Ebon Dirge soared over the landscape, an unseen apparition deep in contemplation. The experiment of the past decade had given him much food for thought.

In the depths of his consciousness, a single flame flickered, the fruit he had tended and then plucked from that oaf in the wilderness, River. Try as he might, Dirge could not make it stir or react to him. He had captured it at last, along with its owner's soul, but it was currently no more than an adornment, a trophy of a past and pitiful conquest. It would take time and exploration to make something more out of it.

That aside, Dirge could not help but feel a little cheated in the scenario. River's destiny was weak, yes, but it was meant to give rise to greater things, things that seem to have fallen into the laps of others. In that strange vision of how events may have gone without his intervention, he had seen that divergence flow off to two others.

The first -- the former Flowing Water member Blue -- was a familiar face for the ancient devil, being someone whose charted course had changed. Dirge had chosen not to try and hop hosts when the young man's own flame of destiny had ignited, wanting to remain and see to his first experiment's conclusion.

The other was a young boy that was likely the fruit of the experiment with River's woman. The child hadn't shown up at all in the vision, and so seemed to be a new element entirely. Time would show what kind of harvest could be obtained there.

But Dirge would not remain idle waiting for the seeds to sprout. He would revisit those dangling threads later, but for now, he would attend to a new experiment. He would find someone stronger this time, a target where he could approach his acquisition from a new angle.

The Central Grasslands where he had entered this world were a waste of time, though. As Dirge flew over their expanse, he saw many clans, tribes, towns, and even small nations. None of them had so much as the flicker of destiny that River had, despite many of their foundations being stronger. Perhaps the destinies of those who would shape this land had already passed or were waiting to be born, or perhaps they were meant to become cattle for people born in places he had yet to visit.

Beyond a faint academic curiosity, Dirge didn't find himself caring much either way. His destination lay outside these savage lands and to the far East, a land of warring states where heroes contended for the sake of their nations. The rise and fall of dynasties seemed like a proper stage to go searching for a destiny or two.

But a question remained: What method should he employ?

When Dirge intervened in River's destiny, he had steered events towards the conclusion it appeared the young man had wanted. The resulting divergence appeared to have shunted off an enormous potential in other directions as some kind of corrective action. He did not wish to repeat that mistake if it was indeed one. Putting in all the work only for others to see the bulk of the benefits was not how he wanted to proceed.

The ancient devil saw two pathways for experimentation:

For the first path, he could find a subject and try and seize their faculties entirely, turning them into a puppet he could pilot to its end. In a mortal plane like this, the number of beings that could resist such a seizure on his part could likely be counted on the hands. But without a grasp on how a destiny might protect its bearer, the backlash could be instant and fatal. Furthermore, without some kind of map for how to proceed, he would only be blindly groping again and end the same as before, taking a part where the bulk went to others.

For the second path, he could be a more passive influence, subtly guiding events but letting the subject drive the narrative, so to speak. This also risked guiding himself onto a path where the subject could turn him into just another tool and he would become lost in the act, though. Being so passive, how would he ultimately turn the tables and seize that destiny?

Both paths represented different approaches to try and avoid the issues of the first experiment, and both held their own risks, but could either reliably produce a different result?

Dirge mulled over the problem as evening turned to night and then as the sun rose before him in a new dawn. The endless grasslands receded into a more irregular landscape of forest, fields, and mountains. Towns became cities, and a few of the mountains were dotted with cultivation sects.

The devil's apparition slowed and descended, floating over shops and market stalls in the course of opening for business. It was in touching the minds of these shopkeepers and their early bird customers that Dirge shore up his knowledge of the local geography. The information he had been able to obtain back in the grasslands had been paltry.

There was also the matter of how awry matters had gone because of his oversight in not seeking corroboration of River's story with the mundane locals. There would not be a repeat of that fiasco.

Flitting from marketplace to marketplace, ever heading eastward, Dirge was able to cobble together a working understanding of the local powers. There were dozens of petty kingdoms that dotted the East, but at the far edge near the continent's shores were four mightier kingdoms locked in an eternal struggle. Called the March Kingdoms and distinguished by their places in the four directions, they were the remnant of a once great empire that had ruled here in ages past.

It sounded perfect. When one wanted to wait for a phoenix to rise, where better than amongst the embers in its nest?

Following the trail of petty kingdoms and minor sects, it took the better part of daylight before Dirge reached his goal, entering Southmarch. A well-maintained webwork of roads connected the fortresses, cities, and settlements here, all leading to a central cluster where a grand city of spires lay. He avoided that city for the moment, not extending his sense in that direction as it might enter the range of a Nascent Birth expert. He likewise made no attempts to scan too far north, avoiding the central valley between the kingdoms where it was likely the true cultivation powers of the region headquartered themselves.

Instead, the devil's attention went to the northeast, towards the border between Southmarch and its neighbor Eastmarch. There the cities gave way to the fortresses that formed many layers of defense between the kingdoms. Thousands of peak Human Realm warriors were stationed there, with officers and irregulars having entered the ranks of Meridian Circulation experts. Few and far between were the Foundation Building masters, and as far as he could tell none in the region had reached the level of establishing their Inner Palace.

Still, any one fortress housed enough power to wipe out several Vermilion Idylls, and there were over two dozen such fortresses between the two nations here.

Scanning over the border, one fortress in particular stood out to Dirge. There was no Foundation Building master there, nor was the garrison otherwise up to par compared to the others he had surveyed. Additionally, it appeared that an attack was imminent, with a nearby force waiting for the sun to set before they made their move.

On a whim, the devil activated the Eye of Heaven's Fortune. Sure enough, one among the participants in this soon-to-arrive skirmish held a flame of destiny, one brighter and stronger than River's. What was intriguing, though, was that the holder of that destiny was among those inside the doomed fortress.

The sun set and the ambushers began their raid as Dirge considered the situation. The holder of the flame, the occupant of a tower, moved lower into the bowels of the fortress, but not toward any of the areas of active engagement. The devil followed, wanting to get a look at this destined one and what they were up to in the chaos.

Deep inside the fortress, two men stood before a tunnel opening. One was older and clad in a soldier's mail, sword drawn. The other was a skinny youth with black hair and grey eyes, a sickly porcelain doll in dark clothes that accentuated his pale skin. It was the latter who held the destiny.

"Milord!" the older man barked, "You must flee! Your royal father must hear of the Count's treachery this day, else all our lives will have been lost in vain."

The young man coughed. "But what manner of commander would I be to leave you all to this fate?"

"You aren't! You're a bloody prince, and we're all caught in the web meant to be your snare!" The soldier gave a swift kick to the sandcastle of the young man's heroic fantasy. "But we all swore oaths, even if some of us now betray them. There's no more time to argue! Now go!"

The soldier grabbed the prince's collar with his free hand and shoved the young man through the tunnel's opening, tossing him like a sack of produce.

The prince stumbled against the rough-hewn wall but made no further protest, clambering forward into the darkness. "I'll remember you and your sacrifice!" he shouted, no doubt hoping to sound noble to the very last.

Turning from the tunnel, the soldier's lips twisted with a bitter smile. "Like hell you will, Erik," he muttered, his volume too low for the prince to hear. "You can't even bloody well keep track of our names." Then he left, onward to delay any pursuers.

Dirge followed the prince as he groped his way down the dark tunnel. The young man's movements steadied as he became used to the darkness. Several minutes later, he stumbled as the passage widened into a small cave, a shaft of moonlight from a hole above illuminating its interior. The bones of small animals lay scattered about the ground, but they were old and there was no recent sign of the creature that had consumed the flesh on them.

What there was, laying directly in the shaft of moonlight, was an ornate but bladeless hilt made of black metal. Scanning it and sensing some crystalline channels for essence embedded deep inside, Dirge had a spark of inspiration ignite.

What if, instead of trying to directly seize a destiny, body and soul, he did become an instrument of that destiny, one that could be wielded by the holder at will? A weapon that, bit by bit and use by use, would consume its user and thus transfer that destiny?

Wasting no time, Dirge stuffed himself into the hilt and it was thus that a new experiment began.