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260 - The Pride of One's Family [Sturmblitz]
🕑 Added 2023-06-30 19:06:44 +0000 UTCA/N: My backlog is fucked. Gonna take a couple days to rebuild it. Normal posting resumes on Wednesday.
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Zelsys burned through outstanding Slayer’s Guild contracts one after the next, treating them as the amusing diversions they were for one of her caliber. She took along other guild and sect members for whom the contracts would have been too much, letting them keep the payouts on the condition that she gets first pick of any spoils. Out of ten contracts she only invoked her condition in three cases.
Meanwhile, Victor threw himself wholly into two avenues of research and training. The first was developing a working version of the strange mask of which he had learned in Koschei’s laboratory, which he claimed would allow him to more effectively draw out Koschei’s surviving knowledge. The other was the Itrian Scroll, particularly storage talismans, servitors, and a strange new version of his Devil’s Teeth. Every day he was seen sprinting like a man possessed, clad in a skeletal, bare-minimum version of the Dawnwolf armor. It wasn’t long before he developed a reputation similar to that which he had possessed in Oasis City, though to a less severe degree. He fortunately had the good judgment to keep quiet about his true nature as the direct inheritor to Koschei’s legacy, while the fact that he was one of the Second King’s descendants couldn’t be kept under wraps for long…
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Halxian couldn’t help but feel there was something familiar about that androgynous redhead the Hag had brought back with her. Besides those freakish eyes with their inhuman glint and the fact he dressed in a way that obviously mimicked the hag, that surname kept gnawing at the back of Halxian’s mind. Khestun. Khestun.
He decided to ask his father.
“I’m surprised you remember at all. We sat at a table adjacent to the Khestuns at the debutante ball held by Duke Mengen for his daughter. They are - or more likely, were - one of the families which could trace their lineage back to the Second King, Koschei the Undying. I wonder just how Newman came upon the boy and how much of his seemingly advanced cultivation took place since she found him… Regardless, do not make trouble for him for no reason. Perhaps challenge him to a friendly spar, just do not make too much of a show of it on the off chance that he doesn’t turn out to be a freakish genius like the other pillars. There is a great deal more face to lose in a defeat that cannot be easily chalked up to your opponent’s overwhelming and unexpected superiority.”
“Is… This some sort of roundabout way of telling me to train harder, father?”
“Hm? Oh, Iusticia’s mercy no! I only… Well, I assume that there is a good reason why Newman chose him as her disciple. You have seen the beast he rides around on, who knows how he came about it and what it can do. All I am saying is that you should be careful and not to underestimate him. You’ve been advancing faster than I did at your age; how is your third implant feeling? Does it still wake you in the night?”
“It still aches, but Makhus made me pills for the rejection flareups. I may be able to use it if things come down to that.”
“That is good to hear. Do you think you might be able to learn the recipe?”
“I asked, but he said to come back in three weeks when he has a consistent version ready.”
“Good, good. Go along then, I’ve another thrice-damned meeting with Duke Von Hoedorff’s people in half an hour. Something about trade agreement adjustments that Newman made in my name…”
Halxian turned to leave as his father toked from his cigar and began frustratedly leafing through paperwork, only to hear him call before he could open the door.
“Ah, one more thing- Try not to get on Her nerves too much.”
“You know she prefers it when I insult her to her face instead of putting on a polite facade.”
“I know, I know. Just don’t do it too often. I’m proud of you.”
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Crovacus couldn’t properly articulate the true height of pride he held for his son… Or the worry. It was unsettling just how quickly and how hard that boy pushed ahead with harnessing his bloodline’s unique and painful cultivation method, which their ancestors had developed immediately after the Second Renegade caused the collapse of the greater orthodox church. The art, famous for its foundational offensive techniques, the Seven Calamity Armaments, had allowed the Estoras bloodline to rise to fame, fortune, and power in spite of old money merchant clans trying to push them out.
He himself knew well how harrowing it was to advance in it, both the implants and the tattoos. One’s body could simply decide that enough was enough and tear their skin open with a massive allergic reaction to the ink, yet Halxian was advancing four or even five times as rapidly as Crovacus ever had. Ever since the Blue Moon War, the boy constantly challenged his sect elder and pushed back against her, only to jump back up every time she slapped him down. At first Crovacus had feared that Newman would eventually decide to just crush his impudent offspring, and so trained him personally, only for both her and other members of the sect to come asking about him.
It took some time for Crovacus to realize why Halxian was advancing so quickly, and in retrospect, he kicked himself for not seeing it sooner. This sect, if it could even be called that for its radical departure from the Sangers and Black Horses’ internal politics, acted as a wildly varied support network, allowing its members to grow far quicker than they ever would on their own or confined to a group made up solely of other practitioners of the same methods. From the manic, nearly self-destructive genius of Makhus Newman, to the sagelike viewponts of Nesgon and Sigmund, the advanced immortal cooking of Ozmir and the strange, outsider genius insight of the sect elder herself.
