her legs any faster, May gripped a white-knuckled hand over her Katana.

Racing through thick vines and lopsided branches, her short black coat flapped in the wind at the sheer speed. Through dense thickets, she could soon see specks of individual light beyond the layers of dimly highlighted trees. They were people. Her purple eye highlighted them much like it did the trees, except the light that came from them was an all-encompassing glow, like a full-blown silhouette of pure light. It was thanks to this that they could be seen through the dimmer glowing inanimate objects. Trees, rocks, and walls. Though seeing someone through many objects was possible, the effort of doing so yielded diminishing returns. It was akin to seeing someone through a dozen layers of foggy glass.

Her short skirt briskly brushed against her thigh as she ran past panicked men and women who jostled one another to escape into the pitch-black forests. Not having a special eye like hers did not deter them from running into the darkness at full speed. Even though they were far enough from the burning building to be safe, they still ran like a flock of sheep fleeing a predator.

Off to her right, May saw an impatient man push another older man aside only to collide head-first with a fallen tree at full speed. Hitting the hanging branch with a loud thud, the man somersaulted over himself before striking the ground neck first. The horrid crack rang in May’s ear as she saw his body gave out its last twitch. Seeing this, the older man simply got up, dusted himself off and gave the dead man a befuddled glare before timidly ducking under the very branch that killed him and running off deeper into the forest.

May watched it all unfold with a cold shiver. She noticed that her hand was half outstretched, as if in an attempt to warn them. She came this close to calling out to them. Thankfully, her better senses had taken hold of her allowing May to push her  emotions aside. 

They had this coming, they deserved this… she told herself on loop as she watched countless others flee in a panic. 

There was a good reason why she would not lend a hand to these people. In May’s special eye, their uniformed white lab coats bore the color of sin. Thanks to their sick and vile experiments, her mind’s eye saw them in a glowing red. They had earned Father’s blessing and executed his will, and thus they could not be saved. The other reason did not help them was more personal, harder to explain. It did not help that she herself was still working out how she came to know, how she grew to understand, but through her right eye (her special eye), both men, her father, and all the scum that took part in the experiments had that radiance which glowed a sinful red.

Only animals ever appeared as a pure white to her special eye. For people, however, they tend to come out in more than one color. From her understanding, blue meant a good soul, green meant… something, but she was not yet too sure. But red meant evil. All the men and women trying to escape from their sin do not earn her sympathy. Specks of red ran every which way, but to her, it hardly mattered. With their base of operations set ablaze and their dark schemes brought to light in hell's cleansing flames, part of May felt relieved, for justice had been served. Another part of her, however, felt conflicted about who had set the spark to serve such a sentence.

It’s my fault. I caused all of this. Her heart ran cold at the thought, recalling his warm smile and his stupidly optimistic take on bad odds. She had not known him for long, but she could not imagine Spriiko capable of causing such destruction. He was grieving his blade brother’s loss, but revenge in such a way would kill who he was.

An explosion followed by gunshots rattled the air above her. Blinking in shock, May’s eye was drawn to the very top of the nine-story building. Most of its floors were aflame, with the roof only now catching fire. The strange red cross that stood at the very top of the ancient building toppled to one side as it fell off its hinges and came crashing down to the earth as an engulfing inferno. 

Feeling beads of sweat appear on her face from the sheer heat, May shielded her drying eyes and focused her special eye. Her right eye saw fires as an imposing silver-white, her mind was drawn by its intense roar. There was… something about the flame that spoke to her. Some primal part of her danced in the palm of its embrace. As if the flame themselves were communicating with her, as if they were cleansing away her old life and bonds in its roaring wrath. And inaugurating the start of her new one. The feeling left her transfixed there, making her almost forget her monumental task that night. Through that sheet of flaming silver, through the layers of hazy purple walls and ceilings, May saw them. She could just about make out three specks of light standing atop the roof. One was blue, one was green, and the last was… Although she could hardly make them out as people from where she stood, she knew exactly who they were.

Realising she was in fact not too late, May hurriedly unsheathed her Katana. Its silver surface reflected the dancing flames before her. With blade in hand, she locked her eyes on a spot as high as she knew she could comfortably jump and focused. Energy from within reached out to merge with a power that formed beyond herself, calling it, unifying with it. The power of the planet responded by surging May’s body with a wilful heat. Having unified with the world's power, May willed an image of her Katana’s blade to apair. In an instant, through her special eye, she saw a bright purple blade suspended nine feet in the air. With a leap, May landed upon the face of this phantom blade with one foot before summoning another at about the same distance. Although the method of channelling energy within on self to connect the greater will of the planet was not unheard of, her power to create ‘phantom blades’ was a skill only she could master. Given that only she could see these summoned blades with her special eye, May gathered it must be a unique trait from the special blood her father had implanted within her before she was even born.

Leaping above the rooftop, she saw the three people she hoped and dreaded to see. They all stood facing one another upon a desecrated roof of rubble and rocks. A great fiery pit to a lower floor separated them with its growing wall of flame. Given the devastation of the rooftop and the horrid state one of the men was in, May saw that she had arrived at the tail end of their intense battle. As two of the three rushed through the flame, they landed decisive blows on the outnumbered one, making him stagger back and fall to one knee. Not stopping their advance, the two young men turned and swung, their blood-stained blades shimmering in the bright flames as they were about to land the finishing blow.

No!

May summoned a phantom blade that stopped the attackers’ killing strike, blocking their blades and making them leap back in confused caution. Using the opening in their hesitation, May landed in front of the kneeling man she’d defended before taking a stance against the other two. The first person, an ebony-skinned young man with a deep grey hoodie and equally grey muted trousers, stood there, his piercing eyes studying. His strange diamond sword glimmered at his side as the dancing flames around them reached beyond the edges and onto the roof they stood upon. With his hoodie up, his uniform clothes made him look like the shadows themselves walking among men. Only the deep red headband of the eastern temple broke the illusion.

“May,” he mumbled, recognition flooded his features. That simple reaction threw May’s mind off-kilter. Although he glowed blue in her special eye, May sometimes wondered if her eye got him all wrong. Crude and blunt, Scope had been nothing but a villain ever since she’d met him. Even though he’d once rescued her, his sadistic jokes and twisted words dampened the experience. But despite his normal attitude, May could not help but respect his skill with a blade.

Maybe he won’t be a pretentious prick now. As if to mess with her, Scope instantly snorted in dry amusement to himself before resting his blade on his shoulder to watch.

“Now this I gotta see,” he said to himself. As much as she was relieved not to contend with Scope, his laid-back attitude in such a situation ticked her off. The other young man, however, marched towards her, seething with rage. With a blade unsheathed in one hand, he waved his pistol at her as an order for her to move aside. May swallowed back tears as she gently shook her head. His bloodshot eyes widened. 

“Move!” he roared. May flinched. She’d never seen him raise his voice so loud before. Unlike Scope, his demeanour was fevered he panted desperately as if he’d ran a thousand miles. This tone, coming from the boy she loved the most, tore a hole in her heart better than any bullet could. She wanted to hug him. But all she could do now was stand idle and keep back her tears. His lips trembled as he saw what he’d done. The guilt overshadowed his rage soon after, dampening her resolve. May saw him look down at his bloodied blade and hands in a dark realisation before gathering himself, recalling once again why he’d brought hell on earth.

“If you’re going to defend him after everything he’s done, then I’ll shoot you too,” he mumbled. His sand-coloured complexion was all covered in bruises and blood marks. With an unzipped, bloodied navy blue coat, his chest heaved endlessly as he struggled to master himself over the adrenaline and flood of emotions.

“You don’t mean that, Spriiko,” May murmured. A stab of guilt came at using his love for her as a tool—a means to shield the man he wanted dead. Pulling the gun away from her, Spriiko cursed through his teeth and walked in circles with a hand on his forehead.

“He confessed, May!” Spriiko shouted. ”That scumbag told me himself! He killed our blade brothers!”

“Spriiko, please, you must not stoop to-“

“-Stoop to whose level, May!? Look at him. He’d good as killed them himself! He gave those bastards the order! He stuffed my brothers into that sack and threw them over- he threw them over…!” Spriiko's head bowed as he sobbed tears. His hands shook with a regrowing rage. May could almost see that blooded sack again, spinning… spinning in the air as it fell over the temple wall. As it fell she remembered thinking how packed it looked. How red the brown sack looked under the golden evening sun. How her blade brothers had damaged this month's shopping with this stupid stunt. 

Spriiko was the first to reach the sack, his hands stained red by its packed contents. With the life essence of his blade brothers all over his hands. Spriiko pulled out a pistol, it the same one Father’s men used to kill their blade brothers, it was the same one he held onto now. A bloodied note fell out of the sack. The haunted look on Spriiko’s face that evening burned into her retina as fell out of his trembling fingers. Soaked in the blood of her brothers, May read its content. ‘Bring back my daughter’.

When May finally realised what was within the sack, she fell to her knees, bile rush out of her throat in a dry, choking heaves. Just thinking back on the moment made her want to be sick all over again, but this time she’d substituted that for a dry swallow. She forced her mind off the inhuman horror she’d seen back then and instead remembered features they once had, the people they once were.

Jonathan Gregory… She’d already cried a well of tears for them.

Looking up at Spriiko, she saw the rage in his eye. It burned all the more intensely that day as they buried the remains of the blade brothers. They roared with a flame-like frenzy that made heated furnaces look frozen. That flame in him was smaller now, colder. As if manifesting its raging embers into reality had pulled it all out of him. As he looked at his bloodied hands filled with weapons again, May saw the spark of horrid realisation wash over him. She could almost see the faces of his victims flash before his eyes. A cold shade washed over his features. He slipped away, and it almost broke her. It was Spriiko that helped save her from his father and, in doing so, changed her fate. He’d often said that he’ll change the world with both his hands someday.

She could not explain why, but something about that stupidly corny line struck a chord within her. Maybe it was because of how straight-laced he was. But ever since then, she’d vowed to remain by his side, hoping to see what change he will bring to the world. In a world where people she’d once loved and trusted were not who she’d thought they were. In a world she’d almost lost her sanity in, she’d prayed that he’d be the ship; the anchor that could show her a better way of living than she knew from her old life. But she underestimated the vile and twisted reach the people of her old life had, and now Spriiko, the one who saved her, and the blade kin that took her in thereafter, had suffered because of it. And now the unwavering Spriiko looked adrift. She’d wanted to walk over to him and take hold of his hands. To squeeze her own life into them. To help anchor him back to the now for her assurance, if not for his own. But that was not her role here. Uncle Wu said that Spriiko had not grieved yet. Maybe that was all he needed. Time to grieve. 

“We could have avoided this if only you’d let me continue my original mission,” Scope said with a yawn. May winced inwardly as Scope began speaking. “It would have been easy too, like squashing an annoying roach. But here we are now in this shit show, cleaning up a demons’ dinner of a mess.”

Spriiko glared at Scope as if he was about to fight him. That was when the third person behind her shifted, making Spriiko instead leap into stance against them. May’s breath got lodged in her throat. She’d avoided looking at him this whole time.

“You came back, my daughter,” Father said.

Closing her eyes tightly, May slowly released the breath she was holding. She avoided looking over her shoulder at the man before her, for she knew it would tarnish what precious memories she had left of him. He was her past, a part of her that needed to be cleaned in the frenzied flame. And as things stood right here and now, she did not have the luxury to be weak with sentiment.

“Step away from him, May!” Spriiko ordered. May simply shook her head.

“It’s okay, Spriiko,” she said, her voice calm and controlled. “I just want to ask him a single question.”

“I had faith... that you’d return to me,” the old man said between breaths behind her. May’s throat became bone dry. Recollections of all the times he’d come to visit her ran across her mind as fresh as yesterday’s sun. It was hard to swallow. She was not ready to do what she had to do, and yet it had to be done.

“Father,” she turned around to him slowly. The flames behind him made the dark silhouette she saw look like that of a deformed creature. He had wings, or at least had the look of what could be the freakish makings of wings, free flesh and feathers. Half-deformed flesh stretched its way around some parts of him, while other parts exposed muscles and tendons in transparent flesh.

His clean and devout robes torn and burnt in places where he’d either transformed into the thing he was now or it resulted from the battle he had with Spriiko and Scope. Arms barely looked like that of a human, covered with blade-like claws that protruded through the elbow and fingers. One robe was cut short where his wrist would be. All over him were the signs of an ugly, invincible creature tasting mortality. Only his face held any semblance of the man she once knew as her father. In her special right eye, he came out as red, evil. He had always been evil.

It has to be the case! It just has to!

“Why are you calling him father for?! He has no right to that title after what he’s done!” Spriiko growled at Father.

“I know,” May said.

“He has long earned what’s coming to him. If you tell me to show him mercy, I’ll-”

“-I’ll kill him myself once I get my answer,” May said.

That stunned Spriiko silent. Scope, meanwhile just whistled to himself amusedly. The bastard. Had she not been in so much pain, then she would have laughed at getting any show of surprise out of the know it all. But that did not matter. 

I’ll kill him, I’ve said it aloud now. There was no turning back. For the sake of justice, for the sake of keeping Spriiko from tainting his hands for vengeance any further, she had to kill her father. Worst yet was how her father looked at her. His warm and gentle smile was understanding, a vast contrast to the monstrosity that he’d now become.

“And what would you like to ask, my child?” his soothing voice, the same one that helped rally hundreds, thousands to his cause. A voice that was the light in her dark days. Had she only known how dark a shadow that light had cast upon the world... Seeing firsthand that the man she’d loved and this monster she’d realised him to be were indeed the same people all along only broke her all the more. It took all she had to hold back tears. She won’t cry, not now.

Just one question, oh but by the cycles this was hard! She swallowed a lump before she dared to continue.

“Back when I was younger, you’d constantly said that I was your ‘perfect little girl’ and that you’ve ‘Finally found me’. I used to just think that they were incidental words of kindness. But now I know better. Having now seen more of the world you sheltered me from, I’m now more sure than ever that there is not one incidental thing about you. The people you work for, my mother’s death, whatever changes are happening to me, the efforts you went to try to recreate that change in others.” She held a hand out towards her special right eye to see it come out a deep purple. She was the only person in the world she saw as purple. 

“Everything I did was all in order to-” Father started before May shut him down.

“I don’t want to hear your reasons! No amount of them will excuse the blood you’ve spilled.” His reasonings, her family’s messed-up history, the innocent blood on his hands. They can all rot with his corpse. What mattered right here and now was the present. What she could do right now was try to break the cycle her father started, try to be that cut line in the sand, and save the ones who’d survived this tragedy. “I just want to hear one question from you, Father. Is there another like me? And if so, where are they now?”

“That’s technically two questions, but hey! Who’s really counting?” Scope said with a casual sniff.

She glared daggers at Scope, who had the courtesy to feign freezing up a moment before sighing to himself and walking back defeated. She caught Spriiko mouthing the word ‘another’ to himself before Father spoke as if Scope did not exist.

“You’ve deduced so much from what little I’ve said. As expected of my daughter,” Her mouth just fell open. He’d sounded more proud than she had ever heard him. Her lips quivered.

“If you’re buying time, then-” May stopped abruptly when Father shook his head.

“No, child.” He looked up at the moonlit sky. “I climbed the path I believed in to the best of my ability. I’ve shown the way of the light to others the best way I knew how. I sacrificed body, blood, and soul to help pioneer the future of humanity. I’ve sown all the seeds I could sow. If those seeds now must require a sacrifice. If spilling my blood atop its soil is what is needed for it to bear its fruit. Then so be it. By the cycle’s will and everlasting grace, let that be enough.” With a calming smile, Father bowed his head from the heavens and looked back at her. “Whether it is by the east,” he looked to Scope’s back, “whether it’s by the south.” He looked at Spriiko, angry and conflicted, before looking at May with that radiant smile. “Or whether it’s by my northern star I’ve reached my destination, my journey ends here,” he said.

May swallowed a lump. It was unfair—downright vile. Father’s way with words was so cryptic and captivating. Despite her heinous crimes, it made her unsure of herself once again.

“He’s playing you like a fiddle. I hope you realise that,” Scope said. With an arrogant snort, he stabbed his sword into the floor and rested his arms on it to regard her father with a grin. “I had a mark on you and your cult for months now.” 

“Scope…” May said with a tight chest.

“I mean, really, the shit you freaks named yourselves!”

“Not now, Scope,” 

“The ‘Callers of the Wind’? Please,” he chuckled to himself as he shook his head. “I mean honestly, your forefathers would weep.” Father regarded Scope silently as he went on. He’d go to great lengths if you’d let him. Was he born tone-deaf?! By the cycles, but she could not stand the guy! “I’ve been to your so-called sermons too. Was passing through Leathenan when I had the great displeasure. I mean, it was some real rancid shit.” He waved a hand across his face as if to clear away a foul smell. “I think the only thing you and the ‘real’ Callers of Wind have in common is the stinking gas you held between your ass cheeks. The only difference there is when it comes time to talk. They knew what mouth to keep open and what mouth to keep shut.”

Father simply gave him an amused nod in approval.

“Had I known a creature like you were on my tail, then I might have done things differently.”

“Oh I bet you would have, that’s fair but it wouldn’t have changed the outcome,” Scope replied.

“Perhaps not, but now that we are here. Who’s to say, really?” Father said. That seemed to stop Scope for a moment. He was not used to someone having a comeback for him. “Your strength is as impressive as I’d imagined. A shame that it’s fuelled by a demon.”

“Ironic coming from one who’d juiced himself up with the same stuff. Don’t deny it. There’s no other way to explain the fancy demonic look you got going on.” Scope looked at Father's monstrous look up and down, which drew Father’s mouth into a line.

“All that I have done, was all in order to serve my children,”

“I’d have guessed it was out of jealousy of our power, but sure old man, keep telling yourself that.”

“Enough!” May snapped. Her jaw had been getting tighter with each passing second. To her surprise, everyone listened. It took May a moment to make a neutral face. Plumes of smoke rose out from all ends of the building, covering the roof in a comb of darkness. With breathing getting harder, she turned to her father to ask again.

“I need to know if I am the only one out there that survived what you’d done to us,” she failed to add in ‘if he’d care for her like her daughter, she owed him that much. But the better part of her bit off the words back. She couldn’t muddle her emotions on this any further. As Father looked at her for a moment, he nodded. She felt as though he could read her thoughts and emotions, and it numbed her. Glancing up at the smoke-covered sky, he looked like a man waiting for the rain to descend upon him. Or one waiting for the gallows to drop.

“My child, do you recall the promise I made you to grant you a sibling?” Father started after a short while. May tilted her head to one side in baffled. Her mind was completely blank. Although she wanted to deny it, something about that rang as familiar. Perhaps something he’d said during one of his many visits to her room. But…

A sharp pain stabbed her mind and chest, and for a second, all that was in front of her vanished. In a flash, she saw a face-a young one that had silver hair and… pink-framed glasses? Blinking and shaking her head, it vanished. She came to, to the sound of Spriiko worriedly approaching until she ordered him to back away.

Looking back at Father, it baffled her to realise that he’d just stood there, still half kneeling and watching her with an unreadable expression. Only the fact that he had stopped talking clued May in that Father noticed anything at all. Blinking the last of the dizziness away, she nodded for him to go on.

“I remember,” she said. She did now, but barely. She could not remember what it was that she was doing in most of them except asking when she will have a sibling.

“I’d searched long and hard for one who was to become your kin by the cycle. And although we gathered many who’d held the chance to embrace the purity, they all failed to meet the first step to divinity and died.”

The rumble of thunder overhead punctuated his words. May stood there, poleaxed.

All the children he’d experimented on… had died?

“So there’s no one? No survivors,” May asked in a raspy whisper.

“Not that I had time to look, but all the children they kidnapped are now burned to ash from this floor upward. If there was anyone still alive before we got here, then it’s too late now,” Scope said. “I wanted to go in slowly and stealthily; he, on the other hand…” He looked at Spriiko with an accusatory look soon after. Spriiko simply looked between her and Scope in panicked protest soon after.

“They were all dead, right? He’s said so himself!” Spriiko said.

“Oh, so now you take his word as gospel!” Scope chuckled.

“Scope! By the cycles—if you open your mouth one more time, I’ll—”

“—There was, however, one that showed great promise of surviving the purity process. Sadly, just an hour before you came here, I got word that she’d passed.

That was it, her chance to salvage anything from this mess, gone with the winds. She hardly felt the jolt from falling to her knees. Everything just became a white haze to her. She hardly realised just how tightly she was holding onto the hopes that there would be someone else like herself out there until it was taken from her. She ignorantly asked when she would have a brother or sister. All the half-truths and lies. All the fancy wordplay and manipulation. He was insane; her father was insane, and yet… he had been her guide and shelter for all of her life. May felt stupid for not seeing the signs.

Cycles above, what does that say about me!?

“Just then, she felt a hand gently pat her on her forehead.

“Father?” he’d turned back to his human form now. One of his arms was missing, and the blood that was only showing out of his torn robes began to overflow. His breathing became weak once more.

“You look just like your mother.” That only made his smile widen all the more. “I should have known… trying to improve perfection was asking too much. But I’m sure one such as you will surpass me in my pursuits. After all, you are mankind’s future. The unification of man, heaven, and earth rolled into one. I’m sure that whatever choice you make will be the right one.” His face darkened, however, as he looked to one side in regret. “Being the vanguard of a new world order will be lonely. I’m sorry I couldn’t grant you your wish.”

The grip on May’s sword slackened. He was trying to manipulate her again. Though her special right eye showed her father glowing an angry-evil red, everything that he said twisted her gut into knots. She tried to back away from the gentle hold he had on her head, but her body felt weak at the thought of moving away. Chest tightening and tears rolling down her cheek, she shook her head. ‘Mother?’ How dear he bring her up now!

“Whatever it is that you hope I’d do, it won’t happen. I’ll become nothing like you! I’ll renown your name and bury you here. And after today, nobody will ever speak of your deeds ever again except in scorn! And as for mother, the place you’re going, you’ll never see her again!”

Father nodded.

“Perhaps,” he began. “Whether you follow the path that I’d hoped for or not. You will still be the only thing that I hoped for you to be, my daughter.”

…

She remembered her sword hilt hitting the centre of his chest as the sensation of cold metal passing through ribs and flesh ran down her palm. As her mind split into numb fractions, she’d screamed herself for all her worth. She had a sore throat the next time she’d come to.

Beyond that, May barely remembered what happened after killing her father. Only three instances came back to her when she tried to recall the memory years since. Spriiko had pulled her away from Father’s corpse as she kicked and screamed. Scope stayed on top of the flaming roof for a moment longer, his back to them, and sword outstretched towards the heavens as he and it glowed in a blinding light. And the thunderous boom as the whole flaming hospital was obliterated by something May could only describe as a sword the size of a skyscraper made of pure light crashed down tip-first into the building itself before shattering into an explosive crystallised fragment of energy. Rumbles of thunder and rain came soon after as she and the others fled the scene... beyond that point, all she remembered doing was crying. Crying and praying. Praying that there was nobody else out there suffering and hurt because of her father.

She’d prayed that her sin today would mark the end of her father’s twisted vision poisoning this world. She’d prayed that she’d continue to have kith and kin to guide and hold her steady wherever she finds herself. Most of all, she prayed that come what may, she’d not look back on this day with any more regrets than she already had.