48 - Things Fall Apart

Chiara kicked my ass six ways from Sunday again. I was shivering by the time I was done with her, though the chill of her techniques did help prevent bruises from forming. Cycling madra took the edge off and eventually, I ended up fully recovering. 

During it all, I had teased out a third technique of hers, which I affectionately dubbed Ice Rink. She would Forge a flat plane of ice on the ground that extended away from her in about a twenty metre radius. 

Needless to say, it was annoying.

That wasn’t all that the Plane of the Frigid Perdition could do, however. Using a Ruler technique, she could in fact raise razor-sharp spikes of ice from the ground, just like earth-spike-man from Serpent’s Grave, only hers worked nearly instantly.

And to hear her tell it, that wasn’t the only thing the Plane could do.

Help! My Ice-Queen Girlfriend Is Totally Overpowered!

Thankfully, I had managed to go through with this sparring session in a healthy and non-passionate way. I had maintained neutrality, and prevented hostility from overtaking me during the act. The aftercare we had afterwards—a meal, kind words, and a few laughs—also reassured me that we were still doing good.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have the luxury of having so much time with her. Excluding around two hours daily, she was constantly on a mission or sleeping, and the Skysworn were putting me and the others through more trials to determine our levels and ranks within the Skysworn recruit pool, not that that meant anything to me.

Eventually, the day had come.

After a three-day crash course, we would graduate into apprentices.

My eyes were peeled like a hawk while we were outside the Skysworn ceremony hall, next to the training field. Naru Gwei was nowhere to be found. Instead, handing out the cloud pins indicating apprenticeship, was the number two, another Naru named Kong.

He was a handsome-looking man of middle ages, his Skysworn armour unblemished and pristine.

“Today marks the day when you were inducted into the greatest military force in the empire, the day you finally grew your wings and soared above the people of this realm in protection of them,” he spoke with an air of cold arrogance, implying that we should be so lucky that he was wasting his words on us. Clearly, the fact that the Skysworn’s standards had slipped during wartime was grating him.

For most of the graduates, he pinned the badges on their sacred arts robes personally. For us, he flew them to us with a Ruler technique, and we had to catch them out of the air.

“Might as well just scream he doesn’t like us,” Yerin mumbled. I decided to let it go, honestly. I had dealt with far too much Skysworn drama over the last few days that it no longer mattered to me. Once we hit treasure island, all this would seem like a distant dream.

First, we had to get past this shit. I looked over at the reddening horizon, knowing what was to come.

And I cast a glance at Bai Rou, who was among the other Skysworn officers in attendance.

Not this time, you fucking pig.

Soon, Naru Kong began to announce the teams. Like before, some teams received less or more sacred artists of the Lowgold or Highgold level than others, until finally the punchline arrived.

“Wei Shi Lindon Arelius, Yerin Arelius, Glassy Sky Arelius, Akura Mercy,” Naru Kong said, “To Bai Rou and Renfei.”

“Of course,” I murmured under my breath with a roll of my eyes. “The piggies.”

Since we were all standing next to each other to begin with, we just walked in a single line towards the two armoured Skysworn. I began to address Renfei, “I take it we aren’t getting paid for all our deployments during training.”

Renfei furrowed her eyebrows. “Who gave you permission to speak, apprentice?”

I’ll take that as a yes.

“We risked our hides contending against a Dreadgod, but that’s just any other day, right?” Yerin snarked, clearly also indignant about this treatment.

“You would have risked less doing the absolute necessary,” Renfei said. “Your heroism is appreciated, and that’s it. Keep being heroes, and we will also raise a nice little stone epitaph for you as well in one of our training fields, once you inevitably die.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said with a roll of my eyes.

“Silence. The captain isn’t done assigning teams yet.”

I stuck close to Yerin, Lindon standing close on the other side as well. Orthos was behind her, and surreptitiously, we all kept an eye on Bai Rou. Yerin squirmed under our collective protectiveness.

“A bit much, boys,” Yerin muttered, voice low enough that our piggy parents wouldn’t bite her head off for it. Mercy looked at us with a raised eyebrow, but didn’t ask what was the matter.

We watched the apprentices get divided into more and more teams until the pool had finally been exhausted.

“Permission to speak?” Lindon then said.

“Granted,” Renfei said with a long-suffering sigh.

“Why were we put together in this squad?” Lindon asked. “I assume it is because we are familiar to each other, but—”

“It’s because we would rather quarantine any… unpredictable elements of the Skysworn, and fully determine that you are on our side,” Renfei explained. She was watching her words in order to not insult Akura Mercy. “The reasons are obvious.”

“Do tell,” Yerin muttered.

“A Blackflame,” Bai Rou said, then he looked at me, “Eithan Arelius’ favorite little lapdog,” thanks man, I can do tricks as well. Then he looked at Yerin, and my spidey senses tingled.

“And the Sword Sage’s apprentice,” I interrupted, before he could say an emissary of Redmoon Hall and suddenly cause a kerfuffle.

Bai Rou looked at me in silence for a long few seconds. “I was going to say—”

“A Highgold with great fashion taste,” I interrupted again, “Apologies, please go on. You were about to explain Mercy’s situation.”

Bai Rou walked up to me so that he was looking down at me, and shaded me with his wide conical hat. “I clearly didn’t put you through enough, seeing as you’re still yapping away like a dog.”

“Woof,” I said.

“Bai Rou,” Renfei said, and he stepped back. Then she fixed me with a glare. “We are going to go through some private drills after this is over, Glassy Sky.”

I stood at ease and gave her a nod and a welcoming grin. “Yes, ma’am.”

I tried not to think more murderous thoughts, though. Those could get distracting, and we had way bigger fish to fry.

Airily, I said to no one in particular, “I do hope you treat Mercy with better care than any of us blackhearted rogues.”

Before Bai Rou could interrupt, Mercy spoke up, “Who is Eithan Arelius?”

“Patriarch of the Arelius clan,” I said, “The most fashionable Underlord in the land, our master, the teacher of my Path, and the most irritating man you’ll ever get to know. So irritating, in fact, that my association with him makes the Skysworn captain—who hates Eithan—also treat me like dog poop that he accidentally stepped on, when I’ve done absolutely nothing to deserve this kind of treatment.”

“Aw,” Mercy said, looking at me with sympathy. “I’m sorry about that.” 

“It’s fine,” I put a hand over my chest, “Though it hurts, I will endure, for the good of the empire. The Skysworn may not have lifted a finger to help the Arelius in our time of need, when we were being slaughtered by the Jai clan for the high crime of doing our jobs particularly well, but I have confidence that they will soon change their attitudes.” I gave a vicious grin to both Renfei and Bai Rou, daring them to say anything.

Bai Rou bit the bait. “Your Patriarch slaughtered the Jai clan in cold blood, and had Jai Daishou assassinated as well, after fighting him two against one.”

“Self-defence,” I said. “Don’t blame us for securing our holdings and workers when the law fails to protect them. We are janitors, for heaven’s sake! And they are warriors! Why do you suppose we would just randomly pick a fight—”

“That’s enough!” Renfei hissed. I raised my hands placatingly.

“I’m playing your game by your rules, Skysworn,” I said. “But I won’t be silenced for speaking the truth.”

“Sky,” Lindon said warningly. I gritted my teeth, but put on a grin once more. This wasn’t worth it.

“What I don’t understand,” Yerin said, arms folded as she looked at Mercy, “Is why you’re being treated like us.”

Mercy smiled awkwardly. “I’m here against my clan’s express wishes. I believe they may have told the emperor to put me in danger, and to not hold my hand. That won’t be too difficult. There are plenty of people that would take advantage of my powerlessness to settle a feud with my clan.”

Yerin blinked at that, and a flash of sympathy crossed her features. Then she turned her gaze back at Renfei. “This an execution squad, then? And you two drew the short straw?”

“We will extract maximal use out of you,” Renfei explained patiently, for Mercy’s benefit. “And you will do your jobs in service of the empire. To waste apprentices at this juncture—”

“Ones as talented as us,” I added.

Renfei didn’t acknowledge that, “With the Bleeding Phoenix ever-approaching, would not be wise.”

I chuckled, “Plus, they can’t outright kill us,” I said, “Because of the deal Eithan struck with the emperor. All they get to do is oink like the pigs they are.”

Bai Rou rushed towards me, and I stood my ground. “One more word out of you,” he growled, forehead pressing hard against mine. “And I will gladly sacrifice myself to silence you forever.”

I snorted, looking up at him with all the disdain I could muster. I revved my madra and opened my mouth to speak—

“Sky!” Lindon put a hand on my shoulder and pulled me back hard. That hurt. He turned to Bai Rou and gave him a bow. “Apologies for my friend.”

I rolled my eyes. What a circus show.

I fell back in line next to Yerin, but I still kept an eye on Bai Rou, ready to pull the spear I had strapped to my back right off of its leather harness and run him through at the slightest sign of bullshit.

Yerin scoffed. “If he thought we would just stand there like puppets watching that happen,” she murmured, “He wouldn’t even have had a Remnant to his name after we were done with him.”

I looked down at her, but she didn’t face me. I gave her a grateful nod anyway. Glad to know that she didn’t hate me.

Mercy bumped my shoulder with hers, and I cracked a small grin at that. “They will accept you in time. I’m sure of it.”

I shrugged with a smile. “Thank—”

I was interrupted by a horrifying shriek, the loudest thing I had ever heard in my life. I jumped almost five feet in the air, head swinging about for a source of—

The sky was red. The ground was red. Everyone was red, and everything was so loud!

I fumbled for the earplugs I had in my pocket, and tripped over my feet as the entire ground shifted beneath them.

I put the earplugs in, and felt immediate relief as the bindings within worked to block out the infernal screech that filled the air.

I looked around. The world was tilted. Everyone was either tripping or falling over to the side as Stormrock listed in pulses, as though an enormous fan was pushing everything away. I ripped my spear free from my back and stabbed it into the earth with Nova Blade, looking around to confirm how the others were doing. Mercy had attached herself to Strings of Shadow, bolting herself to the ground. Lindon was holding onto Orthos for dear-life, who was beginning to roll over as well. Little Blue was attached to his neck like a barnacle, mouth open in a soundless scream. Renfei was standing on a stormy cloud using her madra, and Bai Rou had ejected his emerald Thousand-Mile Cloud from his armour, holding onto that with clambering hands. 

Yerin had dug herself to the ground with her vibrating Goldsigns, shaking her entire form like she was having a seizure. My spirit could relate. Yerin’s too, for it spat out her Blood Shadow. It rolled out like a drunkard getting thrown out of a bar, before getting on its feet, sword raised at an unseen enemy, or perhaps as an ode to its birthing mother. Yerin froze the Blood Shadow with an outstretched hand.

Bai Rou roared at her, though I couldn’t hear what he said.

I got up to my feet, cycling Starfire Surge for dear life. My lowly Lowgold spirit could hardly compare to the oppressiveness of the Dreadgod’s mere proximity. A gust of incredibly dense wind almost blew me off my feet, but I held on to Star’s End for dear life, watching Bai Rou fly towards Yerin.

I sent a Solar Flare to him, channeling the technique through my hand. It wasn’t the best channel for the technique, but it was all I could do while I was using the spear as a climbing pick.

It struck him and his cloud. His armour shielded him from the worst of it, but the cloud dissipated almost immediately.

He rolled off the cloud and got to his feet as Stormrock straightened out.

Then I saw what the listing form of Stormrock had obscured all along: A vast, celestial painting of a bloody phoenix over the skies. It looked astronomical in scale, and covered an impossibly huge stretch of the horizon. It was huge, but unimaginably distant. The air itself obscured it in a translucent haze, and much of its bloody tail feathers were blocked out by the horizon itself.

000

It hurt to look at. My heart beat like a bongo drum, sending fresh waves of ecstasy through me. I grit my teeth, resisting the allure of this deadly rush, to try and focus on my friends.

The Bleeding Phoenix let out a screech. It was loud enough that I could hear it, even past my little earplugs. Not loud enough to scrape my ear canals raw, but still it shook my spirit, undoing the control I had established using the Eightfold Wheel. I doubled over and threw up on the ground.

I felt a burst of cloud hammer madra in my senses, and looked to see Yerin on the floor, bleeding from her skull. Renfei stood above her. The Blood Shadow was likewise reduced to a puddle of blood slowly receding back into Yerin’s body.

I screamed.

She ejected her Thousand-Mile Cloud. I tried to muster my madra for a Striker technique, but it was still a jumbled mess. I needed more time. Preferably forty-five minutes with the Eightfold Wheel.

I made to run after them instead. A hand grabbed me by my wrist, and I turned around with hatred in my eyes, until I saw who had held me. It was Chiara, eyes filled with terror and dread. Snowy madra plugged her ears, and the coldness darkened them in a blush. 

She shook her head.

I looked back at Renfei, flying off with Yerin. I looked back at Chiara. “I have to do this,” I said. I couldn’t hear my own voice, but Chiara likely could.

I shook myself away from her grip. She made to follow, but froze in her step somehow. I didn’t see fit to investigate that further.

I ran after Renfei’s Thousand-Mile Cloud as quickly as I could. I jumped and stabbed my spear into the wall of a building, quickly climbing to the top of it before continuing my run. 

I activated Starfire Surge as well as I could, willing my madra into togetherness once again. It worked. Barely. If only I had five minutes with the Eightfold Wheel, I could stabilize it much further, and fight at my best. For now, this was all I could do. I caught up with the Thousand-Mile Cloud just as they cleared the boundaries of Stormrock.

I had to follow. I could follow, too. I just needed to dig deeper. Use my techniques in ways I had never dared to before, for fear of injury. Now it was do or die.

I jumped onto empty air, and then forged Anvils underneath my feet, stepping on the non-explosive parts. They destabilized and exploded with each step, but the fraction of a second that I stood on them allowed me to stay airborne.

“RENFEEEEEEEEEI!” I roared. The Bleeding Phoenix was in the distance. We were moving towards it! The edge of Stormrock that we were in was closest to the Bleeding Phoenix, which was about the only reason I could imagine why Renfei would do this, other than to send some twisted message to Yerin, returning her from whence her power came. 

Renfei dropped Yerin and swung back towards Stormrock. That was her goal all along, getting Yerin out of the cloud island. I jumped to catch her. Her Goldsign slashed a gash on my arm, and I roared in pain, but I held on. Generating Anvil after Anvil under my feet to kill our downward momentum. My knees hurt with each collision.

I only created three before my madra stopped obeying me completely.

I looked down at the rapidly rising ground. I refused to let panic overtake me as I pointed my spear down towards it, firing out a beam of unfocused madra to generate lift.

It was hardly enough. I wasn’t slowing us down fast enough.

Then I felt a stab of agony in my back, and an upward force as well. I looked behind myself to see an arrow on my back, attached to a String of Shadow. I kept pouring my madra down on the ground, ignoring the screaming ache of my spirit. This time, it worked.

We hardly made a sound as we touched the ground.

Miniature figures were already down there. They looked like miniature spearmen, with hair that billowed like blood-red fire.

My Bloodspawn. I swung my spear with my good arm, wiping out as many as I could. I kept bleeding all over, summoning more. I wiped those out, too.

Despair was easy to fall into in this situation, but I held onto my emotions for dear life, making sure I kept focus on the task at hand.

This wasn’t the end of my story.

Around Yerin were Bloodspawn in her image as well, but they didn’t attack her. Instead, they only came after me. Without madra, I had to rely on the sharpness and reach of Star’s End to vanquish these meaningless enemies. The task felt almost too risky. Too terrifying.

Beside us, Lindon fell as well, light as a feather, and an arrow attached to his back as well. I followed the string of shadow up to see Akura Mercy rushing down, riding on Suu.

She jumped off after ten feet, and I steadied her to make sure that she didn’t fall. I almost fell as well doing just that. I felt… weak.

Mercy gasped as she saw me, and her mouth moved. I didn’t know what she was talking about until she finally pulled some things from her pockets. A pill. She shoved it to me roughly, and ran past me to Yerin, falling on her knees as she did.

I took the pill, and felt relief immediately. My wound shone with green light. The bleeding stopped, and the pain disappeared completely. I rubbed off the blood to look at the progress of the healing, and my stomach fell as I saw the damage that had been wrought on me.

A diagonal wound had severed muscle fibers on their way, cutting up my biceps and triceps—the ones on the side of my arm. I could barely curl up my arm.

In the distance, I spotted a meteor hurtling towards the ground, several miles out. It was Orthos. His aim had been awful, but Stormrock was miles up in the air.

Lindon grabbed me by the arm and pulled me in some way, the same way that Mercy was running, while supporting Yerin who was stumbling along. She was finally conscious.

I hefted Star’s End and let go of Lindon, scanning our surroundings for more Bloodspawn, killing those in my reach. Lindon did the same, awkwardly hefting the Death Scythe, using it more as a bludgeon than an effective weapon. I almost wept there and then. I should have given him a spear.

Despite the awkwardness, he was surprisingly adept. The Burning Cloak made any weapon in his hands a deadly one, especially against these creatures.

We made our way to a village practically crawling with Bloodspawn. I grit my teeth and forced my madra to obey me, clearing them away with Solar Flare. I had extended the frontline by almost thirty meters. Yerin sent out a Rippling Sword as well, now almost fully recovered, and Lindon too charged up a hefty Black Dragon’s Breath, decimating the lines further.

We went into the first house that we could, barricaded it with all the furniture and loose items in the vicinity. I cleared away the Bloodspawn feasting on the corpses of the family of five—three children and a pair of parents—, taking out their Remnants as well for good measure. They were harmless, nearly worthless in terms of danger, but I didn’t take any chances.

Finally, after we finished barricading the entrances, we ran down to a basement, barricading that entrance as well.

I took off my earplugs with my good right hand, inspecting the wound on my arm. It had stopped healing. There was a crevice on my arm that severed muscle fibres from each other, nearly paralysing my left arm.

“Orthos is outside,” Lindon shouted desperately.

“He’ll find us,” Yerin said, “His Jade sense is stronger.”

I looked around the bare basement. This wasn’t supposed to happen. This—

My arm was numb!

I walked up to Yerin. “How are you doing?” Her face was still slick with blood from where Renfei had struck her.

“Feeling peachier by the minute,” Yerin said. “I can fight.” She looked at my arm. “Can you?”

I nodded. 

“Your arm!” Mercy cried. I turned to her and shook my head frantically.

“I can fight,” I said. 

“Do you need another pill?”

Would another pill fix this? Before I could deny that bit of charity—we needed to save all that we could for a real emergency, not for… not for me. I was dragging us down already—she put a new pill in my hand. I prayed to the heavens for mercy and swallowed the pill.

My arm started burning with this feeling of healing. The crevice in my arm that severed muscles shallowed, but it didn’t disappear completely. I could move my arm now, but it was weaker than my right side. Not all the fibers had connected.

I heard a distant shattering on the top floor. “Bloodspawn inbound,” I said, hefting my spear. I tried to cycle my madra, but found that I literally couldn’t. Fuck. “I need you to cover for me while I cycle.”

I sat down. Yerin looked down at me in shock. “Why?”

“Need to wrangle my madra,” I said. “Please.” Then I closed my eyes and focused on the Eightfold Wheel. Under the light of the Phoenix, that task had never been more difficult.

000

All of Yerin’s swords were focused on the singular task of cutting down as many of the Bloodspawn that had broken through their basement barricade.

The little monsters went down so easily, like they weren’t even focused on her. Eventually, as one jumped clean past her to try its luck with Lindon, who cut it in half mid-air with his clunky scythe, she realized that they weren’t focused on her.

As Mercy’s arrows rained over her shoulder, she began to hone in on this strangeness in her spiritual perception. She could sense the Bloodspawn, obviously, but she could sense something in them as well.

They… they saw her as one of them.

Could she control them?

She reached out to try and freeze them in their spot, but it was futile. None of them stopped. Instead, they kept attacking everyone except for her.

Instead of stopping them, she pushed them. They started swarming Lindon as one. His eyes widened, and he activated the Burning Cloak to cut the Bloodspawn down like grass. He was scarily effective against these opponents, like his scythe had been made to kill many weak opponents. His tallness and long arms lended him an immense reach as well, hitting targets as far as twelve feet away.

She looked behind to see Sky cycling. He must have had a reason for doing this. She wouldn’t question it.

Instead, she began pushing the Bloodspawn to target him.

“They’re after Sky!” Yerin shouted. Lindon received a well-earned reprieve as the Bloodspawn changed course, and Yerin joined in on the slaughter, taking them out from the side. This was the way. With none of the spawn focusing on any of her party except for Sky, all of them could focus on eliminating them far before they ever reached Sky.

And on it went.

Yerin and the others had found a stable set-up, but over time, she noticed that they were ever-so-slowly pushing forward. Not backward.

Ten feet. Lindon blasted them with Blackflame, but that had hardly pushed the rising tide back. Instead, the  Bloodspawn increased in number, and the others increased their effort. Still, they would eventually exhaust themselves.

Eight feet. Yerin’s swords rang like a bell as she activated the Endless Sword. Aura worked particularly poorly against spiritual opponents. Her attack had hardly made a dent.

Six. Mercy had advanced to Highgold. Yerin barely had time to cast her a surprised look as she seamlessly began to use Highgold madra, like she had been veiled all along. They pushed the tide back and bought themselves more time, but it wouldn’t last. Eventually, Mercy went back down to Lowgold. This time, she did look at her in shock, but Mercy kept on firing arrow after arrow from her draconic staff, locked in on the battle.

Five. Her Blood Shadow began to stir. The beating it had received from Renfei seemed to have only destabilized its form, but after feeding on her spirit, it was back to good condition. And in the light of the Phoenix, she doubted it would be particularly open to cooperation. She’d rather not add to their troubles. In any case, she’d bleed before ever using its power.

Four.

Three.

Two feet away from the tide of Bloodspawn that had created a funnel towards Sky, the white-haired man opened his eyes, grabbed his spear, and stabbed it forward, releasing a Striker technique that decimated the whole line in blinding white fire.

The difference was like night and day. They fought back the tide with ease once he had joined the mess.

Above, Blackflame madra roared in her spiritual senses, and the tide of Bloodspawn abated even more. “Up!” Sky shouted. “We need to clear the surface and barricade again! Or pick a new house!”

“New house!” Yerin roared back. This one had already endured hundreds of techniques from Bloodspawn. It would be worth less than a shack made of straw even if they barricaded it again.

They cut their way through and up again, rejoining Orthos, who was releasing a merciless barrage of Blackflame at all the Bloodspawn. That was worrisome. Yerin wondered if he maybe was overdoing things. 

Sky arrived with his Striker technique, clearing out more of the Spawn. But it was an endless tide. And they were only five. 

000

Turning and turning in the widening gyre, the falcon cannot hear the falconer. Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold, mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere, the ceremony of innocence is drowned.

Was this Yeats’ intent? Probably not. He spoke of a war of men, not a war of monsters. But war made monsters of men, so maybe… 

I couldn’t think of a better use of the poem. The Second Coming was all that would save us now, in a very literal sense. A God would have to rescue us. A Monarch.

My channels were at the end of their useability. I had gone beyond pain, and I probably hurt myself in a way. Luckily, my spirit was probably better at recovering than my body was.

I couldn’t squeeze out another technique. My left arm was still weak. I was running purely on my Iron body and Star’s End’s inherent sharpness.

It would have been fun, disability aside, if only I was alone. Instead, I was with friends.

And this could be our last day on Cradle.

The blood-red world shook. As one, all the bloodspawn in the vicinity popped like balloons, their madra dissipating into essence before it could even touch the ground. Darkness swept us like a chill wind of death, tossing us off our feet. Orthos rolled over his shell several times.

I knew what this was, but before I could look around, my spirit screamed.

One bloodspawn had not died.

It was a round orb of blood madra that reeked of slaughter, far denser than any of the other bloodspawn. It was five feet away, crawling through a pair of houses. Crawling towards me.

I dug into my body’s hysterical strength and threw myself as far away as I could, flying almost ten feet away from a grounded jump on all fours.

The Blood Shadow flew after.

Mid-air, it released a starburst javelin towards me.

It struck my chest, through my chest.

The heavens were a vast violet crystal.

And I was going to die.

I barely noticed as a black hand shoved something down my throat, sending a burning sensation through my chest. A technique of darkness almost pierced me—

—it was inside me.

Against the agony of my channels, I cycled my madra to protect my core from the questing tendrils of the blood shadow, already latching onto my spirit, threading around my channels like hanging vines, parasitizing my madra, my blood essence, my very life.

I couldn’t get rid of it. I couldn’t control my spirit to such an extent. I wasn’t a Peak Truegold.

It was over.

I opened my eyes one last time to take in the world.

I was on someone’s shoulder. Behind them, where I faced, hundreds of miles away, a human-shaped amethyst did battle against a bleeding bird. Mountains crumbled, blood-soaked clouds split.

And that would be the story of me.