Paragon of Destruction

As the long column of Darians spent the days sluggishly making its way toward the mines, Arran spent his nights studying the set of movements Muna had taught him.

He soon discovered that although the techniques were simple, learning them properly was more difficult than he’d initially thought. The insights that were hidden within them were hard to uncover, buried deep beneath layers of movements.

He understood the purpose of this, of course. For children and youths, the extraneous movements would be helpful, gently guiding them toward the complex insights step by step.

Yet for Arran, this gentle guidance was an obstacle more than anything. He didn’t have decades to study the techniques, and what he needed was a more rapid path to the treasures they contained.

Here, the Knight’s help proved invaluable.

She took Arran through the movements again and again, guiding him in his studies with care and patience. And with her help, it only took a few nights before he began to recognize the underlying insights in earnest.

There were many of them, though not so many as Arran had expected. As Muna explained it, the foundation focused mainly on those insights that students could build upon in the future — ones like speed, power, movement, and about two dozen other ones.

Only when students entered one of the Imperium’s war colleges would they be shown the path to gaining the more subtle and abstract insights.

Arran tried repeatedly to convince Muna to show him a glimpse of the techniques to learn these insights, but his pleas had little effect.

Eager though the Knight might be to help Arran, her kindness didn’t go so far that she would break the Imperium’s laws for his sake.

But Arran knew that even the help she gave him was already enough to cause raised eyebrows among the other Darians. He regularly caught the soldiers giving him envious stares, while the church guards looked at him with outright hostility.

It was easy to tell that although he had become a citizen, the Darians still very much considered him an outsider.

The one exception to this, of course, was Muna. And with each passing day, Arran became more convinced that the captain had been right — that her interest in him was more than just friendliness.

It was an interest that Arran did not share. While she was undeniably beautiful, with a personality to match her good looks, he had not forgotten his purpose in coming to the Imperium.

In the end, the Darians were his enemies. And nothing he’d seen in the Imperium had given him cause to doubt that.

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If anything, being in the Imperium had made him even more certain that war was inevitable — and that it must be won at any cost.

The Darians’ power had shocked him, but he’d been equally taken aback by the way they treated outsiders. With many, it seemed like they only barely considered outsiders human.

If a people like that conquered the Ninth Valley, he had no doubt that it would be a massacre. They’d show the mages no mercy whatsoever, and everyone Arran had come to know in the Valley would die.

That was an outcome he could not accept. And if leading on a Darian Knight could help him prevent it, he had no qualms about doing that — not with his friends’ lives in the balance.

Rather than making it clear that he wasn’t interested, he returned Muna’s friendliness in kind, spending hours talking with her even when she wasn’t helping him train.

Often, he would join her at the front of the column of soldiers, keeping her company as they slowly made their way through the Imperium’s endless green hills.

The landscape was undoubtedly beautiful, and as they walked, Muna would tell him tales of the Imperium’s long history. Some of these he had already heard from the captain, and while he suspected that many of them were exaggerations, the Darians certainly appeared to believe they were true.

"Before the Blight," Muna said, reverence in her voice, "the Imperium covered half the world. Can you imagine that? A single peaceful land, stretching for thousands of miles, without either war or banditry."

Arran gave her a suitably impressed look, then asked, "Speaking of war... What about the conflict with the mages? In the borderlands, most people were convinced that war could break out at any moment."

Muna smiled and shook her head. "The mages pose no real threat to us. We’ll face them again eventually, but I’d be surprised if it takes less than a decade. There’s no need for you to worry about it — by then, you’ll be strong enough to face any mage without fear."

"That long?" Arran asked, surprise in his eyes. "I’d heard it was only a matter of years."

Again, she shook her head. "We have no reason to attack just yet. With thousands of refugees arriving each day, the Imperium grows stronger by the month. As long as that remains true, there’s no point in taking our attention off the Blight."

Arran narrowed his eyes. "What would happen if you defeated the Blight?"

She gave a small laugh at the question, the corners of her full lips turning up in amusement. "Defeat the Blight?" From the look in her eyes, it seemed she believed the very thought of it absurd. "The Blight cannot be defeated. It can only be held back."

"So it’s a losing fight?" Arran asked, frowning in wonder how she could look amused even while discussing such a prospect.

Yet she responded with a warm smile, then answered, "Not at all. The Blight is like the sea — it cannot be defeated, but it can be held back. The Imperium has the strength to do so."

Arran had never seen a sea, but he understood the point she was making. "So the war will continue forever, then?"

Muna nodded firmly, a hint of pride in her dark eyes. "The Blight will continue to push, but the Imperium will remain an unshakable bulwark, stopping it from advancing even a single step. With the gods’ blessing, we can resist anything."

"The gods’ blessing?" Arran looked at her in wonder. "I didn’t know you were so pious. From the way you dealt with that priest..." He didn’t finish the sentence, instead giving her a meaningful look.

"Whatever they might tell you," Muna replied, "the priests don’t represent the gods. They’ve been tasked with guarding the gods’ blessings, but that is the extent of it. Their words aren’t the gods’ words, no matter what they might believe."

Arran nodded, carefully memorizing what she told him. Even if he could see no direct use for it, he knew that anything he learned about the Imperium might one day end up helping him.

Still, despite what Muna told him, he could not help but wonder whether she was correct about the Blight and the Imperium’s strength to resist it.

He’d given the Blight plenty of thought since Kaleesh had told him about it, and although he’d feigned ignorance back then, he had several thoughts about the nature of the Blight.

His first thought had been that the abominations the captain had told him about were some form of Remnants — the magic-infused creatures he’d met in the Ninth Valley’s mountains and in the Shadow Realm.

This idea, however, he’d rejected almost immediately. While Remnants were terrifyingly powerful, they were also utterly mindless, blindly devouring Essence where they found it with no thought for anything else.

Even the titanic monsters he’d seen in the Shadow Realm were like that — almost like gargantuan cows, dumbly grazing on the dense Shadow Essence that lay beyond the portal.

Dangerous though they might be, they lacked the intelligence to wage a war — especially one that lasted for thousands of years. If anything, they were more likely to attack each other than Darian warriors who completely lacked Essence.

Instead, he thought the Blight was more likely to be related to the other creatures he’d encountered near the Ninth Valley — what Brightblade had called Demons.

Unlike the Remnants, these Demons had clearly been intelligent. And if they were weaker than the Remnants, he suspected they had the numbers to make up for that.

Yet Brightblade had told him little about the creatures. While she’d clearly been surprised at their numbers, she’d said little about their origins, and even less about their nature.

But even so, Arran was convinced that they posed a far bigger threat than Remnants. From what he had seen of the Remnants, he thought they were an effect rather than a cause — a consequence of too much Essence gathered in a single place for too long a time.

The Demons, however, had intelligence. And if they had intelligence, they were sure to have goals and purpose, as well.

Yet he understood that whatever suspicions he might have, he still knew too little for certain to know what he would face in the Desolation.

And either way, he would be better off focusing his thoughts on training.