At the summit of Mount Singkhon, where the peak scraped the belly of the sky, the mist gathered in thick, fluffy clumps that looked like the cotton batting old-timers used to stuff their mattresses. The air around the Bamboo Hermitage was so perfectly still that the hermit crab dozing in its burrow nearby didn't dare roll over. But that peace was shattered one morning when the sky above cracked wide open, and a blazing column of pearly light came spinning down from the Celestial Realm like a drill bit from heaven, shaking the earth with a sound like a mountain splitting in two!
BOOM!
Dirt and bamboo leaves exploded outward in a wide ring. Sage Fireye—whose ascetic power was so deep and ancient that his beard and mustache hung all the way down to his ankles—snapped open the third eye in the center of his forehead to check for catastrophe. But what he found in the clearing in front of him was no meteor, and certainly no demon. It was a boy. A small boy, maybe eight years old, with smooth rosy skin and chubby cheeks so pinchable it was almost a crime. His hair was twisted up in a topknot held in place by a nine-gem gold hair clasp, and he wore a brand-new pair of wrapped trousers in brilliant vermilion red.
And most importantly—slung across that tiny back was an enormous ancient axe, so big it nearly dragged the ground. The blade was etched with intricate scrollwork that shimmered and glittered, throwing off flashes of light that made your eyes water just looking at it.
"OW! Ow ow ow!" The topknotted kid yelped, both hands clamped over his backside. "The angel guide on the first level of the Heavens told me to just drop straight down, said the ground in the mortal world was soft as a feather bed—soft as WHAT, exactly?! I nearly split my rear end into four pieces!"
The boy grumbled with the full authority of an indignant child and pushed himself to his feet, brushing off the dust. Then those bright, deer-soft eyes landed on the robed figure sitting motionless as a stone pillar on a bamboo platform. Light as a moth, the kid bounced right over.
"Whoa! Hey, mister—who are you? How come you've got a whole bundle of dried grass tied to your chin like that?"
Sage Fireye's eyebrow twitched. He cleared his throat with a dignity-preserving harrumph. "Impudent tongue on you, child. That is a beard—the beard of one who has devoted his life to ascetic cultivation. It is most certainly not a bundle of grass. I am Sage Fireye. And you—you are Diamond Axe Kid, a divine child sent down from the Celestial Realm by the Celestial Jewel Fairy to protect and rescue the mortal world. Or have you forgotten?"
"Oh… so my name's Diamond Axe Kid, huh?" The boy's eyes went wide. He reached back and grabbed the handle of the sacred weapon. The moment he pulled it free, the enormous diamond set in the axe head fired a blinding flash of light straight into the Sage's face—so direct and so bright that even the third eye flinched shut.
"Watch it, kid!" Sage Fireye said sharply. "That axe of yours can shear a mountain range down to a stump in the blink of an eye. Waving it around like that is like using a sledgehammer to swat a fly—and my hermitage will be the fly."
"Sorry, Master—I mean, Sage." Diamond Axe Kid pressed his palms together in a lopsided bow, his face arranged into something resembling remorse while his eyes danced with mischief. "I didn't know this old wood-chopper was that powerful. Back in the Heavens I saw the senior angels using one just like it to crack open young coconuts."
Sage Fireye exhaled a breath so long his beard rippled. "That was an ordinary axe. Yours carries a great purpose. The mortal world below is sinking into darkness. The Black Shaman—a practitioner of vile and forbidden arts—is trapping vengeful spirits and draining their life force. He peddles fake talismans to deceive the villagers, bleeds them dry of every coin they have, and grows fat while they grow thin. You must go down there, root out that evil, and wake people up."
"The Black Shaman, huh?" Diamond Axe Kid tilted his head. "Why does he need so much money anyway, Sage? Can you cook it into a stew and eat it instead of rice? Or sleep on a pile of it and fly like a sixth-level angel?"
The question was so simple and so sharp that Sage Fireye went quiet for a moment before answering. "You can't eat gold, child. But humans carry greed inside them—a hunger for power that only grows the more it's fed, until they're willing to cheat and hurt others to get more. And they forget that when death finally comes, they can't take a single coin into the coffin with them. The only thing that follows you past death is karma. Good deeds bring good returns. Evil deeds bring ruin. No one escapes that."
"Oh—like that one angel back in the Heavens who hoarded golden pillows and spent all day throwing his weight around at the junior angels? Karma caught up with him eventually. He tripped over his own feet and fell right out of the sky, head-first." Diamond Axe Kid burst out laughing and clapped his hands.
"Yes… that analogy will do," Sage Fireye said, stroking his beard and shaking his head at the boy's gift for comparison. "Now then. Before you head down to the mortal world, go practice controlling the Diamond Axe in the forest around this hermitage. Remember: power without wisdom is just destruction waiting to happen."
"Yes, sir!"
Diamond Axe Kid snapped off a crisp reply and launched himself into the air in a single bound, floating upward as lightly as a soap bubble. His small feet stepped from treetop to treetop as if he were strolling across a plush carpet. The forest wind whipped through his hair as he soared, spinning the Diamond Axe in lazy circles just for the fun of it—sending every bird in the canopy into a panicked frenzy. Several of them crashed into each other mid-air and tumbled down in a shower of feathers.
"Whoa, this tree is HUGE!" Diamond Axe Kid swooped down and perched on a branch of a massive golden teak, cocking the axe back to take a test swing at a dead limb. But the instant the blade drew close to the leaves—
Everything changed. Fast. Like someone had flipped a switch.
The warm morning sun vanished behind a churning wall of black cloud. A stench like rot and grave-dirt rolled in on the wind, thick enough to gag a vulture. And from somewhere below, from a dark hollow in the earth, came a sound like wailing.
"Ugh! What IS that smell? Like a fish that's been dead for a year and left in the sun." Diamond Axe Kid pinched his nose shut so hard it squeaked.
Then, on the damp ground below, a figure appeared. Gaunt and desiccated, skin stretched tight over bone, eyes bulging and red as hot coals. A vengeful spirit—one of the Black Shaman's low-ranking minions, lurking here to hunt for prey. It looked up, saw a plump, glowing child perched in the branches, and drool sizzled where it hit the dirt.
"Prey… child-flesh… divine essence, sweet and rich!" The spirit's voice rasped like two dry bamboo stalks grinding together. It spread its long, razor-sharp claws and lunged straight at the kid!
"WHOA! What are you?! You look like you haven't taken a bath in three hundred years!" Diamond Axe Kid yelped—startled, but not even a little scared. He twisted sideways in midair with the easy grace of a swallow, and the spirit shot past him and slammed face-first into the trunk of an old sandalwood tree.
THWACK!
Two fangs bounced across the ground.
"OW! You little brat!" The spirit clutched its mouth and let out a howl. Furious, it threw its head back and shrieked into the darkness. "Everyone! Get out here and swarm him! Fresh meat, right here!"
The black mist thickened. Three, four more vengeful spirits burst from the shadows between the trees, surrounding Diamond Axe Kid from every direction. The cold that poured off them was so intense that the leaves nearby began to curl and wither and fall.
"Oh, so it's gonna be a pile-on? And you're not even good-looking enough to get away with bad manners!" Diamond Axe Kid tightened his grip on the axe handle, eyes steady and fearless. "Fine by me! The Diamond Axe needs a warm-up anyway—let's see how you spirits like getting scattered to the wind!"
All the spirits lunged at once, claws reaching to tear the small boy apart. But Diamond Axe Kid closed his eyes, breathed, and called up everything the Sage had just told him about control. He spun in place and swept the Diamond Axe in one clean circle around his body.
FWHOOSH! FLASH!
The sacred power of the Celestial Realm detonated outward. A torrent of brilliant white-diamond light poured from the blade, blazing through the black mist the way sunlight burns through fog. But this wasn't the light of destruction—it wasn't meant to shred or obliterate for the satisfaction of it. It was the light of truth, and what it cut through were the dark chains of the Black Shaman's sorcery that had been clamped around those spirits all along.
"SCREEEE—it burns! It burns! But… wait—"
The screams of agony shifted. Something loosened. The black, oily haze that had warped and twisted the spirits' faces dissolved completely, and what was left underneath were the original souls—ordinary villagers, every one of them. The savage expressions melted away, replaced by calm, and then by awareness.
The spirits sank to their knees before the small boy, tears streaming down their faces. "Thank you, young divine one… thank you for freeing us from the Black Shaman's curse…"
"Huh… so we're not fighting anymore?" Diamond Axe Kid scratched his head and stared at the axe in his hand, genuinely puzzled. "So where are you all going now?"
"Our time as his bound servants is finished. Now we must go and face the karma we've earned—the good and the bad—and continue on the wheel of existence. Please, young one—stay safe, and help the people in the ancient city below." The spirit-forms dissolved slowly, becoming soft drifts of golden light, warm and full of something that felt like hope, before fading quietly into the open sky.
When the stillness returned, the black mist was gone entirely. Warm sunlight poured back down through the canopy. The leaves and grass that had withered a moment ago straightened up, green and bright, nodding in the breeze.
Diamond Axe Kid stood there and watched, and thought. He could feel the weight of what the Sage had just taught him settling into something real. *Oh. So the Diamond Axe isn't for smashing things because it's fun. It's for clearing away suffering and setting people free.*
He smiled so wide his cheeks hurt. He swung the Diamond Axe back into place on his back and looked down the mountain toward the ancient city waiting below. He knew now that what lay ahead wasn't a game of catching grasshoppers. It was real work, with real lives on the line.
Diamond Axe Kid dropped from the branch, landed lightly, and set off down the mountain at a brisk pace—heart full to bursting with courage, mischief, and something pure and warm that could only be called compassion.
*Lesson of the chapter: Power and a deadly weapon, without wisdom and compassion to guide them, become nothing but instruments of ruin. But wielded with a clear mind and a kind heart, they can turn even the deepest darkness into light.*
Diamond Axe Kid walked on…