Chereads / KISEKI / Chapter 2 - Chapter 2: The Seraphic Birthright.

Chapter 2 - Chapter 2: The Seraphic Birthright.

In Elver Shin Lapricei of Eldoria, where ancient guardian statues leaked black sacrificial rainwater from corroded maws, An Ominous Figure pressed himself against weathered stone. 

-!- 

"Is It True..." 

His voice catered to his apprentice. 

-!-

"That's Kyotani The Willbreaker. No doubt about it, even a blind man could see that much."

 rasped the voice of a feminine sounding apprentice, her eyes wide behind her ceremonial mask. 

"They say he mastered The Purged Art Of The Akumai, And there – Jinghai, Bearer of the Heaven-Fleshborn Starvield."

-!- 

The street's soul-lanterns sputtered in their iron cages, casting an mid-ethereal glow through the midnight mist. Ancient cobblestones, each carved with the names of fallen warriors, seemed to pulse with stoicism and the cries of the anguished that once walk the earth in putridity. There was no further place for a coward, just to mark the warriors who disgrace their land's reputation.

-!-

Kyotani rolled his shoulders, the obsidian plates of his war-Harnessed mind clicking softly. "Your time has passed, Celestian. Go back home. I've had enough shit to deal with today."

(Note: Celestian Is A Formal Group/Organization Of People Who Have The Blood Of The Gods, Or Come From Their Lineage!)

-!-

"Don't pretend like you know my people." Jinghai settled into an ancient transmuted posture, his spirit-silk robes swirling with captured heaven-pattern. His ancestral but deathbearing blade, Omenkiller, sang a tune so very softly– a sound like distant wind chimes in winter that could even incapacitate a Flesh-seeking bear.

(Note: Omenkiller Is Very Similar To The Japanese Naginata In Technique And Shape!)

-!-

From the shadowed doorways, the remaining warriors watched. "Observe how they move," whispered an Elder, clutching his soul-steel staff. "Like titans in the natural era, come again to walk among the ground of God."

-!-

-!-

The air itself seemed to hold its breath as Kyotani launched forward. His first strike carried the weight of avalanches, a technique that legend said could shatter even Governing-Kingdom Gates. The very air howled in protest.

-!-

"Raw power betrays itself," Jinghai spoke as he moved, Celestial Whisper weaving patterns that left trails of silver light. "People of your....place....can't understand." His defense flowed like water around stone, each movement a declaration of war against limitation itself.

"You're but a mere bloodfiend."

- Jinghai noted, turning aside a blow that left cracks in the air itself. "I recognize the corruption in your technique. The sacrifice of harmony for power."

-!-

"Strength is all that matters here. I've got no time for bonds.." Kyotani's voice boomed as inner force gathered around his fists. "While your temple burned, I learned truth in blood. There is an art in death."

-!-

Their deadly dance escalated. Kyotani's attacks split stone and air alike, each combination flowing into the next with deadly precision. Yet Jinghai's defense spoke of mysteries older than the city itself, Omenkiller tracing patterns that seemed to bend space and time.

"Watch closely," instructed the Elder to his acolytes. "Few live to see two masters of the old arts clash. See how even their simplest movements carry the weight of decades? Splendid!"

The battle reached new heights of intensity. Kyotani incorporated techniques that legend claimed were stolen from the Mountain Temples themselves – strikes that could stop a heart, throws that could send armored men flying like autumn leaves.

-!-

Yet Jinghai's defense remained impeccable, his blade moving in arcs that spoke of ancient wisdom. "Your power is undeniable," he acknowledged, deflecting a strike that would have shattered a lesser warrior. "But you've forgotten why we learn the forms. Not for power alone, but for the harmony they teach. Thats why your mind may never reach Qi-Zen."

"Harmony died long ago when i felt my own blood trinkling down my mouth." 

Kyotani gathered his power for a decisive strike. The air itself began to warp around his hands, in gore and flesh he mauled his own skin to create a everlasting burn. Full in blessed energy.

-!-

Above them, the stone gargoyles watched with eyes that gleamed too brightly. The very stones of Eldoria seemed to remember their passing, marking this moment in the eternal memory of the city. moment in the eternal memory of the city. This was history being written in force and form, in power and precision, in the clash of old ways and new.

" Your just a troubled child. I reserve hatred for the ones matured, that intend to wreak havoc. "

- Uttered Jinghai, mirroring his own thought. 

"I don't need your sympathy, I need myself and more fuel to help me."

- Spoke Kyotani, His eyes pulsate in corroding azure. Perhaps the pyre had arrived at a dangerous standstill, more than he may withstand.

J: " Is it true? Or are you lying to yourself so you can make yourself feel better in the comfort of your own agony."

-!-

K: "None of your business i can tell you that."

-!-

J: "Im Ending This Now."

Cleaving between towering stone sentinels, a rugged passage steeped in the whispers of a turbulent history. The wind, like a spectral shaman, carried metallic undertones that hinted at the gentle approach of conflict. Kyotani's boots crunched against the frost-and flame etched granite that flew by. How Revolting, Would have been uttered by the ancestral pact. Well, Legacy Was Least Important.

-!-

"Water Turned To Blade."

Kyotani murmured, his crimson gaze sweeping across the unyielding terrain of a extremely forced pressure. Winds flew by, along the feathers of the birds and flighted specimen.

-!-

Thirty paces distant, Jinghai stood as a living stature of Qi-Zen itself, his posture akin to a bamboo stalk and its charcoal endings. supple yet quite forge-worthy in the average japanese blade.

-!-

"Fire turned to skin, lets say were both pretty diverse."

Jinghai replied, his voice a precise modulation, as if each word had been honed on the whetstone of philosophical inquiry.

"Tell Me, How Much Do You Value Your Blessing?"

-!-

"Do you value it because it's simply a spectral to stare at?"

"Do you value it because it's protection?"

"Do you value it because its symbolistic of you?"

"Do you value it because its mythical?"

-!-

Kyotani's arrogance submerged behind, not in usual mirth but as a closet burying a dagger to be shelved to bare its corrosion.

-!-

"Theres no deep resolve to be said here, its simply exhilarating."

-!-

His right hand ignited—not in metaphor but literally ignited. Azure Sparkling Flames erupted from his skin like liquid architecture surfaced on a stone tablet, controlled yet thunderously alive, each flicker a manifestation of rage. Beneath the searing blaze, draconic scarification peeled his skin below his eyebags, in crossed patterning.

-!-

"Your lineage," Jinghai observed, his voice unwavering, "Carries undeniable beauty, like the kintsugi art—beauty found in imperfection. Your strength is beautiful, but your morality is so wrong. I feel no burden or grudge for you friend."

"My morality is wrong?" Kyotani's voice dropped, becoming twisted in decision, the cascading angelic pedals of white and black inside his sovereign mind have begun its wither. There ceases color, ceases form, and ceases its long-made fear.

-!-

- " You Know Nothing About Me, And You Still Persist To Spread Your Burden. Are you doing this to taunt me?!"

-!-

- "I Guess Were Not That Much Enemies, Are We?"

-!-

Time seemed to collapse as the first movement unfolded beyond the limits of perception: Jinghai's hand sliced through the atmosphere, creating a near-invisible razor-thin cut aimed at Kyotani's ribcage. It was not a strike intended to kill but a delicate gust of impact—an attempt to cauterize the plated resistance of his blessing. Not even such, could penetrate kyotani's blessing. After all, Fire Does Not Fight Fire.

Kyotani's "Blessed" Skin Torn Slowly, transforming the would-be wounds into his own cradled marks. His body became a living crucible of pyre, akin to a sakura blossom unfurling in the harshness of winter. His skin was severing in tissue, as his time was limited.

-!-

"I....Would Rather Die....Than To Live Alongside You..."

-!-

Jinghai's response was a gesture—elegant, a ballet of his signature radiance

"Were Done Here, Watching You Is Depressing Itself."

-!-

Gravitational winds screamed between them, not mere atmospheric currents but akin to the sailing brushstrokes of a master calligrapher painting kanji. Beautiful. Jinghai Tamed Starvield, Returning It To It's Small Orbital Form.

-!-

Jinghai's Eyes Shuddered Along One Last Time,

" Find Me In The Laqua-La-Levoire District."

Before Vanishing Into The Wind Of Nothingness That Is.

-!-

With an earth-shattering descent, Kyotani plunged into the corroded cobblestones, the ground rupturing beneath him as if the very world sought to reject his monstrous weight. The air hung heavy, trembling in an eerie stillness, as though time itself dared not breathe.

-!-

-!-

Jinghai was gone, from man to remnant particle of his searing aura.

From the Bladed grass and from the earth, Kyotani rose like a specter torn from some celestial abyss, his frame wreathed in fading tendrils of his Sapphire flame, flickering like the remnants of fallen stars. Blood, dark and glistening, wept from his battered form, tracing his draconic etchings across his skin. Yet, it was not the wounds of flesh that anchored him to the cobblestone mar—it was the emptiness, vast and haunting, a chasm of absence that devoured the very light from the ether - The visible beauty around his own crusade of failure.

-!-

" It's Happening Again."

-!-

"I seen myself rain with blood, like a fucking bag of water."

-!-

" I need to satiate my thirst for blood, theres something wrong with me."