The Sorcerer Desires the Underworld
"You must remember this—hammer it into your skulls until it never leaves. Sorcery is a vile, wicked art practiced only by the followers of demons."
That was what Confucius said after ripping out the spine of the fifth Taoist master in the state of Qi. Neither the people of that time nor Confucius himself knew it, but sorcery was knowledge granted in exchange for selling one's soul to the devil.
So what exactly is sorcery? It refers to every act of deliberately manipulating external magical power to create a desired phenomenon. Unlike magic, which draws on internal power—mana from within one's own body—sorcery requires neither talent nor effort. If you know the method, anyone can use it. Calling it "magic anyone can cast" would not be far from the truth.
Yet sorcery carried two fatal flaws that magic did not. First, using external power to force a result involved far too many variables. Second, the external power itself was the problem.
External magical power could come from objects, but it usually meant living beings. A talisman infused with power but lacking the creator's own mana was nothing but paper. A curse doll without the user's burning grudge and iron will was merely an ugly figurine. After all, how many inanimate objects naturally held magical power on their own? At best, a few natural landscapes that happened to trap it, or suspicious artifacts already possessed by malevolent spirits.
Therefore, sorcerers primarily used living creatures as sacrifices to seize external power. But anything alive possessed its own will. Those beings did not gladly obey the whims of the one who offered them up. If the sorcerer was clumsy or lacked proper knowledge, the backlash could kill them instead.
And that was not the worst of it. The very act of harvesting external power carried grave consequences. Creatures with short natural lifespans contained little power. Insects had less than frogs, frogs less than chickens, chickens less than horses, horses less than bears, and bears less than humans. What was more, the mana of a familiar neighbor was easier to control and more potent than a stranger's. A relative's was better still. And the power of close family members was the most obedient and effective of all...
What sort of horrors would follow?
An old man tossing his grandson into a cauldron of boiling mud to reclaim his youth. A son abandoning his elderly father on a mountain, then grinding the starved corpse into a fine powder and drinking it so he would never feel hunger again. An ugly hag murdering her husband at night, tearing out his liver to offer a fox, then waking with the face of a nation-toppling beauty capable of bewitching a king. A child slicing open his sibling's belly beneath the full moon and wishing upon the moonlight, turning a dullard into the greatest genius under heaven.
Other nations suffered the evils of sorcery, but China—with its vast territory and enormous population—saw such atrocities erupt in household after household, day after day. Was it any wonder Confucius despised sorcery so fiercely? Any wonder the Han Dynasty still revered Confucianism? So profound was this hatred that when the Roman Papacy heard through the Silk Road that sorcerers had long since gone extinct in China, they canonized Confucius as a saint.
The first exorcist priest and conqueror king who drove demons and their minions from the Indian subcontinent—the Wheel-Turning King Shakyamuni. The headmaster of Athens Magic School who invented the Circle after tricking demons—the babbler Socrates. The first and last Ninth-Circle Archmage, a Sword Master and the Roman Empire's inaugural hero, the Demon King Slayer, the Resurrected Christ.
When the educator who eradicated sorcerers across the Chinese continent and enlightened the people—the Sorcerer Slayer Confucius—was added to this list of great saints, it revealed just how deep this world's loathing for sorcery truly ran.
Yet no matter how many grain-nibbling rats you killed, did the rats ever go extinct? No matter how many disease-carrying, disgustingly crawling cockroaches you crushed, did they disappear? If even lowly insects and beasts could not be wiped out, how could anyone hope to eradicate sorcerers completely?
They could be driven into deeper, darker places, but they could never be torn out by the roots. They only seemed to have vanished... while in truth they waited in the shadows for chaos to come.
Yes. Just like right now.
They were waiting for a great upheaval. No matter how the Yellow Turban Rebellion ended, the sorcerers did not care. Their plan had already succeeded. Look at that fool Zhang Jue. A man who once did nothing but dig for herbs—how had he gained the power to shake the Han Dynasty? How could he heal the sick, fill empty houses with rice, command the wind, and summon rain?
It was all thanks to the book given to him by the Taoist Nanhua Laoxian: the Taiping Sorcery Manual.
And this book? This was nothing. If you common folk simply followed our teachings, you too could gain power equal to Zhang Jue's... No. Power greater than his.
Taoist? Sorcery manual? Aren't those the words of rotten bastards who practice sorcery? What does it matter? The kingdom is ruled by men far more brutal than any sorcerer, and the taxes they impose at whim torment you far worse than any spell. Do you intend to simply endure it?
Come. You want this power too, don't you? Don't you think you could become stronger than a man like that? Don't you believe you wouldn't fail the way he did? Yes, you too will want to enjoy immortality just as we do.
So follow us. Leave this land and enter the deep mountains. Abandon this chaotic mortal world and devote yourselves to cultivation. They will destroy themselves on their own. Then, who will be left to stop us? No one. At that time we shall reclaim what that bastard Confucius stole from us—our world before the Qin Dynasty. Yes. The world of the immortals.
And in this world—Elder's Gate: Kings 3—their plan had borne fruit. After the Three Kingdoms period ended, a weakened unified China faced invasion by barbarians, ushering in the even greater chaos of the Sixteen Kingdoms of the Five Barbarians era. When the Jin Dynasty finally collapsed, the sorcerers who had gathered their strength and waited in secret rose up at last.
China fell into anarchy. Sorcerers calling themselves Taoists ran wild. The setting was that East Asia had become a hellish xianxia world overrun by demonic beasts, youkai, demons, and these so-called Taoists.
Just how hellish? So completely fucked it can't even be properly expressed in this game~ Of course, this was nothing more than a shallow trick by the lazy developer Dot Heywood, who had struggled to implement India and couldn't be bothered to flesh out East Asia any further...
The real problem was that a certain man had been isekai'd into the most fucked-up part of this already fucked-up world: China. And probably at dawn tomorrow, that man would have to confront Zhang Jue as he attempted to use his fucking sorcery.
Of course, Zhang Jue himself knew nothing. He didn't know who had been possessed, didn't understand the sorcerers' true scheme, and had no idea the Taiping Sorcery Manual was merely a beginner's collection of spells. He didn't realize the end of this rebellion would serve as the spark for an even more chaotic era. He didn't even know whether the rebellion would succeed or fail.
He simply believed that some magnificent Taoist master had chosen him to save this turbid world. So what was he doing? He was busily preparing to offer every last prisoner and criminal as a sacrifice for tomorrow's battle. All to unleash the most powerful sorcery he had kept hidden for a moment as critical as this.
In a wide clearing, prisoners and captives lay scattered like discarded trash. Thirsty and starving, they had collapsed. Suddenly water poured down over their heads. They were given just enough to keep them from dying—people barely clinging to life. In that state they could not afford to be suspicious of the sudden deluge. They simply screamed for more and fought like animals to swallow even one extra drop.
They didn't even notice Zhang Jue watching from above the railing. He wore a mask painted with strange white patterns and was dressed in filthy yellow rags.
"Act One. A strange wind blows from the east. Yet the thirsty souls in the desert are drunk on the rain and feel nothing. Ah! Shepherd clad in yellow... forgive them, we beg you."
A faint eastern breeze stirred across the clearing where no wind had blown before. Coincidence? Perhaps. But the water-mad wretches like starving ghosts noticed nothing except their thirst. It was exactly like a play.
"At that moment, only a single child recognized the arrival of the Yellow King and knelt. The rest were too busy filling their bellies like pigs. The Yellow King in his golden robes frowns. The terrified child cries out: Ah! Ah! O Yellow King! Master of the sandstorm! Please forgive them! These people do not even know what danger they face. Have mercy!"
The wind began to howl. Sand mixed with the gusts stung their skin like needles. Yet after finally tasting water, they had no attention to spare for something as trivial as wind. They were simply happy.
"Act Two."
Suddenly something was wrong. No matter how much they drank, their thirst refused to ease. Instead their throats burned as if filled with sand. The more they swallowed, the worse it became...
"The child's monologue echoes as the stage lights rise. The stage is covered in sand. Men who have gouged out their own eyes with both hands spit sand from their mouths. The wind mocks them as it blows, and the Yellow King in yellow robes finally reveals himself."
And the sandstorm began to rage.