Yan Empire.
The Great Steppe. The Cold White Lands.
To the people of Yan Empire, this is the great lands of the world
They thought of themselves as the center of the world.
This is not exclusive to them.
Any great civilization in this period of time all thought that their place of rule is the center of the world.
And to the people of Yan, the Great Steppe is one of the largest lands that borders the Yan Empire.
The difference being that the Great Steppe has no ruler.
Instead, they have hundreds of tribes, all have their own tribe's custom and system and there is no one that could be called king
The last time such a unified government appear in the Great Steppe is three hundred years ago.
There was the humiliation of the Great Steppe toward them, encircling the capital and forcing the people of the Yan empire to bribe them with food, resources and woman
Then there was a general that come to the north and slaughter hundreds of tribes, even those who have nothing to do with the matter.
They killed all the children and they crafted mountains of bones and skull out of the defeated
Since this matter, the people of the Great Steppe and Yan empire has been locked in a constant strife and there are chains of hatred that is brought down to the generation below
The Yan empire policy against other people of other races is to break their lineage and to break their roots.
Even then when they could not defeat all the tribes of the Great Steppe, they would impose all kinds of hardship upon the people of the Great Steppe that lives in the land of the Yan empire
They would separate the child and the mother, forcing them to live with other Yan people. These children would usually get abused and die.
Those who did not die either become criminals or bandits and only reinforce the idea that the people of the tribes of the Great Steppe are barbarians.
If one could change the way some things are approached, such generational hatred will not be passed down.
But the more one oppresses the other, the more hatred is accumulated. And as such thing stands…. there is only one conclusion to this great hatred.
And it is not a good one.
This kind of hatred must be repaid.
If not where is justice?
And where is fairness?
The Yan Empire has long wanted to kill all of other people that are not their race.
But they also recognize that the tribes of the Great Steppe are not easy to be killed.
So, they usually use schemes and plot.
They incite murders between the chieftains. They foment resentment, spread rumors, and supply weapons.
Hundreds of years had passed and since the moment the people of the Great Steppe met with the people of the Central Plains of Yan, it is destined that they will be a showdown
One born across the rivers, lives a sedentary life, farming and husbandry is their trade, and they live of the land, the people of the land
One of the group of people live by riding horses, shooting the eagles and the condors on the vast plains, preferring the vast plains that is akin to the large sea, these are the people of the wind, there is no root on the land
Above the ground, below the sky, are the lands of these people. Where they go, that is their land and where they live, that is their home.
These two kinds of people live in different area and develop different habits.
There are the people of Yan. And then there is the people of the Great Steppe.
The Great Steppe has three majority races.
There is the Marynku. Eresian. And the Ashran.
These three races then split into many tribes that populated the Great Steppe.
There are other races and even a few Yan people that escape from the Empire and make their life in the Great Steppe, but these three are the three large group of people that dominated the Great Steppe.
Each tribe has their own name and each tribe has their own leader, their own ways but each knows who is a Marynku, who is Eresian and who is Ashran
they all share this land and for hundreds of years they have lived together and intermarried each other.
The Marynku people usually has the blackest hair.
They also have people with grey hair. It is like the identifying feature of the Marynku.
And they usually have blue or green eyes. And they also have the Heavenly Seal on their back or on their butt
Most Marynku children who are born will have this blue spot over their back or their butt. It alosa papers on other races but usually it will disappear after a few years of birth
But for the Marynku people, it sometimes would be there until dead. So, the Marynku people considered this birthmark as the heavenly seal for Marynku race only
They are the original race that lives in the Great Steppe, a nomadic race that has been on the Great Steppe since before it is called the Great Steppe
It is only in the recent couple of hundred years that the Marynku regarded the Great Steppe as their home and they have a sense of belonging to these lands that they could ride their horses and tame their sheep and cattle's.
The people of Marynku roams across this vast plain like their playground and they established tribes and lives among the area of the plains and tall hills at the end of the Great Steppe.
Then there is the Eresian.
The Eresian come to the Great Steppe around three hundred years ago.
There is few that is known about the history of this race. But those who knows the story spoke of a Burning Sea and Burning continent.
There are even stories of dragons and those who rides it
It is said that Eresian comes from a fallen Empire. This Empire was destroyed by fire from the sky in one day.
Some said that it is swallowed by water.
Other said it breaks off.
There are many stories and each one is more fantastical than the other.
The survivors of this event sail the seas and arrived at the edge of the Great Steppe and from there they ride their horses and met the Marynku and a few other races.
They fight and they killed each other and then after a while, they forge relations and then intermarried with the people of this land and so they become one of the major races of the Great Steppe
These Eresian people have red hair, flame-like and vivid.
They have green eyes and brown eyes. They are tall even from when they are young
They have large frame of body, bulky stocky muscles and when they raged, their eyes turn red like fire
And they have the knowledge of making ships.
Even though the Great Steppe has no sea, they know that at the edge of the Great Steppe, beyond the Hills, there is a land of water that stretches endlessly.
The people of the Great Steppe themselves have never seen the sea but when the Eresian spoke of the Sea, it reminded them of the vast plains of the Great Steppe.
This race has intermarried with the Marynku and the Ashran and they also have many tribes and one of their characteristics is that they stick together.
They are rarely found near the Northern Pass as they lives in the far north, near the edge of the Great Steppe.
Their way of ruling their tribe is very different from the way the Marynku rules their tribe
Then there is the Ashran.
This race of people has golden hair and blue eyes like the sky.
Many Marynku people in the past intermarried the people of the Ashran because of their blue eyes, reminding them of their blue spot, thinking that there is a sense of destiny here.
It is the same for Ashran.
It is also because of this that the people of the Ashran and the Marynku has been great allies over the centuries.
The Ashran is the last major race that come to the great Steppe.
They come to the Great Steppe just a hundred years ago.
Some of them continue their journey to another land.
And some stayed here and those who stayed established tribes of their own.
They mix with the Marynku and absorb many of the Marynku cultures
It is said that the Ashran and the Eresian are related to each other.
This is further strengthened in the fact that some people of Eresian also have blue eyes and blond hair just like the people of Ashran.
The Ashran also have a lot of knowledge. They speak of an Empire called Valentia.
This Empire has other names
The Ashran said Valentia has many names. Some people called it the City of Seven Hills. Some called it the Eternal City. Some called it the Sacred city
But to most of its people, they called it Roma
And just like the Yan Empire, the people of Valentia, of Roma, called their large city Roma, Caput Mundi
When some people asked the Ashran what Caput Mundi means, they said, it means the Capital of the World
It is a city full of marbles, the Ashran said, with tall building akin to like a giant living inside them.
The Ashran once lived in such an empire but they have to flee for they said war and diseases plagues the land.
However, this is their claim and since a hundred years had passed, this is nothing more than story that is passed down through generation, repeated by the people of Ashran today
All three of the major races of the Great Steppe has long since entangled with each other and when they do fight, they do not speak of race but of tribes.
This is because of the fact that most of them intermarried each other
Aeryon thought of all this, his eyes closed, listening to the wind and he could not help but think…..there is a ay to create a foundation here.
And it is this foundation that could bring about a great change to the world, he thought to himself.
…
Next chapter we will back with Aeryon. The attack to reclaim the tribe will begin