12:00 Hours before Aghat’s Notice

  Place: Kumul (哈密地区) Xīnjiāng (新疆)

  Date: 3/2/3132

  Time: 1032 Hs

  Operation: Contain the Dragon

  A desolate town, but without signs of abandonment, is caressed by a soft winter breeze. A dry leaf is lifted by the wind, and it begins its journey through the air, traveling across the entire town. It passes before an attentive gaze, and at the exact instant when the eyes of that man, standing on alert, see the leaf, he subtly catches it in an instant.

  Dressed in a black military suit, wearing a red beret and maintaining an impeccable posture, he casually releases the leaf so it may continue its path.

  A serious face, well formed, and a gaze that does not waver, moves his eyes from side to side inspecting the scene: a pleasant park where a family would go for a picnic, a couple would share a pleasant moment, or simply where youths with nothing better to do would gather to consume substances of doubtful origin.

  —Be prepared, it will appear in a few minutes —the man said seriously to his soldiers.

  Twenty soldiers, all preparing their weapons and tools; another group, manipulating machines of strange shapes and unknown purpose. All wear black urban combat suits. But, waiting at the vanguard, there is a special group: these do not carry common weapons nor do they handle the machines like the others.

  These are none other than the Palace Guards, five of the sixty best men of the army assigned only to protect the Jūnzhǔ. Equipped with their white armor —which boasts mechanized joints— each carries a powerful guja. On their left leg they carry a robust pistol ready to be used, and all maintain a terracotta-like posture, waiting for their enemy to appear.

  A soldier approaches the man observing the park and says:

  —Everything is ready, lieutenant colonel.

  —Good, have everyone prepare to attack —he ordered in response.

  Not more than a minute passed after he gave the order, and there, without having disturbed the slightest breeze or made the smallest sound, he appeared.

  Standing there, confused, was a Zhong guo man, tall, muscular, shirtless and with a shaved head. With his fuchsia-colored irises, he looked around, disoriented.

  The lieutenant colonel only had to say:

  —Begin.

  Caught by surprise, Shāng was riddled by a torrent of bullets in the blink of an eye. Immediately afterward, without giving him any respite, the special machines were activated. Of the three that were there, one looked like a large black metal box. It opened in two parts and launched from inside it a net that fell directly over Shāng.

  The net automatically began to wrap itself around his mutilated body.

  Already certain of their victory, the soldiers begin lightly patting one another on the back, but the lieutenant colonel does not take his eyes off the scene nor let the sigh of victory leave his mouth. Suddenly he shouts:

  —ATTENTION!

  All of them are struck by the fierce roar of warning their leader releases, who tells them:

  —THIS IS NOT OVER YET!

  What they all observe is how the mutilated and bloodied flesh quickly begins to take its original form again. But before the process finishes, they do not take long to activate the second machine. As if they were three metallic coils with their ends fused together, held by a support that connects with the first, from the other end a powerful cloudy beam is produced and fired at its target. As if an iceberg were emerging from the cold ocean, a great layer of ice encloses Shāng.

  Attentive to the result, everyone stares fixedly, waiting for the ice to have worked. Nevertheless, inside it they observe how the shattered body continues regenerating, to the point that it begins to crack the ice from the expansion of the body mass.

  Unwilling to wait for the worst, the lieutenant colonel orders the third machine to be used. A large metal sphere, as big as a moving truck, opens a part of itself retractably and inside a surface with large metal stakes can be seen, which seem to exhale an icy breath from within the sphere.

  When the operator is about to press the button that would put the machine into action, as if a cannonball had struck it, it is destroyed by magic. The lieutenant colonel, who was inspecting the mechanical operation, turns to look at his target. Inside the almost opened mass of terrestrial ice a fully formed hand can be seen, with a weak capacity for movement, but what truly draws attention is the silhouette of a half-formed head, which shows a complete eye, but without an eyelid, looking with rage at the leader of the soldiers.

  Knowing that this would no longer go as they had planned, the lieutenant colonel gives the order to the patient and attentive Palace Guards, and without further delay they take their gujas with both hands and surround the nearly destroyed mass of ice in five evenly spaced positions. As the ice breaks apart, the blades of their weapons begin to take on a luminous sky-blue color, and in unison the great warriors take their combat stance.

  At the moment he is able to free himself completely, the ice explodes into small fragments, some as large as the most common hail and others much smaller that end up becoming particles of water in mid-trajectory. Even with all this, the Palace Guards do not even blink, keeping their gaze fixed on the target. Shāng, who was standing in the middle of the wet ground and with large chunks of ice around him, begins to inspect his body with his hands and notices that, by regenerating with the net wrapped in his mutilated flesh, it ended up trapped within his body, resulting in a man who seems to have been fused with a net. Realizing his situation, the only thing he does is laugh.

  A laugh that in any other situation would make one think that the laughing man is someone very pleasant and amusing, but that was not the case. All the prisoners Abel locked away met two conditions: the first, that the targets were not easy to kill at all, and the ability of the Akyane allowed him an instant victory without even needing to touch his target. But the second condition is what made people realize that these men could only be classified as monsters, and that was their crimes.

  Shāng Tu is someone with more than two hundred years of life (not counting the years he remained sealed), but it was in the war where, once, a wise, disciplined, and friendly man turned into an unstoppable killer who would have no mercy for anyone. Villages, towns, and even halves of cities were personally massacred by him, only to prove that he was superior. It was not until he headed toward the city of Altái that he drew the attention of the Han and was sealed before entering Mongol territory.

  That dangerous individual laughed cheerfully at the bizarre situation he was in; nevertheless, the Palace Guards would not let that opportunity slip away and, with the speed of a ray of sunlight, they drove their weapons into Shāng’s body. Each one drove his weapon into a vital part: the first, who stood behind him, held the tip upon the nape of Shāng; the second and the third drove the blades into his lungs, each to the left and right of the body; the fourth, before him, drove his weapon into his eyes without hesitation; and in front, crouched, the fifth attacked his heart. Unable to see, move, breathe, or even have blood circulation in his body, Shāng felt a wave of cold where the blades entered his flesh; slow but certain, he felt how he was freezing once again, but this time from within.

  With great difficulty, before being completely immobilized, with the little strength he had left he made a gesture with the fingers of his right hand and managed to exert a force that violently pushed the two Palace Guards in front of him, who lost their stance and freed Shāng from his icy shackles. He quickly regenerated his vision and, having blood circulation again, pushed with his feet and managed to deliver a direct kick to the guard who was freezing one of his lungs, sending him several meters away.

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  The two guards who had lost their stance desperately tried to regain control of Shāng by driving their weapons into vital areas, but he quickly cut off one of their arms with the other and threw it far from the group. When the guards froze Shāng again, the body turned into ice fractured and began to melt.

  Knowing what that meant, they looked toward the side where the arm had been thrown and saw a humanoid figure that, on half of its body, showed a normal form of Shāng, but the other half showed flesh exposed, veins and arteries spitting blood endlessly, a skeletal leg that was being dressed at that moment with wet muscle and a mantle of white skin, much more complete than his nonexistent arm, which barely regenerated the shoulder, but which seemed much more advanced than his half-finished skull, showing a naked eye that no one could tell where it was looking.

  The guards took their formation and, at the instant of preparing it, rushed toward their target like trains at full power. Shāng, not underestimating them, adopted a kung fu stance and, upon entering combat with the fierce combat machines, they exchanged blows and cuts, but only from the side of the guards. Shāng tried to land some blow, but it was repelled by one of the guards’ companions.

  At the moment when one attacked, he left an opening in his defense that Shāng tried to take advantage of, but at the last instant, just at the point of connecting the blow, another guard struck and cut off his arm.

  While he tried to buy time to regenerate the lost arm, the others attacked his legs and head, which kept him under constant pressure. But Shāng felt no frustration throughout the entire fight; it was fun, entertaining, difficult but not impossible.

  Shāng struck the ground just before the guards attacked and, with his only arm and remaining limb, exerted his magic on the ground and generated a bubble of air, throwing the guards a few meters away from him, but he himself was also thrown into the air by his own action.

  Being an easy target, three of the five guards drew their pistols and fired at Shāng. The bullets exploded upon contact. Shāng, having defended himself with his half-finished arm and leg, lost them completely, but quickly regenerated his other arm and, spinning without control, at the right moment making the silhouette of a pistol, pointed his hand at one of the guards and said —BANG!— The guard was violently pushed backward; the impact formed a crater in the ground and produced a sound as loud as an explosion.

  Not knowing whether the guard was alive or dead, his companions did not hesitate and continued firing at Shāng. Even while receiving damage and unable to maintain a single intact limb, he made another gesture when he had the opportunity and was pushed through the air toward the group of soldiers who were manipulating the machines.

  Placing himself among them, the guards ceased their fire, but it only took a few moments for the soldiers to move quickly away from Shāng. Though it was only a few seconds, Shāng managed to regenerate his arms completely, and seeing the guards coming toward him with their two tools, he made a gesture and, pointing them at his opponents, launched his attack.

  One of his arms was cut off immediately. He turned to see who the saboteur was and observed that beside him stood the lieutenant colonel carrying a bloodied Viet vo dao, which, taking advantage of Shāng’s surprise, he drove into the middle of his heart, piercing through his body. The soldier accompanying the lieutenant colonel positioned herself behind Shāng and, grabbing the protruding part of the sword, bent it at a ninety-degree angle.

  Shāng, without noticing this, kicked the lieutenant colonel, but he dodged by jumping backward and, when he gained distance, Shāng tried to remove the sword from his chest, but found it difficult thanks to the bend the soldier had made.

  Resorting to a desperate measure, Shāng grabbed the mage’s sword and moved it to one side of his body, cutting himself in the process. Just as he freed himself from the sword, his four adversaries once again engaged him in hand-to-hand combat.

  Shāng almost managed to recover completely and at that instant counterattacked, approaching evasively toward the Palace Guard who was harassing him, using him as an obstacle to prevent a clean strike from his companions. He immobilized his opponent’s arms and managed to disarm him. The guard, without thinking for even a moment, immediately used his fists to continue fighting, but Shāng naturally overpowered him and managed to break his stance, which he took advantage of to press his palm against the guard’s face, and it exploded like a bloody water balloon.

  Seeing the death of their companion, the guards no longer had any reason to be careful and launched their attacks through the headless corpse.

  Now Shāng has reduced his adversaries to three, or at least those who face him directly. Because while the Palace Guards contain the immortal, the lieutenant colonel’s soldiers prepare their weapons for another surprise attack. Shooters, artillerymen, snipers, and mages prepare to unleash the full fury of the country upon Shāng.

  After taking their positions and signaling that they are ready, the lieutenant colonel steps out from his cover to give the signal to the guards.

  Upon seeing it, they quickly leave Shāng alone and swiftly retreat to a safe place. Shāng, confused once again, murmurs —似曾相識？— and a rain of multiple types of attacks falls upon him from all sides, from windows to positions lying on the ground, overwhelming him with powerful and lethal strikes.

  A cloud of pulverized blood forms in the midst of the destructive chaos created by the Zhong guo people.

  Even with a skeleton with some muscles and blood running through his few veins, Shāng, with great effort, performs a new gesture pointing at the ground, and it explodes like a volcano in eruption.

  A cloud of dust spreads through the neighborhood, clouding the sight of most of the troops, but not that of the guards and officers.

  Still attentive to the next movement of their enemy, they do not lower their guard, but having lost sight of him, they remain adrift in the midst of all that chaos.

  One of the soldiers uses a spell and creates a current of wind to disperse the brown cloud, and by the time everything clears, a group of soldiers turns their heads behind them and sees that Shāng stands there, completely healthy, arms crossed, looking at them and smiling arrogantly as if he were watching terrified ants.

  And waving his hand as if shooing away a fly, an invisible wave violently pushes the soldiers, breaking bones and bloodying eyes and ears. Others cough blood and many die the moment they suffer it.

  Using another of his magical arts, Shāng causes the bullets the guards fire at him to explode meters away from himself, avoiding further damage.

  The lieutenant colonel approaches with one of the guards’ gujas and faces Shāng. He, playing as if he were with a child, only mockingly dodges his attacks and then, in a brief opening, drives a knee into the fierce man’s stomach.

  He is paralyzed by the blow and can only cough, kneeling in pain on the ground. Coming to his rescue, the remaining guards manage to approach within reach of their weapons and resume their combat with Shāng, but something is noticeably different. Their movements are slower and their reactions mediocre compared to the beginning: they are getting tired.

  Shāng’s immortality is a long-term advantage; that is why everyone attacked him desperately, unable to give him time to fight at one hundred percent.

  No matter how much they try, morale drops like a bomb and more and more of them see defeat approaching.

  The final blow is delivered when Shāng, in a brief moment while one of the guards is recovering, takes advantage and, as if his arm were a spear, drives his hand through the armor and into the man’s chest.

  The guard, paralyzed by the attack, is seen coughing, and blood begins to pour from his helmet. Shāng, smiling sadistically, pulls his hand out and as an ornament in his palm lies the guard’s heart, still overflowing with fresh blood.

  The defeated man falls onto his back, and the dull, heavy sound of the corpse hitting the ground destroys the will to fight of his two companions and of the other soldiers who watched the battle with little hope.

  With doubt possessing their hands, the guards abandon all fear and once again firmly hold their weapons, ready to die; they prepare to launch themselves in one final attack against the immortal.

  Shāng, intoxicated by the imminent victory, extends his hand toward the desperate men and invites them to attack.

  And as they take the first step toward the charge, a man shouts —STOP!—

  Shāng, the Palace Guards, and the soldiers trace the origin of that shout with their gaze, and it is none other than the lieutenant colonel.

  Shāng tilts his head with curiosity, smiles kindly at him and asks —Yes? I’m listening.

  Raising his hands in a sign of surrender, the man tells him —Let us live and I will give you a message directed only to you.

  —A message for me? And why didn’t they tell me at the beginning? In fact, what exactly is happening here? If you tell me everything I will do what you ask.

  After a moment of hesitation, the lieutenant colonel expresses frustration and clicks his tongue, replying —You were sealed for around eighty years, we were sent to contain you, I am Lieutenant Colonel Peng Yan, in charge of this operation.

  —Eighty years, hee? I see, it’s different when you are not present, and about that message, tell it to me.

  —It was notified to me through a colleague from Mongol, it is from someone called Ash and it says “How about it, Tu? If you defeat the slant-eyed ones come to the border tomorrow, there I will kill you.”

  Shāng is surprised, and after assimilating the new information, he only laughs. He laughs so loudly that his laughter echoes in the mountains. The soldiers and everyone else remain staring in astonishment at the dangerous individual, who begins to cry from laughing. After a few moments, he wipes away his tears and says —Well I suppose the wait was worth it. Ah… well I think I will do a little tourism and then go attend to the matter.

  —Keep your word and leave us in peace.

  —Of course, besides I was going to leave survivors anyway, otherwise who would tell how I humiliated you today?