Xian I

PA 1 – April

It had been a little over a week since Queen Fatima had called all of the Alliance God-Kings together for a meeting, and since then they had all returned to their homes. Some, like Xian and Avery, had stayed later, going over more precise details, while Issei and Isabella had left earlier, eager to get to work.

The journeys there and back had been at times trying, but now, finally, Li Xian was back home.

Standing just outside Nancheng’s walls, Xian relaxed, staring out over his harbor. As he watched his sailors, merchants, and dockworkers run about under the setting sun, closing up the harbor after a long day’s work. Beyond them, floating in the water, were his fleet of ships, both old and worn and new and cutting edge.

As he watched his people work, he thought back to how this harbor had come about in the first place.

His city of Nancheng had originally been further inland, but once they decided to permanently settle down he’d had them relocate to a nearby hill overlooking the river. From there, the buildings had been built with the same sort of simple ‘log-cabin’ style that everyone else in the area used, before being enclosed with a sturdy wooden wall. All told, it was a functional city, but there was nothing that set it apart from the others around them. Even the more interesting things about it, like the gravel roads and the large meeting hall were simply ideas he'd borrowed from other cities.

At first he had been fine with that. However, with the discovery of the Sea King Enzo and his naval dominance, he’d realized that their burgeoning Alliance would need a counter should they ever go to war. They’d need a fleet. And so, as the only one of them with access to the ocean (and the first on the chopping block should Enzo invade) he’d taken it upon himself to build a harbor.

And what a harbor it was.

His pride and joy, the harbor was (currently) the most impressive architectural undertaking in the entirety of the Alliance. Upon exiting the city, you’d immediately find yourself on a large, open wooden terrace, jutting out over the harbor proper. Further along the walls were a couple of small bunkhouses for merchants and travelers arriving to the city, while along the edge of the balcony were a series of staircases leading down to the water, where a series of over a dozen piers docked a fleet of ships both local and foreign. Beneath the terrace was a large warehouse, filled to the brim with stored goods, resources, and even spare boats.

The harbor could hold up to theoretically fifty ships, though right now it only held about twenty. By modern standards it wasn’t very impressive, but for what he had to work with he was damn proud of what he’d accomplished.

It was the first of its kind, and wasn’t that grand? He was making history. Not merely an observer staring back at it, but a participant, like the legendary sage-kings of old. It was exhilarating.

“My King,” one of his sailors came up to him, bowing in greeting. He was Hala, unofficially in charge of the rest of the muscle-heads who worked on the docks. Pale skinned, beefy and a head taller than his King, he was standard fare for the many sailors under his employ. “We’ve finished storing everything and have herded the merchants into the bunkhouses for the night. The ships have been triple checked and are tied tightly to the docks, and the marines have left for their nighttime training. All that’s left is for you to give the word and we can close up shop for the night.”

“Excellent,” Xian smiled back. “You’ve done well indeed—make sure to send my regards to the rest of them as well. If they keep this up, there will surely be a reward in their future.”

“Of course, My King. I’m sure they’d be—huh? What’s that?” the sailor suddenly cut off mid-sentence, squinting out over the harbor.

“Hm?” Xian hummed in confusion, turning to see what he was looking at. It was a bit far away, but there, in the distance, vague blobs appeared on the horizon. “Are those… boats? More traders, perhaps?”

“It’s rather late for that, though?” the sailor frowned in confusion. “It’s nearly nighttime. Most merchants arrive when it’s still bright out. Y’know, when they can actually conduct business.”

“Perhaps they were delayed?” Xian mused, watching as the boats floated further into view. “Was there a storm further south? Or maybe they simply underestimated how long it would take to get here?”

“Maybe,” the sailor shrugged, accepting the explanation as easily as any other. Pushing off the balcony, he gave his King a quick bow, before turning and heading back down to the docks. “Whelp, I’d better go greet them, let’m know where they can bunk for the night.”

“Of course,” Xian nodded back, watching as the foreign boats came into port. “Let me know it there are any problems.”

The boats docked, and Xian couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at their shape. They were different from his own—something he had long since gotten used to—but they also didn’t resemble any others that he knew of. Long and sleek, they easily carried three people each with room to spare. They were so different from the more canoe-like boats he’d gotten used to, he found himself intrigued. He’d need to ask them about it at some point, if only to learn how they’d made them.

“Hail, travelers!” Hala called out, raising an arm as he approached the new arrivals. “What brings you to our Nancheng so late at night? Are you merchants, or just passing through?”

The sun had nearly set by this point, making it hard to see how many of them there were. However, Xian counted at least five ships docked. The foreign sailors were climbing out surprisingly quickly, and as they flooded his harbor, a sinking, queasy feeling began growing in his stomach.

“Hey? Are ya deaf or something? You all can’t just park your boats without the king’s—hurk!”

With one swift, brutal motion the foreign sailor closest to Hala stabbed him through the gut with a long, wicked dagger. The sailor didn’t even have time to scream, before he was knocked to the ground, and the attackers flooded into the harbor, roaring warcries tearing from their mouths. They charged the docks, cutting down any sailors they came across, their screams of fear and pain echoing around the harbor as those who could fled the bloodthirsty invaders.

Xian froze for a moment, staring down at them in horror, a pain in his gut that made it feel like he had been the one who’d been stabbed. Then, a cold, seething rage blossomed in his chest, and he resolved to slaughter every single one of these bastards.

“ATTACK!” Xian roared, turning up to the watchtowers overlooking the harbor. Distantly, he realized the warning drums were already pounding away, warning the whole city of what was occurring. But he couldn’t focus on them over the pounding of his own heart. “WE’RE UNDER ATTACK! ALL FORCES, TO THE HARBOR! NOW!”

With that done, he turned around, vaulting over the fence along the edge of the terrace, jumping down into the harbor proper.

It was only as he was falling that he realized he didn’t have a weapon, but he dismissed the thought. His rage was weapon enough.

“You bastards!” he snarled, all decorum gone as he charged one of the damn invaders. The man turned, and though in the low light he could not see his face, it did not matter when he could see his weapon well enough. The blood-soaked dagger rose and fell on Xian, burying into his collarbone with a wet ‘squelch.’

Perhaps it was painful, but if it was then Xian did not feel it.

He slammed into the invader, knocking him to the ground. Instinctively his hand reached up, grasping the dagger still buried in his neck and yanked it out, and in a move he would never be able to replicate he brought it around in a bloody arc, slicing the bastard’s throat open.

The man, now choking on his own blood, grabbed at his throat, eyes wide and panicking. Xian brought his stolen dagger around to finish him off, but was stopped before he could.

“Ivor!” he heard from his right, and was just barely able to turn in time to see another invader tackle him, the momentum knocking the both of them off the edge of the dock and into the water.

The shock of the freezing water knocked him out of his berserker state, just in time to feel something pierce his stomach. Gasping in pain, he immediately regretted it when he breathed in, water flooding into his lungs. Some instinctual part of his brain overrode his good sense, causing him to flail in panic. It was only when his fist punched something soft that he was knocked back to reality, remembering where he was.

Awkwardly spinning around in the water, he latched onto the man who’d knocked them both in there, holding him tightly as they both sunk. Being on the coast the water was not that deep, and soon the two of them hit the bottom. Xian could not see the other man’s eyes, but he could see in his movements, as he struggled and flailed and panicked that he was terrified. That he knew if he didn’t break out of Xian’s grasp soon, he would die at the bottom of the harbor, drowned by a man who refused to die.

But Xian would not let him drown. He didn’t have enough time to waste for that. So instead, he pulled himself closer, ignoring the cuts on his body that bled a deep, dark red, obscuring his vision as his blood mixed with the water. Once he was practically hugging the other man, he wrapped his arms around his neck, and began to squeeze.

Underwater he could not effectively punch or kick, and he’d dropped the knife he’d stolen at some point. But that didn’t matter, as with startling ease he snapped the other man’s neck, paralyzing him if not killing him instantly.

Letting go and letting the corpse fall to the seafloor, Xian had a single glimpse at the dead man’s wide, terrified eyes, before he kicked, swimming his way back to the surface.

Once he surfaced, he almost wished he hadn’t.

The harbor was ransacked. Fire burned across the dockyards, his fleet alight with smoke and ash, crumbling and sinking into the sea around him. The warehouses were wide open, as the invaders dragged everything they could back to their boats. Corpses were strewn across the docks, both local and foreign alike, and only now he saw the gates of his city open, his trained soldiers pouring out in droves to avenge their people.

It was chaos. It was a hell unlike any he’d experienced before.

The rage that he’d felt before he’d fallen into the sea returned to him, but colder now. A simmering, quiet hatred was borne in his chest, and he felt it empower his limbs as he swam back to the docks.

Climbing back onto the dock, Xian charged the nearest invader, who was in the middle of loading a barrel into their boat. Unfortunately, they noticed him before he could reach them, jumping out of the way and letting the barrel fall into the sea. Not waiting for him to attack them again, they instead leaped into their boat, another invader already paddling them away and back out into the open sea.

Xian, blinded by anger, didn’t hesitate, spinning on a dime and running down the dock after them. The moment he was close enough he jumped, rocking the boat wildly as he slammed into the side. Grasping onto the edge he snarled, trying to pull himself into the boat but stopped by the frantic slashes of the three invaders, stabbing him with stone daggers that cut and carved away flesh, loosening his grip on the side. Soon he was hanging on by just his fingers, and a few seconds later they’d carved those fingers off, causing him to fall off into the sea.

Gasping as he resurfaced, Xian let out an inarticulate scream of rage, glaring out at the rapidly receding boats.

Were they trying to flee? Like hell he’d let them! Not after what they’d done.

Swimming after them as fast as he could, he swore to his fallen people he’d kill them all!

--

He hadn’t been able to catch a single one. It turned out, no matter how quickly he swam, he wasn’t able to catch up to the boats, and soon enough he was forced to turn back, the invaders having long disappeared over the horizon.

It was late at night, the crescent moon shining brightly overhead that he finally returned to the harbor. By then, the fires had all been put out, and his soldiers were scouring the docks for any remaining signs of the invaders.

“My King!” one of his soldiers shouted, running up to him as they saw him. Reaching down, they helped him climb back onto the docks. “Are you alright!? We thought… we thought they had taken you!”

As a dozen more soldiers ran up to him, surrounding him with worried looks and words, he felt the rage he’d been harboring in his heart settle down into a quiet, bitter weariness.

Glancing down at himself, he let out a sigh, noting how his clothes were beyond repair, bloodstained and waterlogged. Damn, he must have looked like a mess.

“How many died?” he asked, cutting off whatever the soldier in front of him was saying. “How many of our people died?”

The soldier quieted down, a tired, solemn expression growing across his face. “There are twelve confirmed deaths. Two of with were of foreign merchants. There are also another seven wounded, though none among the soldiers. The moment we arrived, they all fled as quickly as they came, sailing away in their ships. They also stole much from our warehouses—and what they didn’t steal, they burned. I’m sorry but I… I don’t know if we’ll have enough food left to make it through the next month, my King.”

Xian blinked slowly, filing away the man’s words for later. Rather he focused on only some of them, as what just happened finally clicked in his mind.

“Pirates,” he hissed lowly. “Someone, somewhere, sent pirates to raid our port.”

“Um, my King?”

“Send word to the rest of the Alliance,” he shouted, gesturing at the soldiers around him. “Let them know what happened here. And let them know that though we don’t yet know who, why, or where, we are now at war!”

His soldiers saluted, leaving to follow his orders. And Xian was left alone, staring out over the dockyard that just this morning had been his pride and joy.

And in that moment, Xian understood what it meant to hate.

9,874 God-Kings Remain