Avatar-The Mandate of Heaven

Fire

Air

Water

Earth

A lone cranefish bird soared high, its wings outstretched in a triumphant embrace of the firmament. It glided effortlessly through the ruddy hues of dusk, its sleek form gilded by the waning sun, which bled into the Mo Ce Sea, half-submerged in its final descent.

With its departure, an era, too shall wane.

Atop a mountain of corpses, filled with soldiers once sworn to the Avatar with unwavering fealty, sat a lone warrior. Encased in battered steel lamellar, he rested, slumped forward. His grip upon a mighty polearm feeble, fingers curled as if uncertain whether to hold on or relinquish.

The battlefield, once alive with the cacophony of war, had surrendered to silence, save for the western wind, which stirred the tattered grey banners in a mournful whisper. It was as though the world itself composed a final elegy for those who would never see the coming dawn.

Just moments before, it had been ferocious. A clash of conviction and audacity. He had embraced madness, daring to defy the ordained, to rend asunder what was deemed sacrosanct.

Yet, thousands of his foes had perished, believing their alignment with the Avatar would ensure victory.

Now, as he surveyed the grotesque tableau below, severed limbs, dismembered torsos, strayed heads wrenched from their shoulders. He mused upon the folly of righteous zeal. They had fought with desperate fervor to defend a sanctity they believed immutable, their noble aspirations built upon lands wrested from forgotten hands.

Usurpers. Squatters. Parasites.

They had defiled ancestral soil, mocking those who had come before by carving foreign visages into the very cliffs that graced their lifeless city. Now, a thin river of blood trickled downward, tracing the contours of one such visage, anointing it with crimson tears.

A pity.

He had not sought their deaths. They had simply placed themselves in his path. Yet, he wondered, was their devotion to the Avatar pure, or had it been tinged with doubt? Had fear compelled them to fight, forcing them to stand in her stead?

From within his armor, he withdrew a wooden tile, a Jasmine Pai Sho piece, now stained with blood. It is a relic of his last conversation with a brother, a caution unheeded, a reminder that some gambits should never be played.

For one does not simply challenge the Avatar.

And it did not take long for the consequences of his defiance to arrive.

From every direction, soldiers amassed, forming an iron cordon around the macabre summit he had built. Tens of thousands stood arrayed in perfect formation, grey banners raised high on metal monstrosities, yet none dared to advance. Across the horizon, the waters of Yue Bay and the sea beyond teemed with an endless armada, steel-clad leviathans bristling with weapons poised for destruction. The sky too was thick with airships, their hulls gleaming beneath the dying light, all trained upon a single man.

A spectacle of power. A young nation's flaunting pride on full display.

And yet, despite their grand assembly, they hesitated. The blood of their fallen still warm, echoes of slaughter yet to fade. To charge now would be folly, and they knew it.

The army of the grey banner had sacrificed a mere few thousand, convinced that his strength would wane. That their slain comrades had softened him, weakened the ingressus warrior who dared to defy their ordained justice upon the world.

So, they lingered. Watching. Waiting. They await the final verdict, delivered by the living embodiment of this young nation's founding.

For her.

At last, she arrived.

The incarnate. The arbiter of balance. The master of all four elements.

She hovered above the battlefield with pale eyes seething in incandescent fury, her presence heralded by the very elements that bowed to her command. With a mere gesture, a colossal mass of earth rose at her command, an unyielding titan of stone suspended above outstretched hands. To so much as entertain the notion of challenging such an august and venerated figure, hallowed by time and revered by generations, would be an act unthinkable even to history's most formidable warriors.

And how many times had this tale been told?

For millennia, kings and conquerors had dared to test their might, and for millennia, they had been ground to dust beneath the Avatar's dominion. None had ever triumphed against the incarnate's ultimate wrath, against the raw and unbridled fury of the four elements bent to their will. When some mortal fool, drunk on their own delusions of grandeur, dared to issue a challenge, it was only fitting that such brazen audacity be met with an answer swift and unforgiving.

This time, she would hurl the monolithic slab with the force of a divine hammer, crushing the weakened warrior beneath its unrelenting weight. A final stroke to end this blasphemous defiance.

And yet, he remained unmoved, not even mustering the desperate instinct to crawl away and preserve his wretched existence.

With a languid motion, he uncorked a waterskin, drinking leisurely as though oblivious to the impending cataclysm. Then, with deliberate care, he poured a small stream onto the bloodstained ground before her.

A gesture of disdain. A challenge. Worst of all, an affront to a Water Tribe Avatar, a blasphemy that doubts her strength.

The Avatar's glowing eyes narrowed, piercing through the veil of smoke and ruin to meet his jadish gaze. Here lies a man broken, bloodied and beaten.

In return, with his head still bowed, the lone challenger's trembling left hand pointed upon the master of all four elements, seizing this fleeting moment to utter a final remark before his fragile mortal shell is utterly unmade. A last utterance, perhaps steeped in regret for ever having embarked upon so futile a path.

"You are weaker than I thought."

The Mandate of Heaven

By Kaoart

Special thanks to Kkachi95 for the amazing cover art