Path of Dragons-Chapter 7Book 8: . Disgust and Disappointment

Sadie crouched in a fighter’s stance, surrounded by enemies. The grip of her sword was slippery with sweat, and her muscles ached from long exertion. Still, she maintained her discipline, never wavering even as her seven opponents closed in. They attacked in unison, and if she’d been a normal person, their cooperation would have spelled her doom.

It was a good thing, then, that Sadie was no normal fighter.

With her ascension came an influx of attributes as her banked experience was applied, and that meant that, even if she hadn’t gained any new abilities, she’d accumulated a few extra attributes. She used those now, leaping aside and batting the first attacker’s weapon aside.

Even as she swept her sword across the enemy’s blade, another nearly nicked her shoulder. Still another came within an inch of hitting her spine. The others were a heartbeat behind, and she had no issues avoiding them by leaping high into the air, clearing their heads by more than a foot.

She landed outside their circle and planted herself with her back to the wall.

Now that they could only attack from a single direction, she was in much better shape to defend herself. Her blade blurred as she parried and blocked a half dozen attacks before, at last, she went on the offensive. In seconds, she’d woven her own strikes into the pattern. Her opponents were good, but they were entirely outmatched. They fell, one by one, and within a minute, they were all either unconscious or otherwise incapacitated.

When the fight was finished, a Healer darted forward to mend the wounds of Sadie’s sparring partners. The woman wasn’t particularly high level, but she managed her task with efficiency. It was one of the jobs where a Healer could make a good living, earning her keep and gaining resources for both survival and advancement.

Working jobs like that was slow, and they would never offer a true chance at ascendence. But it was good, honest work, which was all most people could hope to find. The rest of Heaven’s Bastion’s population were faced with similar opportunities. Warriors could become guards, Healers could work in the clinic or healing in a place like the sparring grounds, and Explorers could work as scavengers, finding the resources necessary to keep the settlement afloat.

There were other archetypes: like Scholars and Entertainers: who had found their own niches, but in an apocalyptic situation where safety was no guarantee, those archetypes had never been common. Sadie thought the settlement was worse off for that. All archetypes had value, but it was difficult to convince others not to take a combat class when there were zombies at the door.

With a sigh, Sadie pushed those thoughts out of mind. An attendant rushed forward, ready to take her practice sword. When Sadie handed it over, the man nearly toppled over from the thing’s immense weight. It was heavy even to Sadie, which meant that it was unwieldable by anyone else in the settlement.

“Thank you all for your time,” she said with a bow. Then, she retreated to the attached locker room. Once, the floor had been dedicated to a gym meant for the building’s workers, but now, it: as well as the floor above: had been converted into a training ground. There, the settlement’s fighters sparred with one another and engaged in more normal training like lifting weights, running, and acrobatics.

But Sadie had outgrown it.

None of the weights challenged her anymore, and the other fighters were only a threat inasmuch as they could gang up on her. Even then, it took dozens to even lay a hand on her, and that was if she forewent the use of her abilities, relying only on her martial technique and raw attributes.

Those thoughts raced through her mind as she took a shower, then dressed in something more appropriate than her skintight training attire. After that, she headed upstairs to her personal quarters, where she settled in for a bout of meditation.

It was all just a distraction, though. She knew that even as she sat in the middle of her floor and tried: unsuccessfully: to focus her thoughts. Instead, she couldn’t help but think about her disgust with everything in Heaven’s Bastion.

Not with the basic functions of the settlement. By all rights, it was as well-run as anywhere else in the world: at least the places she’d visited. However, there was a deep strain of corruption running beneath the surface, and it originated with her grandfather.

She barely recognized him anymore.

He’d never been a kind man. Even going back to Sadie’s childhood memories, he was a harsh person who never accepted excuses. He expected the best of his line, and that attitude had pervaded the entire family. For her part, Sadie had used it as fuel, pushing her to excellence in her every endeavor, be they martial or academic.

And he had favored her because of it. He was still a difficult man to love, but Sadie had always respected him for his dedication.

The apocalypse had changed everything, though. One by one, he saw the people he cared about die, and instead of breaking down, he’d chiseled away anything that wasn’t as hard as diamond. Suddenly, excellence wasn’t just a means of maintaining the family legacy. Instead, it was a requirement for survival.

Sadie had taken to that responsibility well, but Nico had faltered, and more than once. The most prominent example was when he’d allowed Lisa to die, but there were a hundred smaller failures marking his path. Before Sadie had left on her mission, Tianwei had clearly regarded Nico as something of a black sheep. A failure who needed his family to survive.

But upon her return, things had clearly changed. Nico had gained their grandfather’s favor, and for the life of her, Sadie could not understand why. But it felt like Nico had a hold on their grandfather to the point where the old man wouldn’t even consider any other perspective.

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Not for the first time, Sadie wondered if Nico had some mind control powers he’d never revealed to her. That would explain some things that didn’t make sense to her.

But it was more likely that Tianwei was just a classist: and slightly racist: old man who was clinging to tribalism to justify his grip on the settlement. Of late, those feelings had been aimed at Elijah.

Sadie had been appalled at Nico’s version of events in the Primal Realm, which had painted Elijah as a thieving coward who’d probably killed Gideon and abandoned them all during the final fight with the Queen of Desolation. Sadie had explained the truth to her grandfather, but it was clear who Tianwei believed.

And it didn’t surprise her. Not anymore.

It was so much easier to believe that Elijah had reached his position through nefarious means than to consider that he was simply better than them.

Sadie sighed, then lay back on her floor. In years past, she would have confided in Dat, but he was gone. She felt selfish for looking at his death in terms of how it affected her, but she couldn’t help it. It was especially difficult because she’d never bothered to cultivate any other friendships in Heaven’s Bastion. Or even before the apocalypse, really. She’d always been a loner who focused more on success than on making friends, and it seemed that that attitude had come back to bite her.

With her ostracization by her family, she had no one left: at least not in Hong Kong. That made her truly consider leaving the city behind and taking Elijah up on his offer. She knew it wouldn’t be permanent. More like a vacation before she returned to the city, but the idea of leaving it all behind was an attractive one. Making it even more enticing was the fact that both Ron and Kurik were there.

They were her friends, too.

But mostly, her desires were of a selfish nature. She just wanted to spend some time with Elijah without the threat of a zombie apocalypse to distract her from her feelings. Maybe then she could figure out what she really wanted from their relationship.

Would he really come back for her, though? The settlement was locked up tight: after all, Nico had been there when Elijah had once again invited her back to his island: and even someone like Dat would have struggled to enter unseen. Yet, if anyone could find a way, it was Elijah.

Finally, Sadie gave up on meditating, then pushed herself to her feet. Before she realized what she was doing, she’d left her apartments behind and headed down to the more populated levels of Heaven’s Bastion. There were plenty of people running businesses on the lower floors, though no one really used ethereum. Instead, they were required to use a point system unique to Heaven’s Bastion.

The idea of a captive currency wasn’t a new one. In America, there was a long history of company towns where they were common enough. In most places, situations like that had been banned, but the apocalypse seemed to have reset most of the rules. And Tianwei, ever the opportunist, had pounced on the chance to further control the population. After all, if they were only allowed to trade in points he controlled, then they could never accumulate independent wealth or rebel.

Sadie didn’t like the system, but she wasn’t at the point where she could openly defy her grandfather. His grip on the settlement was too firm, and she clearly didn’t possess the persuasive powers of her brother. If it came down to a fight, she would obviously win, but she hadn’t gotten to the point where she would even consider violence as an answer. After all, if it devolved into war, plenty of innocent people would be caught in the crossfire. Sadie wasn’t willing to chance that.

Yet.

But she acknowledged: at least in the back of her mind: that that might not always be the case.

Eventually, she found her way to one of the clinics, where she discovered something she very much did not expect. Nico was there, healing some of the population’s worst injuries.

That definitely wasn’t like him.

The people didn’t know that, though. Indeed, the only thing they cared about was that someone powerful had descended from on high to help them with their issues. Sadie contributed how she could, but her class had never been meant to play the role of a true Healer. As a result, her efforts were far outshone by Nico’s.

The sick and injured people noticed, too. Sure, the ones Sadie managed to heal were grateful enough, but even they looked at the crowd around Nico with some degree of envy. And those he healed practically wept in gratitude, offering all sorts of gifts for his labors.

Sadie tried to ignore it, but she couldn’t escape the fact that they treated him like a messianic figure meant to be worshipped. Had he been engaging in such activities all along? And to what end? Nico was not a soft-hearted humanitarian, and she knew for a fact that he would have rather left such mundane healing to people he considered his lessers.

Yet there he was, basking in the glory of their adoration.

After a while, Nico’s personal guards: he rarely went anywhere without them now that they had left the Primal Realm behind: ushered the worshipers out of the clinic. They were hesitant to go, and even Nico managed to look saddened by their departure. Sadie recognized it as an act, though.

When the clinic had been emptied, Nico approached Sadie and said, “Hello, sister.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m a healer. This is what I do,” he said innocently. “I’d ask you the same thing, though. I figured you would be off traveling the world and meeting with disreputable hobos.”

“I’m not:”

“I don’t want to judge you, Sadie, but you should know that grandfather looks upon your actions with disappointment,” he went on, interrupting her. “You bring shame to yourself and to our family. Surely you see that.”

“You did nothing in the Primal Realm. If anyone’s actions are shameful, it’s yours.”

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“That’s not how grandfather sees it. Our people view it differently as well. Already, they’re telling tales of my legend. You’re just a footnote in those stories, by the way. The Druid is a spiteful vagabond who did more harm than good,” Nico explained. “Not so far from the truth, then. Amazing how close they came to the true tale of my victory.”

For a moment, Sadie was dumbfounded. Did Nico truly believe his own lies? Since her return, Sadie had tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. She’d made excuse after excuse, but hearing those words tumble so proudly from his mouth: it was too much.

“What happened to you?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“When I left, you were normal. A little immature, but nothing like this. You know good and well that neither of us would have survived with Elijah. You spent most of the Primal Realm holding back for fear of spending too much ethera. You are a useless little man who does nothing but spout his own imagined accolades,” she spat. “I can’t believe you’re my brother.”

Then, before he could respond, Sadie turned on her heel and left. At first, she didn’t know where her feet would take her, but before she knew it, she had ended up at the Shrine of the Fallen and standing in front of Dat’s memorial.

“I can’t do it anymore,” she said. “This place is too far gone.”

Indeed, the dark state of Heaven’s Bastion disgusted her, and at present, she had no idea how to bring it back to the light. She had more power than anyone else in Hong Kong: assuming Elijah wasn’t back in the city yet: but she couldn’t force people to see things her way. They were too enamored with her snake of a brother to listen to anything she might say or see anything she might do.

“I…I think I have to leave,” she told her friend as she sank to the bench and buried her head in her hands. “I hope you’ll forgive me for abandoning you so soon, but I don’t have a choice.”