====== 8 - The Secret of Oza ==========
If Anubis had always told me where to go, I would probably have turned into an amoeba, incapable of thinking for myself. Yes, I could at least calculate my moves, but sometimes I really needed his advice on what to do next. Now, for example, my only guide for the near future was Wan Shi Tong. Without him, I wouldn't even know which spirit to strike first, let alone convince Oza that he shouldn't burn the whole world to the ground. Until I heard from him, I was useless.
However, there was still one spirit I could count on one hundred percent. While waiting for the moment when Kuruk would receive Aang's message and come to visit, I had already worked out a good backup plan. Its basis was to find out from this traveller through the astral plane how to prevent new spirits from breaking into our world. That is, literally to block access to my dimension for Kohu and his ilk, and he could then reveal the initial details of this "spiritual society."
And this happened when Azula and I were slowly returning to the capital. Impassable cliffs and huge volcanoes gave way to rough terrain through which the main road passed. The views had already become familiar, and there was no sea or even a river to break up the atmosphere. I was as alert as possible, so when a transparent creature suddenly appeared out of the air and my lizard almost crashed into it, I frowned sharply and stopped. Under Azula's strange gaze, I turned back and asked to make a stop.
Not far from the road, I built two small houses, asked not to be disturbed for at least a couple of minutes, and locked myself in my private one-story earthen cottage.
"Is he hinting that I've been bothering him with my chatter? Azula frowned, tapping her chin. "I see, I thought that to win him back from Tai Li, I had to be just as clingy and irritating. So I need to change my approach. I'm gaining more and more experience.
Having created a table and a stone chair inside his beautiful and architecturally designed building, he focused on a point in space that was on the opposite side of the table. In just a couple of seconds, a silent, transparent man dressed in some kind of bear skin began to materialise there. His whole appearance exuded complete seriousness, and seeing this, I nodded respectfully.
"You are quite easy to find, Dagoth. If I can, so can other spirits, perhaps ones who are not so kindly disposed towards you.
"That's why I called you," we exchanged very attentive glances for a second. I began to understand Kuruka's character better, and he understood how far I had advanced in the spiritual arts. I could even feel silent sympathy in response to my open chakra. It would seem that any friend would have come to my defence, but he understood what a burden that would be. "You are vulnerable now," he smiled tensely. "Does that mean you want to get rid of the threat? Did you call me because I know the Spirit who can easily take away all your hope, pride, and very desire to live?
"Spot on. You may not agree with me, but I believe that spirits should not interfere in the world of humans and do as they please. They do not agree to participate in politics like humans do, they are more difficult to negotiate with, which means they need to be restricted... What can you say to that?
The spirit to whom I spoke these words only sighed in disappointment. But not because of disappointment, but rather because of his own powerlessness: Kuruk calmly told me that Koha could not simply be taken and killed, if only because then all those whose faces he had stolen would die. He is as ancient a spirit as Tu and La, and one of the few who remembers how spirits passed into the physical world. The former Avatar has been searching for centuries for a way to bring his wife back from the clutches of the many-legged monster. Nothing has worked. But he has been doing it alone...
If he had a helper, he could take a completely absurd but effective step.
"Dagoth, do you know a way for a spirit to kill even a mortal? If a spirit passes into the mortal plane and attaches itself to something, it takes on a mortal form, like Tui and La. This is called spiritual-mortal transcendence. This way, without possessing any special chakra, you can take a spirit's life.
Afka was the same; even a mere mortal could harm her. But as Kuruk said, there was no point in threatening to kill Koh to force him to return all the faces. First, he would not make concessions to a human, and second, who the hell was going to kill him? We had to force him into mortal form to pull off the trick.
"One young man, Yoon, managed to kill a spirit that was considered as dangerous as Koh. It was Firefly's father, one of the most vicious creatures in the world — a giant eye with dozens of slimy green tentacles, capable of opening doors to the mortal world," I froze at the mention of this man. "He merged with him, subjugated the spirit, and then killed it inside himself.
"Wait, Yoon... is that Kioshi's lover? He merged with spirits?
"You know him? - Kuruk blinked in surprise. "Yes, it's him. I used to mentor Kioshi and saw their skirmishes. Yoon was a true genius of earth magic, but to match the Avatar's power, he developed his own method of subjugating spirits. He only used this technique once. To keep himself from going mad, he had to use the Light Chakra and suppress the spirit with energy magic... even then, he lost to Kioshi, but he still controlled the spirit as he pleased. This is the first time in history that a mere human has been able to subdue a spirit with force.
Suppressing a spirit and merging with it... The thought overwhelmed me so much that I immediately thought of Ozae — could he be planning to use the same method as Yoon? Was there any legacy left from that genius? And why not? The Fire Nation had conquered most of the world's territories; they could have learned anything.
It was as if a mini-nuclear bomb had exploded in my head. I understood exactly how Oza planned to achieve this and where he had learned about such a terrifying method. But here's the strange thing: he'll have to make the comet deadly in order to subjugate it... It sounded absurd, but the Fire Lord must have a plan for that too.
Immersed in this story, we discussed how we could pull something like this off with Koch. Kuruk even perked up at the thought of having an accomplice, happily sharing with me information about all the spirits he knew and how to summon them.
"There are several places in the world where spirits come from. Apart from Father Firefly, who is capable of creating passages himself, the most famous door is the misty swamp. Going to the spirit world yourself is suicide; you're not the Avatar, who could wield power there. We'll have to summon him to the material world and make sure he doesn't escape before it's time... let's do it.
A brief intrigue turned into a whole grand plan that inspired me more and more. I understood what I could strive for and wanted to accomplish the task. When it was time to say goodbye to Kuruk, he said only one thing to me:
"Be careful, Dagoth. You may have noticed that the spirits have been waking up and becoming more active lately..." I stopped, a thoughtful look on my face. I remembered the fiery dogs I had recently seen near one of the volcanoes. Yes, I wonder why they woke up now," "The winter solstice is coming. It is the day when the boundaries between worlds are blurred, some creatures can enter the world at will, and others gain full power.
"And when will that day come?"
"It's already here," the spirit quickly disappeared, leaving me confused. I had to quickly remove the walls of my house and look around. The first thing I saw was Azula, looking bored, sitting in front of a fire. No, she wasn't cold, it was just that the whole night had passed, morning was coming, and it was quite dark. The morning of the realm of spirits. I sat there talking for several hours...
"Is that all?" She gave me a very, very angry look. "You spent the night in a house with no doors or windows. Did you sleep well? You could have at least told us we were spending the night here..."
I somehow forgot about her. The girl's level of dissatisfaction exceeded all known limits, now she was angrier than when I threw sand in her mouth, and her anger was accompanied by resentment. It is impossible to describe what she is capable of in such a state, but... she won't have time to do it. I didn't notice it at first, but the ground was shaking strangely. It was as if someone was kicking it hard, causing a resonating echo. Turning back, I also noticed dust rising.
"Where did you turn? I won't forgive you for this.
"Stop. Something's coming towards us," I raised my hand, and she did indeed become more serious. Standing next to me, she squinted and began to look at the people appearing from behind a large hill... at first just a couple of tired and unremarkable men, then armed soldiers and mages, and finally tanks rolled out, filling the entire horizon. They came out onto the main road, heading straight for us. "That's...
"Hm? It looks like a motley army unprepared for war... a militia? Azula raised her eyebrows.
"Militia suppression 0/1000."
The inscription that appeared before my eyes, which I had last seen when I was killing the bugs, confirmed Azula's words. However, it made me fall silent — a thousand enemies at once? I thought we were only dealing with a thousand, no one said they would come in a group, with such evil faces and the intention to beat someone up.
"Father was right, we need to kill them with a fire mage so we don't lose any of our people. Let's go, they're coming straight at us," Azula quickly jumped onto her varan, pulled on the reins and turned to me... standing in one place, with clenched fists and my head down. "Am I supposed to leave on my own? Let's just tell Father, and he'll cut down anyone who doesn't want to surrender.
"How do you expect me to defeat an army? - whispering under my breath so that it was almost impossible to make out, I began to stamp my feet on the ground," - Think, head, think. What good is Chin's experience to you?
"Wh... where are you going? - Frowning, Azula noticed me marching towards the army," - You suicidal fool, you think you're tougher than my father? Oh, go ahead, I'll see how your stone armour shatters into pebbles. You'll run out of breath faster than the enemies will run out.
She stayed where she was, not joining me in open confrontation. I understand that she was used to acting cunningly rather than banging her head against an enemy she couldn't defeat. But now it was a different situation. Standing in the middle of the road, a couple of hundred metres from the approaching army, I could see their murderous faces even better. The front ranks stopped when they saw me, and a wave of whispers and discontent swept through the crowd. Those who saw me wailed about how they wanted to kill me, but a couple of people prevented anyone from attacking. Another, sitting on one of the iron death machines called tanks, jumped to the ground and approached a little closer.
"It's you, Sand Mage Dagoth, isn't it? - the stranger's face was filled with rage," - We have gathered to take revenge on you. You turned our loved ones into mummies incapable of communication; you are Ozai's closest ally, allowing him to commit atrocities and destroy our nature.
"It's a good thing the informant from the capital gave us the right information, my fists are itching.
"Hey, you freak, we should support the spirits' opinions, not turn a blind eye to them! For the spirits!
"For our broken hopes!
Others supported the shouts of the apparent leader. Someone even threw a couple of stones, which didn't even come close.
With every passing second, the trash became more audible, surrounding me on all sides and blocking my escape routes. Tanks drove forward, magicians stood on the roofs to pour water on me from above. Some wanted to kill me for my loved ones, others for supporting Oza, not the brightest, not the happiest, in short, a herd that had decided to go against progress.
"You are lucky that you met me. If you had encountered Oza's army, you would already be scattered as ashes around the area. You are looking at mercy incarnate," I raised my hand and made everyone looking at me grab their weapons or prepare their magic, then I quietly snapped my fingers. "I guessed you would send tanks. Corrosion.
VSHUKH*
In a single second, the ground beneath the tanks turned to sand and formed whirlwinds. Nothing that would cause any trouble to people, it only blinded the soldiers standing on the tanks and raised a cloud, causing those around them to gulp. At first glance, those inside the iron machines felt fine. They moved forward and tried to fire at me... but then their machines began to creak. First, the tracks and bottoms of the military vehicles rusted and quickly broke off, followed by the walls and roofs, which simply burst and deformed, accelerating the already rapid process of destruction.
Layers of burnt steel began to bend and scatter around in the form of a dark orange coating. Rust, or iron oxide, which disintegrated extremely easily, began to form a cloud of dense iron sand around me, protecting me from the barrage of fire that had begun. The tanks that did not approach me also disintegrated, first due to corrosion, and then turned into sand, which began to spin rapidly around me, creating flashes of lightning.
"Militia suppressed 15...31...54/1000."
It was difficult to hit a really large group of people because they all started running and managed to scatter the sand particles with single volleys. They crowded together and arrived in an endless stream; at this rate, their endurance would not last.
"And now erosion," I said, looking down at the ground and making it tremble. A thick steel shield protected us from large volleys, the scraping of pitchforks and kitchen knives, allowing us to destroy the rock and create extremely unstable soil.
Cra-a-a-ng*
"Wh-what's happening? It can't be, is the earth shaking? - People felt the ground slipping away from under their feet, the amplitude grew until... I suddenly pushed myself high into the sky. In an instant, I was about fifty metres high, and some of those who noticed froze with their jaws hanging open. Dozens of fireballs rushed after me in an instant, not noticing the huge iron fan that had formed in front of me.
The first swing was followed by a giant underground shockwave that knocked a hundred or more people onto their backsides. The fireballs were deflected, unable to even scratch the hardest sand. The second swing shifted a huge section of earth to one side, pulling the people there in the same direction. There was no third blow. Instead, the fan allowed itself to be pushed back and slammed back into the ground, where I landed with such a crash that...
THREE-E-E-ESK*
The earth swelled, and huge cracks began to spread from where I landed, tearing the ground apart with increasing force the further they were from me. The battlefield was divided into separate sectors, but only at first glance. In reality, when viewed from above, the entire army was separated by a large circular canyon so that no one could escape.
The weakening of the soil allowed for such a large-scale effect, but it only frightened the troops. The final blow that would force them all to surrender was... a swamp.
"It's impossible to create a suspension without water, and we're far from the sea or a river," I said, putting my hands behind my back and looking at the man sitting on his backside, who was crawling away from me in terror. But he was the first to speak to me, the commander of this whole ragtag bunch," But underground sources contain enough moisture to irrigate all of this before the battle.
Bang* Splash*
The ground opened up beneath the man, but before he fell into the giant hole, a geyser of water shot up from below under enormous pressure. And not only beneath him — dozens, hundreds of water sources began to open up across the battlefield, turning the soil into an extremely watery mass that first began to bubble and then mix, creating deep black mud. Bodies sank and could not escape. Those who saw this tried to escape before the ground gave way beneath their feet, but the canyons simply prevented them from getting anywhere beyond the arena.
"Militia defeated: 242...415...611/1000."
The militiamen did not consider themselves defeated as long as they were able to fight, so I continued to unleash storms of iron sand on the people, faster than I had ever done before; I immobilised them with sticky mud and dragged them back into the embrace of the swamp with my tentacles; and I tore the ground apart in the path of those hoped to escape and save themselves from this hell. The cries of thousands of people gradually died down, leaving me alone among the mountains of people immersed in mud.
"I feel there is someone else
"Oppressed Militia 999/1000"
"Hmm, how clever," I turned back and shielded my eyes from the sun, and saw a man running at full speed. He was propelling himself with flashes of fire, which he had apparently used to jump over all the canyons. Terror forced him to look ahead and not think about looking back. And that was bad. Perhaps such a clever soldier would have been able to notice and dodge the incoming shell.
"Artillery," I smiled broadly, and next to me a huge hand grew, twirling a sphere of sand. Gaining speed, it made the electronics hum like a carpenter's saw until, in an instant, it shot into the air under the canopy. The sphere flew a great distance and began to fall, until...
DZ*
It didn't land near the target, knocking it down with a shock wave, marking my victory over a thousand enemies. Yes, it's true, I spent a lot of energy, but I did it. I happily turned to Azule, who was watching from the sidelines, her eyes simply out of orbit, and waved my hand at her.
"It's not that difficult. Why is she so excited?
"Additional target..."
"Huh?" Frowning at the completely inappropriate inscription, I noticed that Azula's gaze was not entirely directed at me. She was looking somewhere in the sky. Following her gaze, I saw the red sky, the sun itself beginning to turn it blood red... The winter solstice. That was why I, and even Azula, saw something in the sky, against the backdrop of the sun rising in the east, something more dangerous than a thousand foolish people.
A semi-transparent entity that was clearly visible in our world. A giant elongated body, long wings and large whiskers~
"Roku told me that you are a threat to order," the creature hanging in the sky focused on me with vertical pupils. The spirit pet of one of the Avatars... "I wanted to talk, but I've seen enough. Your life ends here.
"Defeat your first spirit. Dragon Feng 0/1."
"Why the hell today of all days...