Maya's little face went a shade darker. You blind old goat — you've talked yourself straight into your own hype, haven't you? A couple of compliments and suddenly you really are the Linghu Chong of K'un-Lun?
"Master, your foolish disciple is slow. Would you mind explaining in more detail?" Maya said coolly.
Stick ignored the ice in her tone. He seemed to sink into some memory. "K'un-Lun is not Mount Hua, and the Seven Capital Cities are not the Five Mountains. But K'un-Lun has a supreme scripture all its own. Maya — do you know of K'un-Lun's Immortal Weapon, the Iron Fist?"
Something flickered in Maya's face. She played dumb on purpose. "Some kind of kung fu, like the Iron Palm?"
Stick shot her a disdainful glance, as if to say outsiders really are outsiders — no culture at all.
"The Iron Fist is K'un-Lun's mightiest weapon, and the guardian of K'un-Lun's gate. Every Iron Fist is the strongest disciple of his generation. So the Iron Fist is power — and it is also an honor. And the training method that forges an Iron Fist is K'un-Lun's Zixia Divine Art."
"No way. You defected from K'un-Lun and you still know a secret like that? How are you even still alive?"
Maya was genuinely startled. On TV the Iron Fist was a hot mess of a fighter, yet still the strongest of the Defenders — proof enough that the Iron Fist lineage itself was formidable. And this old codger Stick had a treasure like that? Unbelievable. Was Stick actually drop-dead gorgeous in his youth? Like Linghu Chong — handed the Nine Swords of Dugu, the Star-Sucking Art, the Muscle-Tendon Transformation Classic, no strings attached, no responsibility required?
"I told you once before — K'un-Lun's method for cultivating Chi was developed and derived from the Chi of Shou-Lao the Undying, out of another dimension. The difference between an Iron Fist and an ordinary cultivator is this: the Iron Fist's seed of power is granted by Shou-Lao, while a common cultivator like me grows his own seed by comprehending the universe and cultivating it himself. Put it this way — Shou-Lao's power is Chi, but Chi is not Shou-Lao's power. Our Chi is what the holders of Shou-Lao's power distilled and mapped out by studying the way that power moved through them."
Stick's explanation was a little dense, but Maya more or less caught it. Chi cultivation was born out of Shou-Lao's power — but you can't cultivate Shou-Lao's power out of Chi itself. Only someone granted the pure Chi of Shou-Lao, and who then cultivates Chi, can become the Iron Fist.
Stick nodded, satisfied. "The child can be taught! If you had the Chi of Shou-Lao, I could make an Iron Fist of you too. A pity — only one person per generation is granted it, and that person is fated not to be you. After all, I'm no longer of K'un-Lun."
"By the same token, K'un-Lun's Nine Swords of Dugu do exist — as a book. You could call it The Book of the Iron Fist. It records every martial technique in the world. Tell me — does that count as the Nine Swords of Dugu or not?"
"A single book can really record all martial arts?" Maya was deeply skeptical.
Stick shook his head with a smile. "Whether it records them all, I couldn't say. But it is the accumulated experience and insight of every Iron Fist who ever lived, and it is beyond question a treasure without equal in this world. Don't get ideas, though — I don't have it. It stays in the hands of the current Iron Fist, always."
"All right. Then why did you leave K'un-Lun? It sounds like a place with a bright future."
"Didn't I say? I'm the Linghu Chong of K'un-Lun. I couldn't stomach their isolationist creed, so I came down the mountain." Stick brushed it off lightly.
Seeing that Maya didn't buy it, he explained further. "K'un-Lun cares only for guarding the gateway to that other dimension — nothing else concerns them. One day I encountered a terrible creature from another realm. To stop it, a few of my fellow disciples and I came down the mountain together. We broke with K'un-Lun and joined Peng Lai, one of the Seven Capital Cities. Later, to meet the coming of the Beast, we of Peng Lai founded the Chaste. The Chaste was created for one purpose: destroy the Black Sky, stop the Beast from descending. The Black Sky is the medium that bridges to that dimension, and the Beast is the creature born inside it."
Maya said thoughtfully, "So the Black Sky is like the Iron Fist, and the Beast is like Shou-Lao's power?"
"No." Stick's rebuttal was stern. "That thinking of yours is wrong. Shou-Lao's power is gentle, without side effects. The Beast has already developed a mind — an aberrant mind. Steep yourself in its taint and your soul becomes its slave, and the world is destroyed for it."
At bottom, they're the same thing, Maya thought. The God Tree Chakra tainting my own body is exactly this. The God Tree wanted to end the world too — and the ninja still live large and worry-free.
The skepticism plain on Maya's face only stoked Stick's anger. "Maya — there have been others who thought as you do. It's true, their source is the same: another dimension, and both seem there to be drawn on and used. But you, and all of them, forget one thing. The energy of the other dimension is only the seed that awakens our cultivation. What truly makes us strong is ourselves. If your own will is defiled, then what meaning is left in cultivation at all?"
"Fine, Master! What you say makes good sense, and I agree. The Black Sky must be destroyed; the Beast's descent must be stopped. Say — why do you people call it 'the Beast' anyway? Couldn't you slap a word in front to dress it up a little? Something like the Ultraman kaiju? Just plain 'the Beast' has no flair." Maya nodded along, then floated a fresh question.
Stick thought for a moment. "Contract with the Beast and you become undying, deathless — but the price of it makes plain death look like a bargain. When you meet one of those, you'll understand why they're called the Black Sky. And 'the Beast' is not its true name. We use so vague a term because a bloody price forced it on us."
"Back then it had no such name — we all called it by its true one. But — hah. Of the fellow disciples who came down the mountain with me, there were dozens. Of those still living today, you might count one and a half."
The way Stick kept circling the point only whetted Maya's curiosity. "What happened? What exactly went on?"
Stick's face went grim and shadowed. "Anyone who speaks its true name aloud is sensed by it. In the unseen places, their bond with the Beast strengthens. That's how so many were lured, and in the end fell to become the Black Sky. And so another organization was born — our sworn enemy, the Hand."
"The Hand — they're the Beast's underlings?" Maya asked.
"We never meant to found the Chaste, you understand. We were all people of the Seven Capital Cities, and we were fighting evil from another dimension — no need to stand up a separate organization. But the Beast is cunning. It granted a portion of its might to the humans it had bewitched, and those humans built the Hand to serve it. To answer the Hand, the Chaste was born — the very organization you joined today. Well? Any regrets?" So Stick laid out the origins of the Hand and the Chaste.
"Master, I have a question. How long has the Beast existed?" Maya asked.
Stick considered. "The records say several thousand years, at least. We're hardly the first to stand against it. Why do you ask?"
"Then — has the Beast ever descended on Earth? Can its descent truly destroy the world?" Maya pressed.
"That — that is perhaps because of our efforts. Our forebears also—"
Maya cut him off cold. "Well, there's your answer. Several thousand years, and Earth's still humming along just fine. Either the Beast is all bark and no bite, or there's someone taller holding up the sky. Sorry to say it, Master — but you really aren't that taller someone."