'Ten years to cultivate wood, a hundred years to cultivate man.'
Two thousand years ago, a tribe of mortals fighting for survival found a tree that worked wonders. The thousand emerald fruits of unknown origin changed their life forever. The power that defied the heavens was blessed upon the realm of men. Countless decades passed, the story was a thing of the past and the legend of thousand emeralds was long lost in waves of time.
My ancestral history traces back to the Suzaku tribe of thousand emeralds, where my forefather, Maximus the great was the holder of one of the fruits of the emerald tree. The power bestowed upon him was the power of devouring. A thousand fruits had their own unique traits that were passed upon to the blood of the 1000 fruit bearers and one thousand strong families were formed. War of hierarchy was fought and counting families were eradicated. The remaining 100 families after a thousand years of war came to an agreement of dividing the territories of earth and not to interfere in the matters of mortals.
Our family is the branch of the Maximus main family that rules the south East Asia of today. The power of devouring helps our blood strengthen and extends our life. Flesh and blood are what keeps us alive. The power of devouring is what helped our bloodline survive and last up to today. But technology today has risen at an exponential level that our secrets are becoming harder to keep. Our family relies on the meat and blood of animals for a living. Human blood and flesh nourish us greatly but we try to keep our human diet under tight control. We don’t want to be recognized as flesh-eating predators and be the devil of common folks. We can go on for days without food once we have a high-quality flesh and blood of fresh death. So we rely on the market of 100 tribe unions to fulfill the demands for food. Irrational killing and hunting have become things of the past as surveillance of modern technology has become harder to avoid. Exposing ourselves may result in dire situations. So we only have human flesh and blood every six months.
The human that is auctioned in the union market is not obtained through killing but are young deceased mortals who are robbed from their graves secretly. It is quite scary to think of as a mortal but we prefer that to kill and rearing men as animals. So looking to the positive side it is convenient. The tribe union market is one of the most powerful markets on earth and can be considered modern-day amazon for 100 tribes. We try to meddle in ways of mortals as less as possible. So we mainly order requirements from the union.
Today was once in a six-month premium delivery. So I went outside after hearing the doorbell. The cargo was on the front porch and I yelled back, "we got another one." We only get to consume essence of such fresh product twice a year so we were looking forward to it. But if it was any mortal, they would have questioned their life choices and thought of cannibals as scum. But we are what we are. We are the heir of Maximus the great, the strongest of the race in the world and survival of the fittest is the unwritten path of survival. One step to reach heaven, thousands to transcend it.

Beautifully written
ReplyDeleteGreat story. Would love to read more about this
ReplyDeleteGreat story! Well written.
ReplyDelete