Pilgrim, p.2
Pilgrim, page 2
Chaos swelled all around Danzen in the form of shadowy demons as he turned his attention to the teenage girl, who was slowly being dragged into one of the portals by a pair of blackened hands.
One of the hands latched onto the long braid of her hair, terror painting across her face as Danzen lunged for her and cut the demon’s arm away. He lifted the teen and settled her on his shoulder.
“Let me go!” she shrieked, kneeing Danzen in the chest.
“It’s not safe here,” he told her as he turned to the southwest, in the direction of a hamlet that went by the name Namdak.
Danzen knelt, channeling his power into his feet and flung himself into the air.
The teenage girl kicked and screamed as they flew higher and higher, the wind beating all around them.
They reached an apex in the sky, the moon behind them as they arced downward, Danzen now focused on a safe spot to land.
He managed to clear a dirt road, crashing into the straw roof of one of the larger homes in the village, splinters and debris following him down.
Danzen landed on his feet, the teen vomiting on his back as he slowly stood and placed her on the ground.
“That’s all right,” he told the teenage girl, who was still dry-heaving, spittle dripping from her bloodied chin.
“You’re an assassin,” she said through gritted teeth, oblivious to the man and woman who had run from the bedroom into their living space to see a hole in the roof, dust in the air, the teenage daughter of one of the richest men in the area with blood smeared across her face, and a man in tattered robes with long hair, his muscles convulsing a little, his eyes bloodshot.
“Stay there and don’t move,” Danzen told the couple, the two freezing in place once they heard the sinister rumble of his voice, something so guttural that the pair felt it in their very souls.
Terror painted across the teenage girl’s eyes as she looked to him, trying to comprehend what she’d just heard. “Your voice? What…”
Danzen turned back to her, his face glistening with sweat, his breaths bated. “I’m… sorry about what happened back there.”
She shook her head, and regained her composure as she looked at him with an upturned face. “You scum, you dog. You’re an assassin. A killer. You killed my father!” she shouted, emboldened, her braid snapping as she braced to attack him. “I will not… I will not let you get away!” She charged at him and swung her fist, Danzen catching it.
“What’s your name?” he asked her, surprised that she actually made an attempt on him, especially in this form.
She may be foolish, but she was also fearless.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, struggling to free herself from his grip. “You’re a killer!”
“What’s your name?”
“Sumi,” she said obediently, her face going pale.
“Sumi, you may not know who your father was, but most of his money, all of the kip that bought that wonderful house of yours, came from trafficking girls younger than you. But that’s not why I was sent to kill him,” he said, his hands on her shoulders now, Sumi stiff as a board. “His rival paid my organization to take him out.”
“What?” she asked, growing angry again.
“I killed a human trafficker for another human trafficker. It was in the contract…” Danzen explained, not able to hide the shame in his voice.
And even though the power that had been unleashed by Norwin’s attack still raged through him, still made his muscles pulsate, still saturated his blood and tainted his vision with a blistering animus he could barely contain, Danzen experienced an overwhelming sense of remorse, a desire for redemption, for retribution.
“A contract?”
“This is it for me,” he said carefully.
“What do you mean?” Sumi whispered.
His eyes twitched. “I can’t do this anymore. I’ve grown out of it.”
“So you’re just going to quit? Why… why didn’t you quit before you killed my father?”
“It was agreed upon…” Danzen said, recalling what Norwin Dawa had told him, that Danzen’s teacher Biren Yeshe had ordered the hit on his life. “And now I’m going to disappear.”
“Disappear? To where?”
“Where would you go?” he asked, squeezing her shoulders.
“What?” Sumi tried to press away from Danzen but he held strong. “Let me go!”
Danzen turned to the couple who were still frozen, the woman’s mouth agape. “Where would you go to disappear?” he asked both of them, his voice guttural again, awash with malice.
“To d-d-disappear?” the man asked, a sudden luminosity taking shape on his face.
Danzen tilted his head a little as he took the man in. He blinked twice, Sumi finally freeing herself from his grip.
“Yes, to disappear…” Danzen told the owner of the home.
The man cleared his throat and spoke: “If I had to disappear, I’d go to the end of the world. To Genshin Valley. I’ve been there before, even as far as Suja Village. That’s where I’d go,” the man said, his voice almost monotone now. “There’s magic there…”
Danzen returned his focus to Sumi.
“And what about me?” she asked. “You’re just going to leave me here?”
“Yes, I am.”
“You’ve ruined my life. You’ve killed my… I’ll…” Sumi’s onyx eyes filled with rancor. “I’ll kill you for this.”
“Stay here for now. Forget that I told you where I was going,” Danzen told her using his Demon Speak power again. He looked up at the hole in the roof, a ripple of fury cascading down his shoulders.
“I will… I will stay here,” Sumi said obediently.
His voice lost its monstrous edge, morphing back to its normal tone. “I’ve got to get back to the fight. I can’t let the demons I’ve unleashed make it to the village.”
****
Danzen landed in the now-misty courtyard, not far from Palmo Mipham’s deceased body.
Even though it was night, the estate was darker than it had been when he left, the moon hiding behind a black cloud, erratic movement in the shadows, the occasional terrified scream ringing out as the hellspawns Danzen had unleashed went about slaying the servants still in the manor.
Danzen could feel the demonic thirst that hung heavy in the air; he could smell iron in the blood, quantify the bedlam; and oddly enough, he could still taste impending freedom.
Even with what was about to happen, Danzen couldn’t help but sense his pending exodus.
He just needed to wrap things up.
Figuring he would work his way down, Danzen surged to the nearest balcony, which just so happened to be the one that he had come tumbling out of at the start of this whole affair.
This was supposed to be a quick kill.
Danzen hadn’t expected Palmo to have such a powerful kick, but then again, it really wasn’t Palmo’s kick that was powerful, it was the Sunyata talisman on his neck that had given the man his enhanced strength.
It occurred to Danzen as he made his way inside the estate that perhaps he should grab the talisman before leaving here tonight, that it would be of value to him.
He didn’t rely on these types of items, not with his inherent power, but owning it could be an asset. And if he wanted, he could always discard the talisman after removing its Sunyata remnant, the origin of the power.
Danzen was just drawing his blade when he heard the scuttle of a demon crawling on the ceiling.
He looked up just in time for a shadowy monster to leap onto him, its red eyes matching Danzen’s as the demon bared its terrible maw.
But Danzen was faster, even if it was supposed to be a surprise attack; his blade ripped through the hellspawn’s sternum and out its back, black blood arcing after it.
Another monster came swelling into the room and Danzen tossed Astra at the demon, his blade magically reappearing in its scabbard after killing Danzen’s assailant.
Having been in this scenario before, he estimated that there were a good twenty of these terrible creatures spread throughout the house.
He’d have to act fast.
Danzen reached the hallway and hung a left, slipping into a study where he found two blackened forms hunched over the body of a woman, viscera and blood coating the spines of the shelved books.
These demons were more tangible. They had clearly fed.
The first one noticed him, its deformed maw starting to tear at the seams as its lips curled, its teeth soaked in crimson, its eyes beady and set back on its head, black as Danzen’s soul, horns jutting from the demon’s skull.
The creature hopped off a writing table, yellowed claws exposed as it tried to reach Danzen before he could draw his blade.
While Danzen experienced superhuman strength and speed in this form, Danzen was not able to get Astra out of its scabbard in time.
The hellspawn clambered on top of him, Danzen bringing both his hands to its neck and throwing it to the side, books falling on top of the demon.
He scrambled on top of the horrific creature, choking it with his bare hands, the demon gasping for air as its beady eyes bulged out of its eye sockets.
The next creature slammed into both of them, the wall partially giving way.
Danzen snapped the neck of the demon he was strangling and grabbed the one that had latched around his shoulders, flipping the second demon onto its back.
He pinned it with his knee and snapped its neck as well, knowing that they would eventually fizzle out of existence.
He heard a screech from the hallway as another opponent flooded into the increasingly blood-strewn room.
Danzen quickly drew his blade and flung it, Astra’s sharp edge meeting the demon’s forehead and tearing out the back of its deformed skull.
Astra was back in his hand in a matter of seconds, Danzen slipping into the hallway, continuing his mission to exterminate.
He flashed the number five with his hand, reminding himself of how many he had taken down, Danzen barely registering the layout of the hallway. From the elaborate tile on the floor to the portraits Palmo had commissioned, the man had funneled his dirty money into quite the collection.
Danzen met two more hellspawns in the hallway. He was able to quickly finish them off as he made his way around to what would have been the family wing, first stopping in Sumi’s bedroom.
Danzen paused at the door, catching his breath, still feeling the intense power radiating through him, his veins pulsing, his heart beating in his throat.
The room was what he’d expect a wealthy teen’s room to look like, with lush satin sheets on the bed, a handsomely carved make-up table, wooden dolls arranged on stands, a plethora of reading material.
Satisfied that the room was empty, Danzen was just about to turn when he saw something moving under her blankets.
He then saw a stain of red on the white sheets, Danzen quickly moving to the bedside and whipping the sheets away.
A pint-sized demon huddled over the body of a young girl, the muscles on its back bulging as it crammed flesh into its mouth. Realizing its cover had been removed, the demon screeched.
Danzen killed it, the creature's head flying one way, black blood spritzing against the crimson sheets.
As he made his way back to the hallway, and from there down to the greater living areas below, where the servants’ quarters would be, Danzen wondered who the young girl was.
He hoped it wasn’t Sumi’s sister.
He was just reaching the kitchen when the wall in front of him exploded, a muscled hellspawn with three arms roaring as the debris settled.
It grabbed Danzen before he could cut it down and tossed him into a hanging slab of meat, the large hunk of flesh falling on top of him as he landed at the back of the kitchen, bags of flour kicking up powder into the air.
Danzen coughed, his vision momentarily blocked by the mist of powder.
It was by sheer instinct that he avoided the claw coming at him, the amber fingernails cutting through the dust.
He rolled behind the muscled, three-armed hellspawn and brought his sword into its back, pulling up as the creature let out a grisly gasp.
Using his foot as leverage, he cut its head off, its black blood causing the flour on the ground to turn purple, the demon letting out a final garbled choke as it died.
As Danzen reached the kitchen's exit, three more shadowy opponents moved to the space, Danzen killing them all with a single toss of his sword.
He continued to move toward the servant’s quarters.
A door kicked open and a man shouldered out of it, a grizzled demon reaching for the servant’s legs and dragging him back in.
Danzen was in the room in a heartbeat, quickly finishing the creature off by decapitating it, its neck bubbling ebony blood. He turned his attention to the frightened man, who had cuts running up and down his calves.
“Run,” Danzen told the man, using his Demon Speak ability. “Do not hide. Run. And bring anyone alive with you.”
The man nursed his leg as he hobbled out of the room, heading toward the kitchen.
Danzen slew five more of the creatures in the servant’s quarters, moving through the space with razor precision, his years of training taking over.
He could tell by the smell in the air, and the way the tension was starting to wane, that the demons’ influence over this realm was nearly finished.
And he was just reaching the end of the servant’s quarters when he heard something above him.
As he looked up, the ceiling gave way, two thick-skinned demons and a large man spilling into the hallway, Danzen barely able to slip out of the way.
One of the demons turned to him and screeched, the beast on Danzen in a matter of seconds.
He was slammed into the wall, Danzen using his incredible strength to get the upper hand and drive Astra into its gut.
Curiously, the other demon saw what happened and dropped the man it had been attempting to devour. It turned to run the other way. Danzen grabbed a large slab of stone from the collapsed ceiling and heaved it at the demon, bringing it down.
He stood over the creature in a flash, driving his blade into the back of its head and pulling it upward, his blade trailing a line of black blood.
And that was it.
That was all of them.
Danzen paused, listening for any more sounds, feeling for more demoniacal tension in the air.
All he could hear were the sounds of the servant who had come from the floor above, the big man groaning in pain, his body mutilated, a large gash in his stomach revealing his intestines.
“Kill… Kill me…” he whimpered, his face splashed in blood, contrasting with the whites of his eyes. “Please…”
Danzen bowed his head to the man, closed his eyes, and once they were open again, he delivered a fatal blow.
He looked up to the exit of the servant’s quarters and appeared there in a flash, moving just a bit slower than he normally would have at peak demonic power.
Danzen let himself out to the courtyard, looking up at the night sky, the clouds that were covering the moon earlier suddenly gone, everything illuminated.
Everything was quiet, calm in an eerie way.
Danzen found Palmo’s dead body and kneeled before it. He removed the Sunyata talisman from his mark’s neck.
He was just about to leave for good when he made a sudden decision.
Danzen turned toward the southwest again, toward Namdak Village.
He crouched, gathering some of his innate echo given to him by his demonic powers, and launched himself high into the night’s sky.
He landed outside the home he’d crashed through earlier, Danzen pausing to catch his breath before knocking.
The man who had told Danzen to go to Genshin Valley came to the door, surprise taking shape on his face.
“Freeze,” Danzen told the man as Sumi appeared behind him.
“It’s you…” she started to say, her fists curling at her sides.
Danzen handed the dark-eyed teen her father’s talisman. “Take it. It’s powerful. Don’t sell it. Don’t tell anyone you have it.”
He deposited the Sunyata talisman in her hand, and with that, Danzen Ravja was gone.
Finally retired.
Part One
.Chapter One.
A girl no older than ten laughed as she wound her way through the pedestrians of Suja Village’s Third District.
The girl wore yellow robes with silk embroidery, the ends of the robes dirty from the hours upon hours she’d spent playing outside, mostly with the neighbor boys, the girl fitting in better with them than she did the other young ladies of the village.
She paused as excitement rippled through her, the child oblivious to a man leading a horse past her, the horse dragging a cart filled with vegetables bound for the neighboring village of Chutham.
“Careful,” the merchant said, raising his hand in her direction.
But the girl was already gone, running again once she saw a taller boy, who had strapped a long-nosed yokai mask to his face.
The color of the mask was a shade of red used in the east mostly for regality, the eye holes on its surface cut into slits, white eyeliner traced around them which arced upwards, matching the devilish grin that stretched across the surface of the mask, framing its six-inch-long nose that curled at the end.
The mouth opening was big enough for the wearer to stick his tongue through, the youthful boy eliciting a high-pitched cry, the girl in yellow robes screaming with delight.
The yellow-robed girl ran to a cart containing logs and other assorted goods, quickly finding a hiding spot behind it.
Stalking now, the boy pressed up to the cart and started slowly moving his way around it, the girl doing the same but in the opposite direction, the two of them doing an entire loop before she tried something else.
With nowhere left to go, the girl slipped underneath the wooden cart, waiting with bated breath as the masked youth made his way around again.
Her eyes went wide as his feet stopped, as he turned, just a bit of dust kicking up once he took his next step.
