"The Asderod King dwells in spaces between. It appears as a perfect circle. A serpent with no beginning, no end, only eternal return. At its center burns an eye that should not exist. Those who meet its gaze inherit the curse of perpetual hunger. It is to be named, Saavi'Agita."
- The Prana Bible, Author Unknown
...
Black clouds blanketed the sandy desert as thunder roared off in the distance, a start to the autumnal season.
When Shai Jura opened his eyes, obsidian surrounded him in an unfamiliar, plain black room. The walls were smooth as marble and reflective like clean glass.
This is not a hospital, but the royal Imuat castle! Sindra must have brought me here out of guilty conscience.
The isolation told him everything. No servants attending him, no doctors watching him, just a plain room.
Looking out from a window, he saw the endless expanse of sandy dunes off into the distance, no civilization nor noticeable terrain difference for miles on end.
It was as if he were staring into a sea of sand.
Looking down at his stumps, he saw skin had already sealed over where his arms had once been severed.
He knew there were cultivators, alchemists, and doctors that could give him arms again, however right now he couldn't afford this waste of time.
Shai Jura needed to start blood cultivation within three days, the process that would transcend his natural form and awaken his channels. However without proper resources, such as his hands, it was impossible, especially now as a cripple.
The loss of his arms while impermanent, would cost him memories that he learned during his time as a forbidden cultivator.
This one mistake during his conflict with Sindra would cost him knowledge worth millions of lyre, enough to purchase an entire kingdom's province.
Knowledge was power, if Shai Jura were to lose it, he would lose all his power.
Knowing this, a deep depression settled in his heart, a reminder of the futility he faced in his situation.
What if I guilt trip Sindra into helping me? No- That would take too long.
New arms didn't matter anymore. This was not just a setback of his plans, but complete annihilation.
He tried to think of alternatives. Anything that could help.
Join any cultivation sect? Even as a cripple?
Every path, every idea, every thought that Shai Jura had, led to him despairing even further.
His chest tightened. Breathing became difficult, each inhale shorter than the last.
For the first time in thirty-three years, sixty-six across two lifetimes, Shai Jura felt true hopelessness.
A tear fell from his eye as he stumbled out of bed, his body colliding with the floor.
Another tear fell as he stared down at the floor on all fours, splashing wide onto the black pavement.
Then another. And another.
Until nothing but cries and tears came from his eyes.
His shoulders shook as tears fell faster, blurring the obsidian beneath him.
He tried to stop it, couldn't. His body rebelled against sixty-six years of forced control. All the deaths, all the sins, all the choices that led him here crashing down onto him at once.
His sobs filled the room as he trembled on the floor, unable to suppress his shame even in complete isolation.
He was pathetic. He was broken. And he was nothing.
I am not a king. I will never rule through permission again.
I am not a god. I will never wait to be believed in again.
And I am not a savior. I will never be selfless ever again.
All these things that I am not. Define what I truly am.
Shailyth Al'Jura. My true name. Loser, and winner.
As minutes passed, or even hours, his tears finally stopped flowing.
All the sadness that had plagued his heart had finally been flushed out, leaving him hollow.
He was left emotionless and thoughtless.
Lying still on the floor, no trace of humanity remained.
His eyes tracked dust motes without registering them, lifeless.
The red road will not wait for me.
He pushed himself upright, as sheer malice burned behind his amber eyes.
I don't need new arms. I don't need new powers. I need new methods.
He opened his mouth wide, then stuck out his tongue, a dark blue sigil etched onto the surface of his tastebuds.
Once during his youth, his mother told him about his illicit nature. Something he'd been born with, never leaving his side.
He had a sickness, yet she called it power, and also burden. One that heavily outweighed the power.
His father was the person who endowed this sickness onto him, yet Shai Jura never knew his father, nor seen him.
He had no knowledge of what this sickness was, yet it had always been with him, restrained for a reason.
Now it was time to find out, this was a test.
He was unsure as to what would happen, however he had no choice. Shai Jura fully committed to it anyways.
Clink!
His teeth chopped off his tongue like a guillotine, and blood spattered from his mouth.
The tongue hit the floor with a wet slap. He clamped his jaw shut, swallowing the scream. His eyes watered again, not from sadness this time, but pain.
Yet in the next moment, a rush overtook him. That unique compulsion, hunger.
Ah!
Primal nature overtook him. He opened his mouth and chewed his tongue to shreds, letting blood pool onto the obsidian.
There was no thought within Shai Jura, only action.
As he swallowed chunks of himself, a scorching heat flooded his mouth, setting it ablaze.
Regeneration.
The flow of blood stopped, and conscious thought returned to his mind.
"Ha."
A laugh escaped him, full of disbelief.
"What just happened?!"
His new tongue moved freely in his mouth, as he continued to laugh with indomitable power, and relief.
He turned his gaze to his two stumps, studying the residual flesh with cold calculation.
As he examined them, doubt clouded his resolve.
He hesitated at many of his thoughts, theories and ideas that could lead him to the path of salvation.
Uncertainties loomed over his mind, until he committed, starting with his left stump.
His tongue was simply a test, and the regeneration was simply confirmation.
He was not in a frenzy unlike when eating his tongue, but fully aware, and fully disgusted.
He could only take a few bites at a time, no carnage, just the scene of a picky eater.
Disgust.
Shai Jura felt only disgust as he gnawed the skin from bone, as if he were feasting upon a lamb shank, except the lamb was himself.
Victory doesn't call to those disturbed. Nor to those unresolved. I cannot allow my emotions to get the better of me.
He felt like throwing up while eating the chunks, resolving himself against the regurgitation.
Resolve. Resolve. Resolve.
He kept telling himself.
This is a heaven sent opportunity. To have a method of regaining my arms, I cannot even complain. Not even for a second.
He tensed up his skin and throat in pure determination, eating until parts of his bones lay exposed.
When Shai Jura looked, concentrated heat erupted from within his left arm, as if the sun itself burned inside. Veins, nerves, skeleton, blood, skin, all of it regenerated as it worked its way up from his wrist, a grotesque yet beautiful sight to Shai Jura.
Victory comes at certain costs. Shai Jura knew this truth. There was definitely a downside to his sickness, yet he didn't know what it was, only that he would have to pay later, and his hands felt borrowed.
As Shai Jura flexed his arms again, there was only the slight unnatural feeling that his hands were gloves, not truly his.
Yet this sanction passed, buried beneath his relief.
He did what no one else could in his position. That is what this trial had taught him. Even if he had to tread through countless obstacles, nothing would stop him.
Flexing his left arm now, his olive skin stretched against his fingers as he made a fist.
It. Worked.
He thought with bitter approval, looking down to his right stump. This time there was no hesitation, no disgust, but necessity.
As his right arm regenerated, elation flooded through him, a rush of supremacy that eclipsed everything else.
The same euphoria from his execution returned. A transcendence like no other. His eyes rolled back slightly as wind washed over him, cool and cleansing.
Looking out the window once more, hands clutching the sill, the endless desert sang to him as black clouds blanketed the sky.
It truly is time for the autumnal season. Is it not?
Shai Jura thought.
Now with his arms back, it was time to set in motion the dominos he had placed during his confrontation with Sindra.
The seed of guilty conscience he'd planted on Sindra was leverage. He wasn't using it for evil, but rather personal benefit.
Actions must produce results.
Something was moving within the Imuat household. Something unknown to its elders that would disturb everything they'd built.
As Shai Jura's new hands pushed the door open, he stepped into the depths of the Imuat castle, something watching him from beyond.
What lay ahead was not a simple conflict: it was Shai Jura himself against the Imuat clan head and everything they represented.