Path of the Berserker

I emerged into a spiritual space that felt just as big as the cavern that I had left.

The floor was made of polished crystal as were the roughly hewn walls that rose to a peak at the center far above, like a dome. I then realized that what I was seeing had to be the crystal from the inside. Bright yellow light washed over me, and in the Red-hued form of the Struggler, my spiritual body basked in it like warm sunshine.

Any taint I had gotten from the spider woman was now gone.

The presence that I sensed from the outside was here as well, but the giant space seemed empty. I stepped forward and called out into the air.

“Fhae I’ung, I am Max Chun, a follower of the [Frenzied Flame]. I have come to avenge you.”

At the mention of the technique, the air shimmered and right before me the figure of an enormous woman appeared. I recognized her immediately. She shared the same form as her fragmented self from within the crystal at Du Gok Bhong. Long golden hair, a naked body that glowed with the same hue as the crystal itself and an angelic face that could rival any earthly princess.

Her enormous body took up nearly the entire space within the crystal, but as soon as it fully formed, she collapsed to the floor in a heap, landing on her side. Instinctively, I rushed forward is if to try and catch her or something, but this woman was literally twenty stories tall.

I made better sense of the situation and took to the air with [Lightning Walk], bringing myself to the same height as her face. She looked in distress and as she opened her huge golden eyes, I could see the light fading within them.

“Oh, Frenzied Flame,” she said, her voice reverberating with the tones of millions. “You returned as promised. Bless thee.”

Maybe it didn’t even matter.

With my twin Dao I was representing both of us now.

“What can I do to help you?” I asked.

“There is naught you can do now,” Fhae I’ung said. “The ancient one, known as G’hru’julah, has fulfilled its purpose in bringing about our demise. But you, Frenzied Flame, at least have returned to render justice and retribution as first promised. For this we are forever grateful.”

I noticed she used we and not I, the same as her fragmented-self had done.

She wasn’t lying about dying either.

The harmonic Frenzy I could sense from her was growing weaker.

I realized I was witnessing something that perhaps even my predecessor, Imperial Marshal Wi Chu Lou, had never seen. This was a rare opportunity for secret knowledge of the unknown. I had scant time to ask all the questions I had.

“Please,” I said. “Tell me exactly what you are. G’hru’julah called you the soul of this world. Are you the guardian spirit of this planet or something?”

“We are the spirit of all life upon this world,” she said. “We are the embodiment of the souls that have been created here.”

“What will happen to this world when you die?”

“It will become the domain of the Greater Will.”

I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, but I had other questions.

“Are there crystals like this inside every planet?” I asked, looking about at my surroundings. “Does every planet have a soul like you?”

“Once cultivated long enough, yes, every Planet will develop a soul, but this crystal is different… this is a gift of the Frenzied Flame.”

Holy crap… I did recall sensing the same kind of spirit when I was digging those tunnels on Heu Zen. Voices reaching out to me, just like Fhae I’ung had.

Did that mean Earth had a spirit like this too?

I almost asked the question aloud, but I needed more pertinent answers first.

“How are you and the Flame connected?” I asked.

“Allow us to bequeath thee with knowledge,” she said. “It is all we have to repay thee for thy service and kindness. And all that we have, so that we may be remembered.”

I bowed my head. “What must I do?”

She lifted her giant hand towards me and it began to glow. “Gaze into the light and see truth.”

Instantly, visions of horror filled my mind. I recognized it immediately. It was the same vision I had received before when I was inside the crystal back at Du Gok Bhong. A collage of a million points of view all at once.

The deaths of thousands.

Just like before, I could feel each one, but now they tapped into the root of my twin Dao.

I saw the Bloodmoon appearing in the night sky for the first time and then the sun itself becoming the raging cosmic eye of a Cursed Star.

“This is what befell our world,” Fhae I’ung said, adding narrative to the vision that I had only seen before. “A force from beyond the stars, heralded by the Dark God, I’xol’ukz and culminating with the arrival of the Cleansing Flame, a child of the Greater Will.”

I watched as the people of Fhae I’ung were torn apart by monsters and demons, terror filling their hearts.

I felt it all too, just like before.

Their helplessness.

The pain and cruelty being inflicted upon them.

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The suffering.

And then from somewhere deeper a new sense emerged.

A sense that what was happening should not be so.

A new power that appeared from within the madness and chaos.

A power influenced by the fiery darkness falling from the stars and the pain and sorrow coming from below.

It sympathized, taking on a new form.

From the hate and chaos of the Cursed Stars it emerged.

A brilliant Frenzied Flame that gave strength to the suffering with a single thought.

A single gift.

~Defiance~

The world exploded into bright yellow flames, and I emerged from the vision with a new sense of conviction.

“Wait…” I said. “So…the Frenzied Flame… was created by you?”

“Not us,” she said. “One of us… but created is not the right word. Inspired is more accurate. The Frenzied Flame, saw our plight and gave us the ability to fight back against the Order of the Greater Will. To fight back against our eminent demise.”

The images from the vision began to take on new meaning and make more sense, but I had even more questions now.

“What is this Greater Will?” I asked.

“It is an outer god from beyond our world,” she said. “One not native to our domain. When it arrived, it sought to undo what it saw. To create its own Order. It created the Cleansing Flame to carry out this task…to cleanse all that existed before it. The Cleansing Flame gave birth to the ancient ones like I’xol’ukz and G’hru’julah…servants to carry out its purpose to destroy all and remake anew.”

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The visions in my mind returned and my Flame pulsed with acknowledgement of the new truths revealed.

“But the Cleansing Flame discovered one such as we,” Fhae I’ung said. “A soul of strength from a world that rejected its own demise. It influenced the Cleansing Flame and a part of it did agree and sympathize. A great schism did occur. The Frenzied Flame was born from within it, a Flame that rejected the Order of the Greater Will and rebelled against the Cleansing Flame, granting to us the power to withstand our own demise with the gift of defiance.”

As she said the word, I felt it resonate with both cores of my twin Dao.

Defiance…

That single word summed up the core of my strength.

It was the strength to fight back.

To fight against annihilation.

It protected a single immutable truth.

One that the Cleansing Flame and the Greater Will itself had perhaps never encountered before, until it met us.

The right to exist.

I felt something open up inside of me as my Flame flashed even brighter with a new unlocking of spiritual truth and revelation.

I reopened my eyes to see the giant woman staring at me.

The faintest hint of a smile was on her face now.

“These are the great truths we wished to bequeath unto thee,” she said. “Carry them within thy soul so that thou may grow yet stronger. Take this also, for we have over the eons gleaned great revelations from the Frenzied Flame. Ones that perhaps are better suited for thee.”

Fhae I’ung raised her hand once more and with another pulse of light my vision again changed. This time however, it wasn’t images I saw, but words. Thousands of them. They filled my mind as if being transcribed telepathically.

I barely had chance to decipher what they were, much less read them, but within seconds it became clear what I was seeing. These were Shuras. Direct revelations from the Frenzied Flame. If I had been seeking a cultivation manual to navigate the sacred soul realm and perhaps even beyond, then this was it!

I focused my mind with Mental Agility, rushing to commit to memory everything I was seeing. It was an infodump that I dare not let spill over. I couldn’t afford to lose a single drop. As my vision returned, the face of Fhae I’ung gave me another smile.

“Fare thee well, fellow follower of the Frenzied Flame,” she said, and in that moment, I realized she could see me for my true self now. And even more so, that we were perhaps one in the same. She too had been touched by the [Frenzied Flame] and had resisted the dark forces threatening to destroy her world.

I raised a hand to her as the light in her eyes began to further dim and fade.

“Thank you, Elder Sister… I will treasure your knowledge always.”

As she closed her eyes, I was ejected from the crystal and found myself in the cavern again. The enormous aetherite crystal dimmed and faded, but I knew now what it was. It made complete sense now why aetherite could produce barriers against the Bloodmoon and even cleanse my Flame.

This was the solid, Frenzied Core of a Berserker.

A Berserker with a soul the size of an entire planet.

The revelation struck me perhaps harder than everything I had learned already.

Aetherite was solid Frenzy.

But I dare not think of it further. I had other thoughts now running through my mind. Or other words running through my mind was perhaps more accurate. I disconnected my [Spectral Projection] and opened my eyes in my true body.

I jumped up with the urgency of a man about to drown.

I had secret knowledge filling my head that I needed badly to transcribe.

I kept cycling it over and over, like it was a phone number I was trying not to forget.

There was only one way to get it all out quickly.

I reached for my Glaive and held it aloft in the air.

“[Brand of the Frenzied Flame]…”

As I invoked the words, the Currupted Steel of the glaive heated within my palm and then across the surface of the blade itself, infinite tiny characters began etching themselves into existence. I dumped everything I could, the old Shuras and the new—a full compilation of the Path of the Frenzied Flame.

The process took less than a minute, but when I was done, I looked at my handiwork with a new sense of wonder and exhilaration. I’d started my journey to the Hell Worlds with no clue of how to progress to the next stage of my advancement, but the Flame had led me to not only a cultivation manual but to this.

A true Berserker’s Path in accordance with the Frenzied Flame.

This was perhaps my true purpose for coming here all along.

To meet with the dying soul of this planet so that she could pass on the knowledge to defeat the Cursed Stars. I understood now why the demons considered me a traitorous kin. I was exactly that, in every sense of the word.

The Frenzied Flame and the power of the Cursed Stars was one in the same.

Two sides of the same coin.

One bent on the destruction of our universe in the name of the Greater Will and one, who in defiance, chose to oppose it.

I bowed my head in reverence, more thankful than ever for the gift it had bestowed upon me and indeed our entire universe.

The gift of defiance.

The gift of the Frenzied Flame.

* * *

A great shift resounded throughout the ether.

No… not one, It sensed. But two.

One a great victory and the other a great defeat.

It knew, all at once, where.

It knew, all at once, who.

The hubris of the Husk knew no bounds.

The Husk had promised to bring this Chaos to the Order of the Greater Will and it was doing so. But far faster than It had perceived. Like skittering vermin, they were. Weak, but agile. Cunning and crafty in their mortal desperation.

But It would exploit this weakness.

Through the aperture, It slowly cultivated Its own means to strike at the core of the Husk’s domain. One strong enough to overcome all defenses while the Husk was yet afar.

Soon, it thought. Continue to waste thy strength.

It shall all be for naught.

* * *

I wanted to do nothing more than to sit down and study the brand-new Shuras I had just discovered, but learning them wouldn’t mean a thing if I couldn’t get off this Hell World. So, after collecting my gear, I started the five or six hour trek back to the first cavern so that I could [Spectrally Project] to the surface and keep an eye on the night sky for the next deployment.

Still, every chance I got, I took a quick peek at the new inscriptions on my Phalanx Glaive. There had to be a dozen or so new techniques that utilized my Frenzy in all sorts of new ways. As before, they were not broken down into clean Tiers and Realms like in the Cultivation manual. This was more a freeform style. Like practitioners all over the universe were adding to the wealth of knowledge daily.

The same went for my own hybridized techniques, like [Strugglers Lightning Fist of Fury] or [Wrath of a Thousand Slain Souls], which I now added to the blade as cannon. I was about to add its upgraded version, [Wrath of a Million Slain Souls] as well, but I still needed to think about the meridian sequences I had used to create that one, in order to perfect it.

But besides my own techniques, I saw things that looked like upgraded versions of my defensive styles—[Diamond Skin] and [Diamond Core]. There was even an upgraded version of [Brand of the Frenzied Flame] which I had just used, which could not only impart knowledge but a part of one’s soul.

I immediately thought of Venja for that.

After a while, I had to force myself to stop looking at the blade, because I was slowing down to read it too often. For the last few hours, I disciplined myself and shouldered the task of traversing the tight crawl spaces and cliffs, to get back to the place I now considered home.

I was dead tired by the time I reached the main cavern and luckily, I had some leftover scorpion meat to chow down on to replenish all the calories I had burned on the way up and down to the crystal. By the time I’d polished that off, I was craving a nap, but the Cursed Star was setting, and I needed to keep watch.

Luckily, my [Bloodlust] from killing the Deep Dweller, had given me a full tank of gas when it came to Frenzy. That just left my mental and physical fatigue to deal with. I told myself that if nothing happened within the first hour, then I was probably good to hit the sack.

They would deploy right at sunset to get the maximum time possible under the lesser ills of the Bloodmoon. That meant all I needed to do was stay awake for another 45 minutes or so. With a sigh to clear my head I plopped back down into lotus position and once again [Projected] my [Sacred Soul].

I traversed the tunnel to the surface and used [Lightning Walk] to climb into the quickly darkening sky. Tendrils from the Bloodmoon were already affecting me, but it was thankfully far less than what the Cursed Star would incur.

The night was clear, with not much cloud cover overhead, which gave me a spectacular view of the stars. For a moment I wondered if Fia was looking up at them at the same time. I didn’t know if I could even see our star from where I was.

As my mind paused to consider it, a new thought occurred.

Something that my brain, being in survival mode, hadn’t stopped to consider yet.

Shit! I thought. At some point Fia is going to learn that I’m dead!

My heart began to race.

Damn it! Why the hell didn’t I think about this sooner?

I didn’t have good answers for my rhetorical questions. I supposed I was so focused on recovering and getting back quickly to take revenge on that bastard Jei Su Long, that I didn’t give thought to what was likely already taking place. That the official news of my demise was already on its way to Fia.

The idea of her thinking I was dead, chilled me to the core.

It would make her worse fears come true. Cause her to lose all hope. It was the whole reason she had decided to get pregnant in the first place. Mild panic began to set in.

How long had it truly been now? Weeks?

Granted, letters and that form of communication took more than a few weeks to make it all the way home, and maybe the bureaucracy would help in delaying that some, but shit, even Hein would likely write to her now.

Damn it…this made getting back to civilization all the more important.

But perhaps there was another means to share the truth.

One much faster.

I looked up at the Bloodmoon and saw a new reason to stay up all night.

I needed to not only watch the sky, but the stars.

Kelsey, I thought. She was the key. I needed to communicate with her through the Bloodmoon to let Fia and everyone else know that I was alright. Because if the Warden ever learned I was dead then there was no telling what she would do to Fia and the rest of my clan.

Anxiety filled my gut and I half wanted to jump into the spiritual realm right away to start randomly looking for Kelsey. But that in itself would be a game of interplanetary phone tag. We’d been able to coordinate before through letters in advance, but now I would just have to sit there and hope she would show up.

The same as I was with the next deployment from Du Gok Bhong.

It grated me in a way.

It was like pushing on a rope.

There was no way to rush any of it.

As I huffed out a semi-depressed sigh, I waited on the sky and as the time ticked by, was just about to switch duty to looking for Kelsey when a flash of lightning caught my eye. I zeroed in on it and immediately my heart jumped.

Something was happening in the distance, but at least a hundred miles from where I was right now. I rose higher in the sky to get a better look and when I did, my heart leapt again. There, far away was definitely the signs of a battle. And being that far away made sense with the protocol.

A hundred miles from the last failed drop zone, I recalled it to a tee.

All thoughts of weariness and trying to find Kelsey, vanished from my mind.

To hell with all that. My ship had finally come in.

I was getting off this damn rock tonight.