East Lord

"Great Wilderness Calendar, year twenty thousand and thirty-three... the Hairy Folk of the 'Chenhai Tribe' invaded. Grand Witch Su ascended the altar and performed a ritual, annihilating them all..."

"The people of the Great Jing Tribe trembled with fear and dared not address him by name. They wished to proclaim him 'Plain King'... Su firmly refused, saying, 'I am no king. I am the East Lord!' And so he took 'East Lord' as his title."

Yue's expression was grave as she carved words into a white bone tablet, stroke by stroke.

Su—no, the East Lord—had said a tribe needed a history, a written chronicle.

And so she, a Lesser Shaman who had learned Shamanic Script, began to write one.

The East Lord had also said that one day there would be dedicated historians. Bone tablets and clay tablets were inconvenient, after all. In time, they would use brushes and write on paper.

The bone tablets were small, leaving room for few characters, and carving demanded considerable strength from the wrist. After finishing one, Yue had to stop. Her thoughts returned to that day.

"Actually, that day... Yuan was ready to step down. But Su insisted he would not be chief and called himself only the 'East Lord'... What does East Lord mean?"

She stepped out of the tent and found the nearby tribespeople bowing respectfully to her.

After what had happened that day, the Great Jing Tribe had come to hold shamans in awe!

By now, even the warriors of the hunting party who had consumed spirit treasures instinctively yielded the path when they saw the East Lord. They knelt and bowed, their eyes blazing with fervor and devotion...

Yue came to the wooden house beside the waterfall and found a young man waiting there already. It was Man!