Dr. J'an
Historians love to pretend that history is decided by kings sitting in quiet rooms.
Treaties signed in polished halls.
Battles fought between orderly armies.
Strategies drawn across maps with careful ink.
Reality rarely behaves so politely.
The forces that reshape continents usually begin in far smaller places — a promise made by a grieving child, a vow whispered beneath the rising sun, or the moment a desperate warrior decides that their name will never disappear from the world.
Across the history of Pūrvō, there are many such figures. Some were emperors. Others were scholars, prophets, or monsters.
This chapter concerns one of the latter.
The following pages come from a recovered personal journal written during the early Third Era, the age when many of the beings now called the Great Five reached their apotheosis and began traveling the great continentals, declaring themselves divine and slowly building the mythologies that still surround them today.
During that same age another figure began carving his own legend into the volcanic mountains surrounding Huǒ Shān.
His name appears in countless later war records.
Merrick, Warlord of the Taiyō Oni.
The passages below are believed to be excerpts from his own writings.
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The Journal of Merrick
When I was six years old, my father died.
He was killed in battle against the Black Hand Oni, a tribe that lived only one mountain away from our own. They came at dawn. By dusk my father's body was carried back on a broken shield.
That night my mother screamed until her voice bled away into silence. My sisters cried until their eyes swelled shut.
I did not cry.
I remember standing outside our village and looking at the rising sun. I remember swearing to it that every last member of the Black Hand tribe would die.
Not simply their warriors.
All of them.
That promise was made before the sun itself. Once spoken, it could never be taken back.
The years that followed were spent in training. The village head was our greatest warrior, and he believed suffering created strength. My bones were broken more times than I can remember.
When I was twelve years old I defeated him in combat and claimed his title as war leader.
The elders called it destiny.
I called it necessity.
In the months that followed my advisor came to me with whispers. He told me my mother and sisters wished to take the throne from me. He claimed they plotted to poison me in my sleep.
Whether this was true no longer matters.
That same day I killed him.
I tore him in half with my bare hands so that the rest of the tribe would understand that lies were dangerous things.
Soon after, the Black Hand tribe attacked again.
During that battle a spear nearly pierced my heart. I survived only because the weapon struck a rib and glanced away. When the fighting ended I collapsed in the ash of the battlefield and realized something that terrified me.
I was too weak.
Strength alone would never be enough.
Our tribe's historian later told me an old story — a legend about our ancestors forming a pact with an ancient beast that lived deep within the volcanic mountains. He claimed the creature granted power in exchange for… something.
He did not know what.
That night, still wounded from battle, I left the village and climbed into the mountains alone in search of the beast called Huǒ Róng Yuán.
The journey took two days.
During the climb I encountered strange winged people I had never seen before. Later I would learn they were Tengu. They spoke a language similar to our own but twisted in unfamiliar ways.
They pointed me toward a deeper valley in exchange for the last of my food.
I could see it in their eyes.
They believed I was walking toward my death.
I decided then that if I returned alive I would enslave them… or kill them and take their wings for myself.
Flight would be useful.
On the third day I found the beast.
Huǒ Róng Yuán was larger than any creature I had ever imagined. His body rested between mountains like a living volcano. Smoke drifted from his nostrils and the stone beneath his claws glowed with heat.
For the first time in my life I felt something close to fear.
Not the fear of pain.
The fear of ceasing to exist.
The beast looked down at me and spoke.
"Little devil," it said.
"Why do you seek me? Do you believe yourself strong enough to kill me… or even to stand in my presence?"
The air itself burned with his voice.
My body moved before my mind could think. I dropped to my knees and pressed my forehead against the stone.
If I had remained standing I would have died.
The beast laughed.
"Good," he said. "At least you are not entirely foolish. Speak, little devil. Why are you here?"
Breathing felt impossible.
Still, I forced the words out.
"Power."
That was all I said.
Huǒ Róng Yuán laughed again, louder this time.
"And how do you intend to obtain such a thing?"
"I… do not know."
The beast lowered its head, eyes glowing like molten gold.
"I like you," it said. "Very well. I will grant your request."
He commanded me to stand.
Behind him the sun began to rise over the mountains.
"Hold out your arms."
I obeyed.
The creature opened its enormous jaws.
A wave of searing heat poured from its mouth. Stone melted. Trees turned instantly to ash. The air itself seemed to ignite.
When the flame touched me it did not burn my flesh.
It burned my soul.
Agony spread through every part of my body. I felt something carving itself into my spirit like molten iron pressed into living skin. Yellow markings began appearing across my body — glowing tattoos spreading across my arms, chest, and face.
I screamed until my voice broke.
Then the sun touched my skin.
In that moment I felt power unlike anything I had known before.
But I also felt something else.
Pain.
Endless pain.
Later I would learn the truth. What the creature had done was create a soul covenant with me. The power of the sun itself now flowed through my body.
But the sun would also burn me forever.
At first I tried to avoid daylight. The agony was unbearable.
Soon I discovered something worse.
Without sunlight… I began to die.
The same power that sustained me also tortured me.
So I adapted.
Pain became part of breathing.
Years passed.
Then the Black Hand tribe attacked again.
They raided our village, slaughtered our people, and carried away many of our women. One of my sisters was taken with them.
Something inside me broke that day.
I walked alone into the mountains at dawn.
The sun burned my skin as always, but this time I welcomed it.
When I reached the Black Hand settlement I killed every living thing I saw.
Warriors.
Women.
Children.
I found my sister among them.
She had a husband now. She had children.
She begged me to spare them.
I killed them all.
She had become one of them.
Traitors deserve no mercy.
When the slaughter ended I burned the entire settlement until nothing remained but smoke and ash.
I offered everything to Huǒ Róng Yuán.
The destruction pleased him.
In return… he granted me even greater power.
And with it…
even greater pain.