Blue Phoenix

“Indeed his age is astonishingly quite young,” Wan Qiao started saying as she poured herself a cup of tea with a casual expression on her face. “He might seem young, but he is already capable of dealing with King ranked experts. His beastly transformation is very different from ours, and it increases his strength significantly. No only that, he is also capable of coming up with tactics which is what we beasts are lacking. For us, even if we wish to be as smart as humans, we lacking the ability to scheme and develop complex tactics. We are beasts. We are too simpleminded; however, this young man might even be able to save us if An He appears!”

Hearing the words Wan Qiao said Hui Yue wished to stop her. There was no way his tactics could stand against a man with absolute strength such as An He.

Seeing Hui Yue opening his mouth, ready to counter her, Wan Qiao made a beckoning gesture, and then the young man found himself flying through the air before he landed neatly right in front of Lord Pan and Lady Wan Qiao.

“Come come, sit down.” Wan Qiao said with great interest in her voice. “When I saw this masterpiece you wrote I was completely taken aback!” She started, her voice filled with excitement, the stoic impression people had of this woman was long since gone.

“So tell us Hui Yue who is this Master Sun? We have never heard about him before, but if he truly made such an astonishing book called The Art of War then how come we have never heard about him before?” Wan Qiao asked, her eyes filled with expectation, and her body language showed just how curious she really was. She was seated at the edge of her chair, her hands were gripped together, and her legs were constantly moving up and down a sign of her impatience.

Hui Yue was quiet for a long time before he heaved a heavy sigh while contemplating how exactly to explain his knowledge about Master Sun. Thinking for a few moments, the young man finally came up with an idea.

“When I was young I lived in a very poor village on the outskirts of a magical forest filled with magical beasts. We rarely had visitors as no one was capable of finding our small village, yet one day when I was six or seven years old, a man appeared before me.” Hui Yue started, his tone of voice was mysterious sounding as if he was telling a fairytale, and surprisingly he found that both Lord Pan and Lady Wan Qiao were staring at him with open eyes. Their breathing was slightly perturbed, and they both seemed to swallow every word he said with keen interest.

“This man claimed that he was not from this continent, and when I asked him whether or not there were other continents the elderly man just laughed at me. He told me that the world was far greater than I would ever know. That anything I could think of would exist within this universe, and that although this world was small, other worlds were as vast as the endless heavens. The man laughed at me when I asked about a small continent when the worlds were never ending.”

Hui Yue held his breath for a moment to allow for these two Saints in front of him to truly understand what he was hinting at, that this man was someone who knew about the many worlds that existed. That there was not just one world, one continent, and that this place, the world of the Four Divine Beasts, was nothing more than a speck of land amongst the endless planes.

“This man’s name was Master Sun,” Hui Yue said after a pause. His voice trembled slightly as though he remembered someone great, “And he stayed with me for a few days where he told me about what he learned through his many travels from one world to another. He was indeed an overshadowing figure, and the strongest man I have ever met.”

Hui Yue’s face was flushed. He seemed as though he remembered one of his greatest memories as his eyes were shining and he was looking into the air as though his eyes were vacant, seemingly remembering exactly what happened back then. The break was long, and he said nothing, eventually the tension was too much for Lord Pan as he whispered with a quivering voice, “What happened then?”

As though, Hui Yue had been pulled from a trance he looked at the man in front of him, and a sad expression passed over his face as he shook his head with a sigh, “That was it. One day he no longer came to visit and tell me about the things he had learned. One day it all ended, and he no longer appeared. I guess he went to visit one of those many vast places he told me of, but truthfully I do not know. He might even be hiding somewhere on this continent.”

Hui Yue ended his speech, and his face looked genuinely sorry as though he truly missed someone. He was proud of his act as he knew he could never tell these men that he had been reborn from another world. If they knew, they would likely bring trouble to Hui Yue and Lan Feng.

‘Nice story,’ An amused voice said in the back of Hui Yue’s mind, and the white-haired boy almost grimaced when he heard the irony from within the voice. Lan Feng had done much to pretend that he was not present whenever they were close to Wan Qiao; however, this one time even he was astonished by the acting skills and was unable to not comment.

‘What do you think will happen?’ Hui Yue tentatively asked the friend of his who was sitting comfortably within his dantian cave.

‘Well, Wan Qiao always gets what she wants. I don’t think you should try fighting her idea of a war, but if you can make it safe so that the magical beasts gets more ground, then I would prefer that. Just do everything in your power to fight the countries where we know no one from. I would personally suggest the Siban Empire.’

‘We know Li Meilin from Siban,’ Hui Yue pointed out with a wry smile on his face causing the blue phoenix to snort in contempt. ‘They have sent delegations which seemingly are here for the sake of communicating with us, but what they do is enslaving our citizens. They think that because they have power they can do anything they wish, I do not like them.’

‘Looking at the locations, we have to either go for the Siban Empire or the Taiyang Kingdom.’ Lan Feng continued. ‘Although we don’t know many in the Taiyang Kingdom you still have your family there alongside the families of your friends. Going to war against Taiyang will become messy, so for them use your ability to go against Siban. Yes, we will be fighting innocent humans, but they started by trying to enslave innocent beasts.’

Lan Feng was very clear about this and Hui Yue could only agree. Although he was against seeing innocent humans dying, he had to chose between one country or another. Wan Qiao was already convinced that she wanted a war, now all Hui Yue could do was try to plan this war so that the least amount of casualties appeared from both sides. At the same time convince them all that the Taiyang kingdom was not the place they wished to go to fight.

Lord Pan listened to the entire tale with widened eyes and an expression of amazement. Neither he nor Wan Qiao doubted the young man once. Usually, neither of these two were this naive; however, none of them had ever heard about Master Sun. From the small bit they had seen of The Art of War was enough to make both of them understand that this man, whom no one on the Divine Beast’s continent had heard about, was someone who arrived from another world. He had to be a deity to travel from one world to another. Even Saints like the lady and the lord in front of Hui Yue were very respectful when the opposing side was a deity.

Once more An He was mentioned, and once more Hui Yue tried to speak, but neither Wan Qiao nor Lord Pan listened to the words spoken by the young man.

“Child, what did you say your name was?” Lord Pan suddenly asked as he looked directly at the young man. At first, he had truly not paid attention to this young man as he doubted such a youth truly had anything to teach the older generation but listening to the story made him instantly change his opinion.

“My name is Hui Yue,” Hui Yue answered, neither incredibly courteously nor rude in any way. Hui Yue spoke to the lord in the same way he would speak to his friends.

Lord Pan paid no attention to the way he was being spoken to. Instead, he nodded his head and memorized the name so that he would never again make the mistake of not paying any attention to this particular boy just because of his age.

“Good good,” The lord nodded his head, “I am Pan Long from the Firewing Mountains,” The man said, “I am a Blood-Maned Hawk. As for whether or not you are truly a human or a beast, I will give you the benefit of doubt, but you are most certainly one of the most fascinating creatures I have ever come across. The aura of a Saint ranked beast mixed with the scent of a wolf alongside spiritual energy swirling around you like a human. Looking at you, I understand why Wan Qiao finally decided to take action.” A smile appeared on the man’s face as he accepted the fact that Hui Yue was not going to tell him what exactly he was.

“I would like you to finish writing the entire Art of War before the council meeting with all the Lords of the Forest. It is not going to be easy to make them all follow suit and become interested in a war against the humans. Many of these lords enjoy their comfortable life in their castles and mansions. Getting them to accepting a war needs to prove that we will be able to win without wasting a lot of lives. Your Art of War is indeed exactly what we need.” Lord Pan kept praising The Art of War, and Hui Yue felt at the same time both hopeless and hopeful. It would be great if the beasts got more ground, but he was not sure if a war was truly needed.

Remembering the words Lan Feng told him, Hui Yue nodded his head in understanding. He too understood that he had to write the entire Art of War either way.

“Lord, Lady,” He said rising from his chair, and bowing to the two experts in front of him, “If I am to finish the Art of War in time I will have to excuse myself. I will need to return to my chamber to finish my writings.”

Hearing the words both Wan Qiao and Pan Long nodded their heads in acceptance, and Hui Yue turned around leaving the library only to be greeted by the same two guards outside the door. It was obvious that these two guards were to escort him back to his chamber, and with none of the three men speaking they all made their way back to the room from which they had picked him up in the first place.