Unconquered

The Starshrike moved above the clouds, the sun sparkling on her hull, and cold wind whipping past the shimmering shield of deflective mana as the Unconquered stood, a foot raised, his hands planted before his chest as he tried to concentrate while his wife Xora and his wife Ceaith had extremely energetic, oil slicked sex.

Ember opened one eye to peek as Xora -- her normal fashions having slipped due to the swiftness of her stripping -- threw one muscular leg up, her toes curling as her gasping moan filled the air.

Goat who Wrestles, his mentor and sifu, smacked the side of Ember's head with a long wooden pole.

"No peeking!" Goat said as Ember sprawled onto his back. "No falling, too!"

The pole slammed into Ember's guts and he groaned as he curled up around the impact site.

Ceaith drew her mouth back from Xora's blue, striped legs, wiped her mouth daintily with the back of her hand, and then laughed.

"Does she have to laugh?" Ember groaned, rolling onto her back.

"G-Go Ember!" Chirp called from where they were sitting, their face beat red as they looked off to the middle distance, rather than over at the two other Lunars. "I'm sure the eleventh time will be the charm!" Ember rolled onto his hands and knees, then gave his Sari a weak smile and a quick thumbs up, before he scrambled to his feet. He was currently trying to unlock the void chakra. He wasn't

quite

sure what a chakra was. Or what a void was. June Devilblooded and Goat had both tried to explain it to him and while Ember wasn't quite up to the challenge of following what exactly a 'focal point of shinima, an axii around which the manifold plausibility of your errant world-self and asura flux arrange themselves in a geomantic pattern' meant, he

was

at least able to lie convincingly!

Ember resumed his stance. His eyes closed.

"Begin to concentrate upon your center of being," Goat said, his voice gruff. "By rejecting distractions and connections to the material realm and attaining a mastery of the spiritual, you will learn the true essence of Vengeful Crystalline Hawk Style. It is a style about moving around, behind, and through the material world."

"Right..." Ember clenched his jaw slightly as his ears brought to him the loud, wet,

slurping

sound of Ceaith's tongue working on Xora. Despite everything he tried, his brain immediately started to build the mental image of what Xora would look like. Without her clothing and without her makeup, she would look as she did naturally: Immensely tall, broad shouldered, muscled. Her skin would glisten slightly with sweat and the delicious folds of her sex would spread to the warm, wet tongue of his other wife. He heard Xora whimper in that way that she made when she was

damn

close to-

"Focus!" Goat bellowed into his ear. "Shut

out

distractions!"

"Why are we not doing this in a room without distractions then!?" Ember asked, his eyes opening.

Goat swept his leg out from under him with effortless ease. Ember sprawled on his back -- but before he could sit up, Goat placed the staff against his chest, pinning him down by putting all of his weight on it. Goat's eyes were cold and distant. "Shutting out distraction is

easy

when you're in an empty room, not on the deck of a skyship with two Lunars fucking in the background." He grinned, showing his yellowed teeth. "Sunboy, this style isn't rare because it's

easy

to pick up. If you want, I could teach you earth palm style, or sleeping monkey, or the drunk master style, or tiger claw style. And then you can get punked out and killed by the first shikari of infused knights we run into."

Ember gritted his teeth, then punched the staff away from himself. He pushed up with one palm, going from prone to standing in a single fluid motion.

"Fine! Fine!" he said, then sighed. "Just...give me one second!"

He paced away from Goat, then rubbed his chin. He saw Chirp, still blushing, smiling at him. He smiled back. Then he glanced over at Ceaith, who had finished eating Xora out and was taking a moment to lick her palm clean. "Do you have to look so smug?" he asked.

"Yes," Ceaith said, smugly.

Ember sighed. He closed his eyes, then drew himself up. He focused -- not on the sounds that filled his ears, nor on the future that was rushing towards him. He didn't even focus on the fear that Goat might whack him in the back of the head. He gently began to pack up every single thought he had into a tiny box, then set them away into the back of his mind, as if he was tidying up after a large, raucous party. Inch by inch, his senses seemed to deaden. Even the piercing moans of Xora faded -- Ceaith had clearly started up round two. He didn't even feel the deck beneath his feet. Ember opened his eyes, blinking slowly as the brilliant light of the sun exploded before his eyes -- mixed with that pure brilliance was a black light, shining from his brows.

"Well, I'll be damned," Goat said, slowly, his pipe in his hand. Chirp sprang to their feet as Ember put his palm up to his forehead, yelping as he drew it away wreathed in a black flame. He shook his hand wildly but the black flame remained stuck to his fingers and wrist, spreading and growing up his arm.

"Ah! What's happening?!" Ember shouted, slapping at his arm as the flames grew. He looked at Goat, who shook his head.

"You've unlocked the void chakra. Now, you are realigning your anima to be in tune with the void -- the space between the spaces." He said, his pipe twisting around in his hand so he could point the stem at Ember. "This is perfectly normal."

The black flames had gathered in speed. Once they were done expanding from arm to arm, shoulder to shoulder, face to toes, Ember paused in his fidgeting and looked down at himself. He clenched his hands and the flames turned from black to white -- then faded to nothingness.

I felt odd.

I opened my mouth -- then yelped. "What the fuck?"

Goat grinned. "A bit of a trip, isn't it?" he asked.

Chirp cocked their head as they looked at me. "What is it?" they asked.

"I don't...exactly...know!" I said, looking down at my hand, then patting my cheeks. "I...can't...quite

describe

it. It's like...whoa!" I looked at my fingers.

My

fingers. I wriggled them. "Whaaaa! This is weird!"

"Now," Goat said, grinning. "You can actually begin to learn Vengeful Crystalline Hawk style."

"Why?" I asked, rubbing the back of my neck. "I mean, I get the new perspective and things. It's..." I bit my lip. "Okay, I don't know if it's

cool

. It feels kind of..." I cocked my head. "A little self centered?" I looked over at Chirp, who was looking as if they couldn't quite decide if they were worried or if they were excited for me. I grinned, sheepishly, and waved at them.

"Maybe," Goat said, shrugging a bit.

"Can I ever go back to the old...way...of...being?" I asked.

"I could hit you really hard in the head with a brick!" Ceaith said, cheerfully, smacking her lips as she drew back -- before purring, softly. "How was that beautiful? Have you seen the Gods yet?"

"Purple tastes like blackfruit..." Xora mumbled, sounding as if

she

had been the one beaned in the side of the head by a brick.

"Not a yes,

sooo

..." Ceaith dove back down between Xora's muscular thighs.

I scowled. A twinge of annoyance was pricking up my back -- okay, fine. Ceaith and I didn't have to...wouldn't ever...since, I mean. She didn't like men. Fine. But...I mean...it

was

a teeny tiny bit rude to eat out a man's wife while that man couldn't go and eat her out too. But then again, Ceaith was helping me train? Kind of? Ugh. I don't know. I wasn't sure what was the right decision. No, wait, I

was

sure what the right decision was: It was to let Ceaith be Ceaith and to fight evil with my righteous fists of fury.

It was just that I had this tiny instinctive voice snapping at the back of my mind, going:

Breed Ceaith! Breed Ceaith! Breed Ceaith!

Bad voice. No. That was the supernal bonds between Unconquered and Lunar spouse -- which didn't supersede the whims of the mortals that they were laid upon. Well, I mean, technically they

did

since they had been created by the Sun himself and his Lunar wives, the primordial creators of the entire world. Buuuuuuut on the other other hand, fuck him, I wasn't going to screw a lesbian who didn't want to be screwed! And that was final!

Even if I wanted too.

Shut up, brain.

A slightly damp pipe stem poked my temple. "Ember!" Goat snapped.

"What!?" I asked.

"I've been asking if you're ready to go for the past five minutes," Goat said.

"It wasn't been

that

l-" I shut up at his scowling expression. "Sorry, sifu!" I bowed to him and he gave me a curt little nod. When I stood, Goat nodded, then whistled. Chirp sprang to their feet, then jogged off with the most adorable 'hut hut hut hut' noises, then came back with a large pole with a heavy weighted sack of sand dangling from the end of it. They set it down on the center of the deck, without showing the slightest hint that the sack had been heavy, despite it looking as if it weighed almost five hundred pounds. Only after a few seconds did Chirp wince, then pantomime strained muscles.

"W-wow! So heavy!" They said, then rubbed their shoulders in the most exaggerated fashion I had ever seen -- walking slowly away from the swinging sack.

"This is going to be a demonstration of the most basic attack in this martial arts style: Strike without Striking," Goat said, his voice serious. "Watch closely. I shall demonstrate."

He shifted his stance, tossing his pipe to me one handed. His hands lifted up and he glared at the sack.

[1]

The sack exploded into a shower of cascading sand, causing Ceaith and Xora to jerk their heads over. Chirp blinked, then rubbed at their eyes, as if they were trying to figure out what had happened. To them, it was as if the sack had just split open without any one doing anything. Goat didn't look ruffled, he didn't look sweaty, and he wasn't panting. He grinned at me cockily.

"Neat, huh?" he asked.

"What the fucking what!?" I asked. "I..." I blinked, then shook my head. "That was...I..." I looked at Goat, then at the sack, then at Goat. "What!?"

"You see," Goat said. "We live in a world -- but this world is surrounded by and enfolded in

context

." He said, making a slow gesture around himself, as if drawing my attention to the entirety of the universe. "We are banded by these conceptual filters. It is upon this that our shinima, our very state of being, is announced and created. By changing that context, though, we change our shinima. You've just chained it by connecting yourself to your void chakra. I changed the shinima of that sack by...well..."

"Into being having the fuck shitted out of it!" I shook my head. "The kick fucked out...fuck!"

"That's what I'm doing," Ceaith said, grinning at me as she licked her lips.

"Quiet you!" I said, pointing my finger right at her. "Or else I'll...edit you...into...being dunked into a...bucket of...water!"

"The infinite power of the cosmos at your fingertips, and the best you can come up to is

water

?" Ceaith asked, arching an eyebrow slightly.

"I'm a generous and kind soul," I said, sniffing.

"So, a pussy?"

"Children!" Goat said, clapping his hands.

"I'm twenty one," Ceaith said.

"I'm a hundred and twenty one, you're a baby to me," Goat said, smirking. "A cute, fuckable baby, but-"

"Do...you want to lose your foreskin, old man?" Ceaith asked, lifting her hand up. Her claws

sprang

out of them with a faint

snick,

each one black and glittery.

"Whoa! None of us want to see Goat's dick!" I said, hurriedly, stepping between the two of them. I grinned. "Ceaith, I promise you, once I learn how to use this cool martial arts style, I'll kick Goat's butt. S-Sorry, Sifu. She's my wife. It's the law."

Goat snorted. Ceaith regarded me with her cattish disdain. Or maybe it was merely disaffected cattishness? I wasn't sure, actually. My brow furrowed a bit and one of her ears flicked, then she shrugged one shoulder, then went back to eating out Xora. As if I was supposed to be...happy with that? I shook my head. But I

was

happy with it. Right? Well...my new perspective...let me know that I wasn't. I wanted to be closer to Ceaith. Not just in a sex way.

Though...

I mean...

My eyes flicked over to her. Sprawled on her belly, her face buried between Xora's thighs -- Xora now looking as if she had been knocked out cold -- Ceaith was a gorgeous, lithe puddle of raw sensuality. She was slender, like Chirp, but she didn't straddle an ambiguous line, like Chirp did. Ceaith was a girl, and she

expressed

that with a raw, eagerness that made my blood turn to flames. It helped that she was wearing skintight leggings, which clung to every fold like a layer of fine paint. Her tail twitched hypnotically and my tongue slid along my lips, imagining just...

chewing

that clothing off her body.

"I wonder how she lost it," Goat murmured, softly in my ear.

"Huh?" I asked looking at him.

Goat snorted. "Really

look

at your wife," he said, smirking. "You can see details that might have been invisible to you before, if you've picked up on this style properly."

I frowned, then looked at Ceaith. My brow furrowed.

She just looked hot.

"How did she lose her...not...being hotness?" I asked, looking at Goat. He regarded me, then nodded.

"Okay, you need more training. Lets resume focus on the strike without striking style." He nodded back to the training punch bag, which had become fully restocked with sand and repaired while I hadn't been looking. I was trying to figure out of it was because of some un-punching that Goat had managed, or if because Chirp had sewn it up with lightning speed thanks to their lunar powers. Or maybe...it had been

both?

I sighed, then lifted my palms up, focusing. "Begin my noticing the whiteness between the black lines of reality. Attune yourself to that. Be

aware

of it."

I frowned. My brow furrowed. "I see..."

I saw gold.

My brow furrowed. "Gold?"

"What the hell is that?" Ceaith asked -- and Xora made a soft murmuring sound as my eyes focused and I realized that the gleaming gold that I had seen wasn't from the space between spaces or the world beyond words: It was from the horizon. My eyes focused further as I stepped past Goat and Chirp, leaning over the edge of the railing, to the very edge of the mana-shield that kept away the chill and the screaming winds of high altitude flight. From the distance, I could see that we were flying towards what might have been a very low set of broad, multi-hued mountains, with a golden gleam in the center, catching the sun and reflecting it back in every direction.

"What is

that

?" I asked.

"That?" Goat asked. "That is Samsara -- the center of the world, the pillar of the universe, the axis mundi of the heavens, the seat of the Unconquered Throne and the Solar Palace." He nodded. "That is the capital of the Regency and the largest, most grand city in all of the world: Population of six hundred and sixty six million mortals and half that many gods, all of them under the complete rule of the Regent himself."

I looked back.

And marveled as the clouds around Samsara parted before us -- and I saw that what I had thought to be a curious shadow was, as the haze of distance began to fade, in fact a mountain. A mountain that rose steeply from the ground, thrusting up towards the heavens, narrowing towards its top, where it was shrouded by even more clouds -- but the shadows cast upon those clouds made it seem as if it went even further beyond, towards the Sun and the moons themselves. Between the clouds and the ground, surrounding the mountains like her own set of birds, were large chunks of rock that resolved themselves into the Flying Islands I had heard of. Each Flying Island was itself bedecked in trees and buildings of gold and green jade and white marble, glittering in the sun. But each of the Flying Islands themselves seemed to be but pale shadows to the glory of Samsara itself.

The city looked to sprawl across the same rough surface of Wildfree forest and Rataka village and the surrounding lands combined. You could have dropped Nex-Ho into it and it would have been swallowed up, like a dollop of tea in a cauldron of water. The buildings stretched into the heavens as tall as the swords that had surrounded by home village, and they were connected to one another by bridges and walkways, with broad through-fairs between them. People walked on those paths, and stood upon them, antlike in their size. But even from this distance, I could see how they bustled, heading to markets, heading to work, heading to factories, to temples. I saw sellers and buyers of wares, hawking them at the sides of corners. I saw vast streams of people entering the city and leaving the city via the huge, statue bedecked gates sat at each of the four directions. The walls were tall and broad enough that the Shrike could have landed upon them.

But unlike Iremire, they were not walls made of soulcidian and wailing, trapped spirits.

They were walls of solid white stone -- shining brilliantly in the sun. Barrels of mana cannons sprouted from them and a whole army seemed camped upon them, in the colors of the Regency.

I shook my head slowly. "Did you say six hundred and sixty six million people?" I whispered. "And half that in gods?"

"Yup," Goat said.

"How are we going to sneak in there?" Chirp whispered.

"We walk!" I said, grinning at them. "Simple as that."

***

From the ground, Samsara was even more astounding. The archway of the southern gate arched overhead, while I, Ceaith, Chirp and Xora stood, shoulder to shoulder, and looked up at the murder holes. That was what Ceaith had called them at least. To me they looked like thin slits with mana-cannons aiming out of them and down at our heads.

"Think anyone ever gets nervous?" I whispered.

"About the guns aimed at our heads?" Ceaith asked. "Noooooooo."

"I was thinking more about...all of it," I said, stepping forward so I wasn't drowned under a wave of human flesh. The archway was huge, but the people trying to get through it was just as huge. Lots of them were speaking to one another, creating a murmur and a burble of conversation that transformed, through the magic of the archway, into a ear-deadening roar. I had to duck my head forward and cock my ear to hear Chirp as they spoke.

"It's worse on a feast day!" They shouted.

"Oh, great," I said.

We came, at last, to the far end of the archway and found that there was a light screen of men and women in the armor and the weapons of regency guards. They were backed up by a huge, two humped creature of scaled armor and heavy brow-ridge plates. One hump had a swiveling, minuature vortex bow on the back, manned by two men in plumed helmets, while the other hump had a woman on it with a speaking trumpet. She bellowed: "All contraband not turned over to the watchers at the post shall result in a hundred lashes! Praise the Regent and his just laws! Praise him!"

Under her shouts, I heard the rhythmic sounds of whistling

cracks

. I craned myself up onto my toes and saw over the heads of some of the shorter people in the crowd -- and saw lining the streets to either side of the entrance were a hundred posts. Chained to those hundred posts were a hundred men and women, their backs bared and gleaming with blood. Huge, muscular men and women stood behind them, holding dripping whips -- whips that cracked again and again and again as they lashed them. My eyes widened and I stepped forward. Xora and Chirp both grabbed my arms.