King of Swords 4-44
“KI RATA
An internal/external discipline, widely respected as the most dangerous Fist Art in the multiverse. It’s core technique is a breathing method that allows internal force to be cultivated extremely rapidly and focused on a point smaller than a pin-prick, giving blows absolutely phenomenal power. Blows using this technique are named by the number of points they contain – one point blows are strong enough to crack stone with a touch. Two point blows can decapitate a man with the air pressure created by flicking a finger. Legends about of old masters of Ki Rata using ten point blows to level cities but I find the claim highly dubious.
I have found nobody willing to train me in this art and none who will grant me observation. Improper use of a Ki Rata technique will literally tear a man’s own body into pieces, so I have not attempted to study it myself. The only living masters live in the (remarkably pretty) land of Rayuba and are staunch pacifists, having, according to legend, culled their order to a single community. Reportedly the only time they ever use their considerable talents is to kill someone who somehow manages to learn a Ki Rata technique without being trained by them first. They only take apprentices to replace an old master when he dies, so that someone will always be around to make sure Ki Rata does not exist in the wider world. Many supplicants flock to Rayuba in the hopes of being trained by the masters, who sometimes are forced into self defense when they are challenged to unwanted duels.
When I arrived there hoping for some insight, I witnessed such a duel between a low-ranking monk of the style and a well-known master of Pilgrim fist. Within three moves, the monk, a rather short fellow, use a two finger one-point technique to completely vaporize the bones in both the master’s arms.
I am strongly dissuaded to continue pressing my study of this art and will write no further on it.”
-MANUAL OF HANDS AND FEET
SOLOMON DAVID
God-Emperor of the Celestial Empire and Grand Master of Martial Arts Breathing Technique Bullshit
Faith is an art of violence. Violence requires an act of faith.
The king’s soul resides in his breath, his song, his battle-cry.
Lordship is the end of both faith and violence.
If, in your travels, you encounter the Buddha on the road ahead of you,
kill him.
Oh, Linji Yixuan, probably the greatest among Chan trolls. Or just the most famous anyway. Or is it the same?
Drukpa Kunley was a greater troll than any and all practitioners of Chan
“Drukpa Kunley” is a valid troll name.
Fucker still owes me for those figs.
No, thst was Jesus who blasted your fig tree.
Never compensated the guy who owned those pigs, either.
BASHED
BLAMMED
SALAMIāD
The word ya ‘ll seeking for is
SOLOMON’D
Or perhaps
DAVE’D
BOK! Or even BOKEMO BOKUM! …’Cause he’s been RIVEN into bloody kibble from the shoulders up! (geddit?)
– The Goat of the Greenwoods makes a gratuitously obscure joke.
TRUTHIFI’D
For all that exists is a lie
Welp, he just got noped out of existence
Violence is, after all, eternal and inescapable.
Why, the Lead Monk surely escaped the vicious cycle, the act of escaping being shewn in the last panel…
Literally just breath good.
Now to be fair, Royalty itself is “literally just don’t stop cutting”.
Royalty is loving every atom in existence as much as yourself.
… by cutting it
…as much as yourself. Wait, don’t.
Ki Rata is the Ripple?
Gotta say, I’m kinda with Solomon on this one
Yeah, there’s definitely less sympathy to be held for the victims of Salami Dave’s inexorable violence after they sat by and watched his world burn to the ground.
Musashi teaches that the aim of all martial arts is not to have to use them. But i think he would disagree with these monks as to how that teaching is to be interpreted.
The only way to end the use of martial arts is to enforce peace. But lo, peace can only be enforced through the application of martial arts!
What a paradox.
All peace is temporary, because it is exactly as wide as the space between holding up your fist for observation and putting its promise into practice.
Unless of course one were to follow the golden path.
Hey, I’m with the monks. If everyone was as resolute as them maybe the multiverse would’ve stopped bleeding by now.
Instead some jumped-up fool murders them and enslaves 1/7th of the universe.
Gotta say, I will not be teaching you my hidden arts with that attitude.
Fools, indeed. “violence is a perpetual cycle you have escaped from”… !???
Have you been paying attention?
If not, reread chapter 5 of seeker of thrones and pay attention to the silver prince, any the very wise frog
then repeat after me: violence is…
Did somebody say silver?
…oh.
sandwiches
…magic! š
I will see you in Samura.
Meet me in Temecula!
But what about St. Louis?
….krabs?
*Ki Rata is based on breathing techniques*
So it’s Hamon then? Does Solomon have a stand?
Breathing techniques as a fundamental foundation of martial arts are common throughout eastern Asian practice.
This I would love to see
“This must be the work of an enemy Key of Kings!”
NANI?!?
Reach heaven through violence.
ONE PUUUUUNCH
Greatest possible comment here.
Oh yes.
With no sun, how is that place not a frozen wasteland at 40K with it’s atmosphere snowed out?
Though from the monks breath, it must be pretty cold at that pioint already.
Solomon David put the sun back.
And an extra one, because he felt like showing off.
Oh, I get it now, it’s the other way around, that’s where he got an extra sun for his own world!
It is. When you can blow up cities by focusing on your breathing it’s a trivial matter to ignore a slight chill in the air.
maybe geothermic activity or some shit
Depending on how much truth is contained in Incubus’ tale, this would certainly explain why millennia on Solomon David chooses only to have sons or appear to have an Empress. Such sentiments would suit what we’ve seen so far. Furthermore, his relationship with his own master explains why he remains obsessed with the idea of only relinquishing his title through violence, it mirrors the unending cycle. A tradition of oblivion as one master (or King) overcomes the next, dating all the way back to Gods and Yis’un who were laid low through self-violence.
Though I will note from experience with deceptive, tricksy beings and sometimes wearing that role myself that the best deceptions contain elements of the truth. The most tricky of beings tell lies containing almost entirely truth, though perhaps they omit the most important parts. I imagine this mirrors how Himself and Incubus like to operate.
There is no historian who can fully lay out the full breadth and texture of the past. Because the world is extremely complicated, with every person contributing their own story, while simultaneously changing the stories of others.
As such, what we call “History” is merely an attempt to use known facts to tell a narrative. We pick and choose facts to support this narrative, in the hopes of making sense of the confusing past. However, this also means that our narratives frame that past in peculiar ways. By asserting one narrative, we tacitly avoid other potential narratives that may be equally valid.
We say, for instance, that the Roman Empire fell in the 500s AD, leading to a Dark Age. But the *Eastern* Roman Empire continued on for a thousand years after that, and was a bastion of civilization, government, and learning. Both these narratives are based on facts, yet come to completely contrary ideas.
Is it any wonder, then, that a person may tell a tale of the past that is entirely built on facts, yet come to a deceptive conclusion?
The parable is clear, is it not? For the preferred narrative to live, the unsanctioned narrative must die. Truly violence is inescapable.
Very True. During my studies it was often described to me that the purpose of Academic history was to convince others that our interpretation of the past, our narrative, was correct. The past is by its nature inherently subjective.
Welp, I can see why Solomon David might have started out a little peeved. That’s a hell of an origin story.
Exquisite.
The other definition of pacifist.
Right through your useless face.
Pacifist is a funny word. In some languages it denotes one who does not fight. In others it denotes one who pacifies.
This would have been an excellent page for Father’s Day.
I am pretty sure all the Solomon did here was flex.
Weird Flex but OH GOD MY BONES
Nice.
I wonder if ki rata users can delete someone with one-point from their dingaling
Ah yes, the often-rumored-but-never-observed One-Point Viper
The sun dimmed within the skies
And ‘neath Yemmod’s heel Rayuba did cry
The DIAMOND grew cold and hard and empty
As the Rayuba died, drained of its plenty
Monk sat by as supplicant grieved
Monk taught supplicant how to breathe
Monk gazed upon student, proudly
Monk’s half the man he used to be
! Behold !
! A just reward !
Power must be used. When it is still, it is not.
A wise statement, friend. Speaking of which, the power that resides in your wallet lies greivously unspent- care to buy a trinket or two?
For surely, unspent power is no power at all.
Proto-Solomon’s bicep wrappings appear to have explosively disintegrated from the force of his backhand… even on the arm he didn’t use.
It’s so 80’s it hurts (literally, it killed the head monk).
Interestingly, it would seem Solomon spared the order afterwards?
The easiest way to be accepted as the Grandmaster of Ki Rata, is if you’re the only practicioner of Ki Rata.
Possibly, but the Manual of Hands and Feet would then be so old as to render it’s information essentially meaningless.
I was struck by the comment “remarkably pretty”. That had to have been written before the disappearance of it’s sun and therefore before Solomon, don’t you think?
Or recent. He *has* restored the place, after all.
I notice that the female monk appears to be the most suspicious of the supplicant. This is as it should be.