The Phoenix [Cultivation, Reincarnation, Tower Climber]

In my dream, I'm in one of my earlier lives. The second or third one in which I focused on combat and military, I think.

A rickety wooden door flies open in front of me, and a pair of heavy footsteps enter the room. I sigh and open my eyes, exiting my meditation. Above me stands a muscular young man wearing leather armor and a bear fur coat.

"I heard they made some runt bitch the general," he says. "You're even smaller than I thought you'd be."

I stand up and glare at him, but I'm afraid the effect is ruined by the fact that I'm a full head and a half shorter than him.

"You got a problem with that?" I ask.

"Yeah," he says. "I do. Why should I take orders from a weakling like you? I, Harbek, am the strongest in the army. I should be giving the orders."

"The chief gave me command," I say coldly.

"My father must have been seduced by your pretty face," he says. "I officially challenge you for your position!"

"Fine then," I say, seeing no better way to resolve this. "Let's go outside."

A small crowd forms to watch us, but leave disappointed when the fight is over in seconds. He swings a massive fist at my head, and I simply sidestep and kick at his knee. He falls to the ground, putting him at the perfect height for my next kick to hit his face. Even as small as I am compared to him, my ki-empowered strikes are enough to do serious damage, and he is rendered unconscious.

The next day, in the middle of my meditation, the door swings open again.

"I'm here for a rematch!" declares Harbek, healed and back in top condition.

The fight starts the same way. He opens with a wide, powerful swing of his fist. I go for the same counter, but to my surprise, he's actually prepared a countermeasure. He turns his leg slightly and reinforces it, making my own strike bounce off, doing minimal damage. He swings again with the other arm, and I dodge that as well, countering with another kick. He turns his leg again, but this one hits him square in the side, making him double over. Another kick to the head, and he's down.

The next day, the door swings open again, nearly falling off its hinges. He challenges me. We spar. He blocks the leg kick, then tries to catch the body kick, only for it to turn into another leg kick. A moment later, he's unconscious again.

The door swings open. He challenges me. We spar. He blocks the leg kick, then prepares counters for the other leg and body kick. He swings again, and I grab his arm and use his own momentum to throw him, slamming him to the ground. I kick him in the head. He falls unconscious

The door swings open. He challenges me, but he's a bit more respectful today. We go to spar. The crowd is bigger this time. I decide to take things a bit slower to reward him for the slight amount of respect he showed. He maintains his footing, keeping me from throwing him, but he overextends again on the next strike, and I throw him again.

This time, I don't finish him off. I let him get back up. He attacks again, still too recklessly and still overextending. I punish him for it, this time with a front kick to the gut. He staggers back a step, then attacks again. I duck and sweep his legs out from under him, knocking him to the ground. This time, I kick him in the head while he's on the ground, and he falls unconscious.

The cycle continues for a few weeks. Harbek challenges me for my position. I beat him up. But at some point, it stopped being about my position. He no longer pretends to be challenging me for the position of general. He just wants to spar and learn. That's an attitude I can accept. The spars grow longer. The crowd of spectators get bigger. Harbek learns quickly, to the point that I have to start improving as well. I am more skilled and experienced, but he's not wrong about me being small and weak. With each day that passes, he gets better at using his own size and strength, and it gets harder for me to win.

It's fun. It wasn't fun at first, but it is now. Pushing myself to be stronger to make sure I stay ahead of my student is exhilarating. Seeing him get stronger is equally so.

"You're bigger and stronger than me," I tell him. "So why do you keep losing?"

"Because you keep using cheap tactics and-"

"Wrong," I say. "It's because you're fighting like an idiot. Like a wild beast, always charging forward and going for the kill, never considering the long term flow of the battle. You're not a bear. You're a human. So fight like one."

Despite that lesson, he continues to fight like a bear. But he still gets a bit smarter. He fights like a smart bear. Sometimes, he even takes a step backward to take a hit better. It's good progress, and one day, we finally get a chance to put it to the test.

The neighboring kingdom has declared war. Something about us taking their land. I don't know. Paying attention to the why isn't my job. I just fight.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Our first battle is a resounding victory. Despite his deficiencies, Harbek is a force of nature on the battlefield. His size and strength make him impossible to ignore, his axes cutting through the enemy lines like butter, and his spars with me mean that he actually is able to avoid some of the damage he would otherwise take. He still emerges covered in blood, but the healers are able to patch him up quickly enough that he's back in top condition by nightfall.

We hold a great feast in celebration of our victory. We drink, we sing, we laugh. Harbek and I are hailed as heroes of the battlefield.

The next day, we spar again, but it's different. He's more serious this time. He's not smiling anymore. We exchange blows for five minutes or so, then pull apart, both of us breathing heavily.

"Something bothering you?" I ask.

"Grobek died yesterday," he grunts.

While the battle was a decisive victory, it was not without casualties. Grobek was one of Harbek's drinking buddies. I didn't know him well, but the fact that any of my men died still stings.

"He died next to me," continues Harbek. "I could have saved him, but I was too hurt. I got cut on my leg. I couldn't move fast enough."

"I'm sorry for your loss."

"Teach me," he says. "Please."

"What do you think I'm doing right now, idiot?"

"Teach me how not to get hit. Like you."

"I can't teach you that."

"But-"

"But I can teach you something just as good," I continue. "How to get hit and keep moving anyway. You are too big to not get hit, but you can get hit in ways that hurt less. Ways that don't limit your movement. It will be painful though."

"I can handle pain."

"Then let us begin."

For the next week we train intensively. I even go as far as revealing my own healing skills to Harbek to help him train more. Despite the rigorous regimen and all the wounds he's taking, he's never been more determined. There's a new look in his eyes that wasn't there before. Every single spar, he watches my every move carefully, making minor adjustments to his own movements. His skills improve by leaps and bounds with every spar, and it gets to the point where even I'm not sure if I can defeat him anymore. However, he has no interest in the position of general anymore. He simply wants to learn from me.

Our next battle is a victory as well. Harbek and I fly through the enemy ranks like gods of death, each of us taking out dozens of them. The battle ends quickly, but once again, not without casualties. This time, it's the betrothed of one of Harbek's cousins. After this, we train harder.

We battle again. Harbek and I kill as many as we can. We win again, but some of our men still die. We train harder. We battle. We kill. We train.

In our fifth battle, it's different. We had been cutting through enemy territory from the side while our kingdom's main army keeps their generals occupied on the front line. Or at least, that's what was supposed to be happening. However, when we arrive at the next village, we find ourselves ambushed. Two of the enemy kingdom's three generals, both of whom should have been either at the capital, or on the front lines, are waiting for us.

Our men panic at first, but Harbek and I rally them. We lose many, but we start to take as many as we lose. It's still not enough. We're outnumbered 2 to 1, and our soldiers are no match for the two enemy generals.

"I'll take the one on the left," says Harbek, seeing the situation.

Before I can respond, he runs off, and a moment later, I head toward the one on the right. The enemy soldiers block my path, throwing their lives away just to slow me a second so their own general can take out my men. I hate that coward, using his own men as shields while he targets the weaklings.

By the time I reach him, he's killed a dozen more, and smiles at me with blood on his face. He's an older man, and heavily scarred which means he's experienced. It's a tough fight, but ultimately, I win, only taking a small wound on my side.

As soon as the general falls, the enemy troops start to retreat. I turn around to see that the other enemy general is dead too. However, Harbek is nowhere to be seen. I order my men to let the enemy retreat as I rush toward where Harbek was fighting. I find him bleeding on the ground, covered in wounds. The fatal one is right in his chest, but there are dozens of others all over his body. At a glance, I know he's lost too much blood. Even if I do my best to heal the wound in his chest, he won't survive.

I kneel down beside him, and he glances up at me, his eyes slightly cloudy.

"I-" he coughs blood. "I got mine first."

"I-" I start.

"I finally beat you."

He grins, his teeth covered in blood.

"You idiot," I say. "You aren't supposed to take this many wounds."

He lets out a short laugh that turns into a hacking cough.

"Sorry, general," he says once he's recovered, his voice much weaker now. "But it worked. We-" he coughs. "We won. Right?"

"We did," I agree.

"How many did I save?"

I glance around at the surviving men, who have formed a defensive circle around us.

"All of us," I respond. "Without you, we would all have died in this ambush."

"It was worth it."

He coughs more blood, his face growing paler with every second.

"Thank you for- for everything. General."

With one final raspy breath, his chest stops moving, and his eyes glaze over.

***

When I wake from my dream, I'm curled up on my bed with Trinity in my arms. My pillow feels cool and wet against my cheek. I stay like that for a few seconds, then sit up in bed. It's around sunrise, the light from the curtains bathing the room with a soft orange glow. Trinity gets up a few seconds later, yawning and stretching out. I pet her absentmindedly for a few minutes, then shake my head to clear it.

I have a busy day ahead. No time to wallow in the past.

I perform my morning routine, cultivating, washing up, and stretching before heading out for breakfast. When I arrive downstairs, I find, to my surprise, that the second person from Phoenix Hall has managed to form their core.