Shadow Slave: Divergence of Hereos

Chapter 9: Intent

Hours passed—days maybe. I didn't know anymore. 

The cave walls were a constant reminder of how far I was from civilization, from anything familiar. 

I'd swung the staff a thousand times, my body ached from relentless practice, but it still didn't respond. I couldn't even tell if I was getting better.

Mori, meanwhile, hadn't moved. He occasionally opened his eyes to watch me with mild interest, but there was no sign of approval or disappointment. 

Just that unreadable, golden gaze.

"You're overthinking it." His voice came out of nowhere, catching me off guard.

I turned to look at him. Mori sat up lazily, stretching as if he'd been asleep for hours. 

"Ruyi Jingu won't respond if you're just swinging it around like some stick. You're trying to force control over it. That's not how it works."

I blinked at him, confused. "Then how does it work?"

He stood up, dusting off his clothes. "Ruyi Jingu responds to intent. It's a living weapon. You think you're holding it, but it's not about your strength or how much you've trained. It's about your will. You need to make the staff see you as its master, not just some kid waving it around."

I frowned, gripping the staff tighter. "And how do I do that?"

Mori chuckled, the sound echoing through the cave. "You figure it out." 

He stepped forward, his presence suddenly overwhelming. "But if I were you, I'd stop trying to imitate me. You're not me, and Ruyi Jingu knows that."

His words hung in the air, a heavy realisation sinking into my chest. 

I was trying to be someone I wasn't. I had been focusing on mimicking Mori, swinging the staff like I was a master martial artist when, in reality, I was anything but. 

I needed to find my own way. But how?

---

Hours later, I stood once more, gripping Ruyi Jingu, my body still aching but my mind clearer than it had been in days. 

I wasn't Mori. I couldn't wield the staff like him. But I could wield it like me.

But what did that even mean?

What did it mean to wield a sentient weapon like myself? Different from a God? An all-encompassing, omnipotent being. A God!

I closed my eyes, blocking out everything—the cave, the weight of Mori's gaze, the pressure of the trial. 

I focused inward, finding that spark deep inside, the thing that had kept me fighting for 48 hours straight despite the odds. The thing that Mori had hinted at, even if he didn't say it outright.

My will.

I opened my eyes and swung the staff, this time not thinking about technique or form, just letting my will guide me.

And something changed.

Ruyi Jingu felt different in my hands—lighter, almost as if it were responding to me for the first time. It wasn't much, but it was enough.

I smiled despite myself.

"That's more like it," Mori said, his voice low but unmistakably approving.

"Technique, will and intent. That is what you need to use Ruyi Jingu properly." Mori mentioned as he slowly walked to the entrance of the cave.

Mori Jin's words rang in my ears, lingering longer than they should have. Technique, will, and intent. 

But it was that last part—intent—that seemed to carry the most weight. 

As he walked toward the mouth of the cave, the golden hue of the setting sun outlined his figure in sharp contrast to the dim cave.

His words floated back to me. "Intent is something deeper. Something beyond your being… something like a goal you're trying to manifest."

I couldn't shake the parallel to that fight in Shadow Slave, the battle between Modret and Morgan. 

The Prince of Nothing had whittled his intent down to a singular point: the desire to kill. 

His clarity, his singular focus, was what made him so lethal, so terrifying. He didn't waste time or energy on anything else. 

He didn't care for self-preservation or ambition beyond the fight at hand. He existed only for the kill, and that made him unstoppable.

Was Mori Jin trying to show me that I lacked that singularity of purpose? That my scattered thoughts, my multiple desires and fears, were holding me back? 

Was I trying too hard to become something I wasn't, while losing sight of what I actually wanted?

As Mori approached the entrance, he turned slightly to glance back at me, his golden eyes catching the fading light. 

"Your will is decent for a mundane person," he had said. 

The compliment was buried beneath layers of casual arrogance, but it was still a compliment. Yet, it also highlighted something more—it wasn't enough.

I wasn't just fighting to survive here. That wouldn't be enough to make the Ruyi Jingu respond to me. Mori had told me that intent was something deeper, something beyond mere survival. 

But what was mine? What was my intent?

To pass this trial? To prove myself? To escape?

Each of those desires felt too small, too weak in comparison to the monumental force that was Mori Jin. 

If intent was supposed to be a singular, driving force, then I was floundering. I had no Modret-like clarity, no singular need that could cut through the noise and focus me like a blade.

Mori stopped at the cave's entrance, his back to me, the landscape beyond him bursting with vibrant colours. 

The sky was an ethereal blend of purples and pinks, as if the heavens themselves were painted for this moment. 

Trees towered beyond, their leaves shimmering gold, swaying softly in the evening breeze.

In the distance, mountains rose like ancient guardians, their peaks kissed by the last rays of the sun.

It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my entire life, a world that felt both foreign and comforting at the same time.

Like a glimpse of something eternal, something beyond the trials and the chaos I had endured so far.

For a moment, it felt like the heavens themselves were bowing to the Monkey King.

Mori let out a sigh, stretching his arms wide as if embracing the scene before him. "You think you know what it means to fight, to struggle." 

He glanced over his shoulder, eyes still gleaming with that otherworldly light. 

"But until you can focus your intent into something that drives you—like a blade honed to perfection—you'll never wield Ruyi Jingu properly."

I stared at the staff still stained with my blood. It lay abandoned on the ground where Mori had effortlessly torn it from my grasp. 

The weight of his words sank deeper than before. My will wasn't enough because I hadn't yet found my intent.

Not yet.

…

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