Kord

Kord sat with Ray in silence for a few minutes, as they both dropped into comfortable meditation. Kord did his best to remain calm, and found that despite his mind previously racing around in circles all day, stopping to meditate worked. He felt his entire body relax as his mind emptied for the first time all day.

When Ray eventually began speaking in a language that Kord didn't understand, it didn't even really bother him. Kord was at peace with himself, and trusted Ray despite the man speaking in what Kord could only assume to be a draconic language, given the guttural tones.

He could feel Ray's Qi moving and focusing in different places. Eventually, it settled into the knife that the man held, which Kord could sense clearly given it was made of metal.

"Here we go." Ray said, suddenly switching to words that Kord could understand. There was a second or two gap and then Kord could feel the knife on his back. It didn't cut deep and it was so unnaturally sharp that it honestly barely hurt at all. It felt almost more like he was being scratched. It wasn't even enough to pull him from the calm of meditation.

Kord wasn't sure how long it took, but by the time Ray was finished with the knife, his back was itchy. The knife cuts had been shallow and small, but extensive, drawing a large pattern, and they itched furiously.

"Kord. Stay focused. From here, it's up to you." Ray's words registered, and Kord focused himself on his meditation to put the itchiness out of his mind. He felt the moment that Ray dragged the knife deeply across his own palm, then placed the bloody palm against Kord's back.

The boy was entirely unsure what he had expected to happen when the bond had started to take shape. In his head, he was sure it would be a jolt of power potency enough to make him lock up. Maybe pain. A rush, certainly. Or, he had thought maybe it would be the opposite - a gentle flowing sensation like floating in the bath.

As it turned out, the feeling was fairly minimal. He was already circulating his Qi as part of his meditation, and the only noticeable effect he noticed was his Qi intake from his environment went noticeably up. As if he went from calmly breathing in to heavy gasps of air, without the strain.

It did, however, begin to put a strain on his meridians as they suddenly found themselves working with far more Qi than they were used to. The metal Qi he gathered was also noticeably more dense than usual, as well. Or perhaps of greater quality.

The instant that some of the denser Qi settled in his core, he felt a mild burning sensation in his Dantian. And then he blacked out.

Kord shook his hands free of his metal gauntlets to try to clear his face of the soot, smoke, and sweat that clouded his vision. His right thigh was on fire where it had been run through with a blade, but he felt satisfied that he had given the one responsible a broken nose. Assuming the man lived at all.

He looked out over burning the trees and buildings of his home. Most of the younger kids were gathered in the main house, with its hefty protections in place. The bastards would have a hard time breaching it, especially with his mothers defending it.

Kord's major concern was his older siblings. The ones scattered about the Basin embroiled in combat. Most of them looked to be faring well. Cierra and Stena fought back to back in the center of a ring of enemies that were unable to get close. Other groups were working together with smaller groups of enemies, fending them off through teamwork.

When his eyes fell on the group of Enrik, Briar, and Karn though, his stomach dropped. They were in deeper trouble than anyone else, and his feet were moving toward them before he could even think.

Whatever enemies they were facing had clearly overpowered them, and they were pushed tightly together, forced back to back while the enemies closed in.

Kord's vision blurred with smog again, and he found himself on the ground, pinned under someone's foot. His siblings were being held aloft around him by their necks, struggling in vain. Unlike the last time he had watched this type of scene unfold, he could feel their Qi being drained away through his base senses as he watched the fight leave each of them in turn.

He struggled, but the boot on his stomach was immovable. He struck at it, pushed it, thrashed underneath it, but nothing seemed to move it. He could feel his skin starting to crawl as being stuck there triggered a far more basic fear of being trapped mingled with his inability to help creating a swirl of dread in his stomach.

The man that had him trapped laughed as one of the enemies dropped Briar's body to the ground. His sibling looked like a lifeless puppet dropped uncaringly as their body crumpled with a thunk. Karn's body followed suit, and then Enrik's. The enemies kicked each of them, sending their bodies tumbling further. The way they moved…they were either unconscious or dead. And Kord could not feel any Qi from them.

As the anger built in him, the man that had trapped him reached down and grabbed him by the neck, mirroring what had been done to the others. Kord struggled, but found that he couldn't really do much of anything against the inexorable pull to his feet, and then off the ground.

It was an unnatural strength, not that of a Cultivator, but something stronger. Inhuman.

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The man that hefted him up had no face. Or it was so covered in soot and grime that he looked featureless, at least. Until a creepily bright, white, toothy smile broke the featureless mask. It was too high on the face to be where a mouth was supposed to be. Too centered.

"Poor little Kord." It said, the voice at once resonant and soft. It was almost like it spoke in his mind, and not out loud at all. "Couldn't save them then. Can't save them now. All for nought. Everything you've done. All of it. Worthless. Pointless."

Kord struggled to calm himself. The enemy kept speaking in cloying negatives, berating and belittling Kord for everything from his meaningless efforts in Cultivation to his simple choice of techniques.

He struggled and put it all out of his mind. Insults and baits fell on deaf ears as Kord focused inwardly. He may have been unable to fight back the first time this happened, but this time - this time he would at least go down swinging.

He focused. Gathered his Qi, pooling it in his hands, feet, and Dantian. Since the thing continued talking and seemed to not even take note of what Kord was doing, he drew in more Qi, pushing it to the same five locations. He let the pools deepen in each spot. Four powerful weapons and a massive well of power in reserve. Until he needed to strike, he would gather power. Prepare it and make the enemy stop talking.

The speed that he was taking in Qi was dangerously above his means, but he felt like he needed it. He kept shoving more and more of it into his core. He pushed harder, forcing the Qi inside his core to compress further so he could fit more power in.

"There's no point." The enemy kept on talking, "Your family is dead. What are you going to do now? Punch them back to life? You made the wrong choice, Kord. You wanted to protect people, but instead you decided to hurt them."

Kord took in a deep breath to draw in more Qi. And then he felt his core crack.

Kord paused for just a moment, making sure that he wasn't about to simply die. And then, instead of trying to gather more power, he tried to call it forth instead. He drew from his core, hard, pushing the Qi to his extremities to prepare for his fight.

All at once, the power flooded his body and his core shattered. The Qi, entirely unleashed, flooded Kord's entire body. It filled him up, saturating his entire self, pushing out things that weren't necessary. And then it kept going, flooding the area around him.

Despite it being outside his body, he could still feel the Qi, as if it was still a part of him. It reacted to his thoughts and desires, undulating around as if he controlled it. He figured he probably did.

With a sharp push of Qi, he shoved the enemy's hand off his neck. A thin bit of metal appeared there, covered in spikes around his neck. Now that it was no longer held, the spikes retreated. By the time Kord realized what had happened, his entire body was covered in a light, mercurial form of metal.

He had wanted to form his bulky gauntlets and greaves, ready for action, but instead found his hands and feet also covered in the shifting substance. But when he felt one of the enemies approach from behind, Kord lashed out to kick him. Just before connecting, the liquid substance hardened at the point of impact, reinforced itself, and prepared to make use of every technique Kord used.

When he connected, a bit of his Qi siphoned off into the enemy to poison him. The klick itself hit with more force than he had ever mustered before, and there was even a thin line of liquid metal Qi that remained, attaching Kord to the enemy the struck.

As Kord prepared to fight, he realized that while the Qi extending from him didn't go far - only five meters or so - he could easily feel the metal of the enemy's weapons. He felt as though he could simply unmake them with a thought. It would be easy.

But that wasn't all. He did melt the weapons into a liquid metal, but all of it remained under his control. He moved the metal down from the weapons and into hands wielding each one. The poisonous substance seeped into each enemy and disabled them from the inside. Despite their unnatural strength, they didn't appear to have any Qi defenses at all.

The whole group of enemies were writhing on the ground from the poison in moments. A part of Kord was horrified at how easy it was, but they had hurt his family. And he had no idea they would have no defense against the attack - that had shocked him deeply after how easily they had physically overpowered him and his siblings.

Kord pushed the thoughts aside and rushed over to his siblings. He dropped to his knees and slid across the ground to check on Briar, who was closest. But in the same instant that he placed his hands on their body, the entire scene in front of Kord blurred and then collapsed altogether.

Kord felt his body straining for a moment, followed by vicious pain. It was unlike anything he had ever experienced before, as if his muscles were tearing themselves apart. His limbs were on fire and his entire torso was straining with pain. He doubled over, his blurry vision nothing but confusing shades of white and gray as he wretched, spitting up something. His initial thought was blood, but it wasn't smooth like blood should've been.

He wasn't sure how long he was in agony for, but eventually it started to subside. He could tell if it was over or if his body was growing numb after all the pain. He wanted to twist and writhe with the pain, to find a more comfortable position, but was either too exhausted to move or his body was simply done with following his whims.

Instead, his body pitched forward outside of his control. He had just one moment to think about how gross it would be for his face to land in whatever it was that he spat up before, knowing full well that was where his face would land.

And then hands caught him, stopping the tumble forward.

"You did fantastic, Kord. Well done."

He could hear the voice distantly, able to make out the words, but the voice sounded distorted and he couldn't place who it was. Or where he was.

But the fog over his mind was slowly lifting. The pain came rushing back all at once, but it was ebbing away as well. He had guessed that once it was subsiding, his body decided it didn't need the numbness anymore.

He blinked furiously, trying to clear the glassy white haze that covered it. He had heard of people's vision whiting out from pain before, but had never expected it to be so literal. But as the pain subsided, so did the blurriness of his vision.

Once his awareness came back, he was immediately disgusted. Ray was holding him up, for which he was grateful. But he also agreed with the looks on Ray's face, who clearly didn't want to be holding him up.

When feeling came back, Kord quickly became aware of being covered in gunk and refuse. It was standard for Breakthroughs, and he had known that moving into the Sky Realm was supposedly the worst step for it. But the stories didn't do it justice.

He stank worse than just about any other thing he had ever smelled. And whatever it was that he had coughed up might have been the worst of it - there was definitely some blood but there was also other…material. Kord couldn't stop himself from making a face.

Ray laughed at that. "Yeah. Yeah, it's nasty." Then he craned his neck toward the outside of the little chamber, where everyone was crowded around the entrance, having felt Kord's Breakthrough.

"Lyn? Avuri? Want to come in and help clean up?"

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