Rebellion and Division

As the last ray of sunset vanished beyond the horizon, the Torchlight Lighthouse in White Cliff Town blazed to life. Its brilliant light swept across the land, holding back the encroaching Grey Fog and the creatures of Chaos.

Nuen and Xilian followed the narrow path beside the Torchlight Lighthouse up to the high wall surrounding White Cliff Town.

"The Court of a Thousand Mechanisms is bound together by its Foundry Courts, the Modian Society has its Three Great Academies, and we Torchbearers are united through our many Clans."

"United by blood from a common source."

Xilian listened quietly, with a faint sense of what was coming.

"Now that you've become a Transcendent and set foot on the Torchbearing Path, you still aren't a true Torchbearer."

Nuen reached out and pressed a hand gently against Xilian's chest.

"Your body is filled with power from the Origin Sea. We call it Source Energy. But the Source Energy inside you is rushing around like a headless fly. You can't yet draw on it as a unified whole.

"You need an outside force to guide it and bring the power within you together, like a seed crystal that sets a substance changing."

Xilian caught on. "And that seed crystal is..."

"The blood of a Torchbearer."

Nuen took a plain box from inside his coat. Its metal casing was covered in rust and scratches. There was no telling how far he had carried it, or how many seasons he had passed through with it.

He gently stroked the box, feeling its rough surface beneath his fingers.

"When the Expeditionary Pathfinder founded the legion, he shared his Sacred Blood with ten people. Those ten then shared their blood with others, establishing the original ten Clans. Sofluowa was one of them.

"In the ancient tongue, Sofluowa means sunflower. That's why we're also called the Sunflower Clan."

They reached the gate in the high wall. The Grey Fog was thickest here, and Demons gathered in greater numbers. They gave hoarse, low cries as they prowled along the boundary between light and darkness.

"Before becoming Torchbearers, we all had our own surnames. But after receiving the blood of the seed crystal, we took our Clan's surname, almost as though we were saying goodbye to our former lives."

Nuen went on, "It was never mandatory. Besides, many of the Torchbearers' traditions and rules were changed beyond recognition by the rebellion and the division."

Xilian's heart lurched.

"The rebellion and the division... what happened?"

Nuen fell silent.

He was always like this. He would suddenly go quiet, take time to gather the courage to face the past, then speak at length before slipping back into that strange silence.

Xilian waited patiently.

After a long while, Nuen asked without emotion, "How much do you know about this world's history?"

"Only what I've read in books," Xilian said. "We once had a magnificent civilization. Countless Giant Gods stood tall, and grand Miracle Creations rose one after another until they nearly filled the Origin Sea. Then the Noonday Calamity broke out and smashed it all to pieces."

"That's right," Nuen said. "From what scholars have reconstructed, the Noonday Calamity erupted in the world's Fifth Era—the Dark Age. After untold millennia, the rise of the Three Sages brought the world into the Sixth Era, the Renaissance Era."

He added a reminder.

"But the Renaissance Era is over. We now live in the Seventh Era, the City-State Era."

Xilian looked down beyond the wall. Dense Grey Fog had piled up at its base, and countless hideous shapes shifted restlessly within it.

"What I'm about to tell you happened at the end of the Renaissance Era and the beginning of the City-State Era."

Nuen drew the longsword at his waist, his gaze burning bright.

"The Expeditionary Pathfinder, lord of the Torchbearing Path.

"He summoned the Clans and formed them into a legion, then launched expedition after expedition into the Dark World.

"Over years of war, the legion wrested lost lands from Chaos, one stretch after another, giving civilization vast room to grow."

Nuen's voice turned wistful. "Those were glorious years. Everyone was full of hope. We believed we could drive out Chaos for good and rebuild civilization."

"But something went wrong, didn't it?"

Xilian had guessed as much. So many stories took a tragic turn like this.

"I read about the Expeditions. Then, on one page, all mention of them suddenly disappeared. It was as if something terrible had happened, and no one would speak of it."

A gap in the historical record.

"Yes. Something went wrong."

Nuen turned to face Xilian. Night's shadows hid his expression, while a cold gleam still shone along his sword's blade.

"It was the Twelfth Great Expedition. The Expeditionary Pathfinder planned to lead the legion deep into the Dark World and uncover the truth behind the Noonday Calamity."

The sword's tip tapped uneasily against the ground.

"At first, everything went smoothly. But when the expeditionary army reached the depths of the Dark World, they lost contact under strange circumstances."

Nuen felt the night's cold, deep and biting.

"No one knew the truth behind the Noonday Calamity, and no one understood what had happened to the legion.

"All anyone knew was that the expeditionary army had been missing for years. When they finally made contact with the outside world again, they brought back one terrible piece of news."

Xilian sensed that what Nuen said next would mark the turning point—the fall of one era and the rise of another.

Anger flared in Nuen's eyes. His voice came out nearly hoarse.

"The legion had rebelled."

Xilian stood frozen.

"The Expeditionary Pathfinder had vanished without a trace. His legion rose in rebellion, and nearly a third of the Torchbearers embraced Chaos and drew their swords against their own kin."

The hatred ran deep in their blood. Though Nuen had not lived through it himself, he could barely keep his composure as he spoke.

"The rebels' war spread from the Dark World to the Outer Flame Frontier, then to the Inner Flame Outer Ring, until their forces reached the gates of the Daylight Holy City.

"As the fighting continued, the lands we had reclaimed fell once more into the Dark World. City-states burned to ash. Countless ordinary people became Demons in the Grey Fog, and the territory the Torchbearers had carved out with their swords collapsed and shrank.

"In an instant, everything had returned to the dark years before the Renaissance Era."

Nuen took a deep breath and told him how it ended.

"The war lasted thirteen full years. Later generations called that period the Year of Rebellion.

"Afterward, the surviving rebels retreated into the Dark World, where they still watched the Civilized World for a chance to strike. The Expeditionary Pathfinder remained missing, his fate unknown.

"The surviving legion itself split because of the Year of Rebellion.

"Some Torchbearers believed they should continue the Expeditions, search for the missing Expeditionary Pathfinder, and reclaim the frontier. Others rejected that proposal. They believed the age of Expeditions was over and that they should defend the lands they still held."

As Nuen spoke, Xilian felt his heart tighten for reasons he couldn't explain. Nuen's next words finally eased the pressure.

"Fortunately, civil war never broke out."

"The Torchbearers determined to continue the Expeditions founded the Ember Remnant. They remain active in the Dark World to this day, hunting the rebels and searching for the Expeditionary Pathfinder.

"The other faction founded what is now known as the Firekeeping Cult, using faith to unite this shattered world."

"Scholars mark the failure of the Twelfth Expedition as the end of the Renaissance Era, and the outbreak of the Year of Rebellion as the beginning of the City-State Era."

Like a bystander, Nuen offered his final judgment on that tumultuous history.

"The failure of the Twelfth Expedition struck the Civilized World no less severely than the outbreak of the Noonday Calamity. It plunged a once-united world back into division and isolation. Each city-state fought alone, and so it remains today."

Xilian drew a deep breath and asked quietly, "Then our Clan..."

Nuen answered without emotion.

"Xilian, our Clan has fallen..."