KSBD 5-81
Meti’s Sword Manual
The 18 Precepts
10. A man who finds pleasure in the result of cutting is the most hateful, crawling creature there is. A man who finds pleasure in the act of cutting is an artisan.
11. Man always strives to cut man. Therefore he who draws his sword the fastest is the survivor. To pre-empt this, you must live, eat, and shit as a person who has their sword drawn. It doesn’t matter whether your blade, in actuality, is always out of its sheathe, though you will look like an idiot if it is.
12. Consider: The undefeated swordsman must be exceptionally poor.
13. The weak swordsman reserves his sword strokes. He clings excessively to his blade. His footwork is unsteady. His grip is too hard and he is afraid to crack the earth with his step. He has a shallow and wandering gaze, his tongue is sluggish and pale. He refuses to exhale the hot breath of the Flame Immortal.
14. The weak swordsman clings to victory. He thinks of his life, his obligations, the outcome of the battle, his hatred for his opponent, his training, his pride in his mastery. By doing so, he is an imperfect vessel for the terrible fires of Will. He will surely crack. He will not laugh uproariously if he is cleft in two by his opponent’s blade. When his sword is shattered, his hands will be too reserved to tear his enemies’ flesh.
15. The weak swordsman strikes his enemy down and thinks his task done. He relishes in victory. He casts away his sword and returns to his lover. Little does he know his single cut will encircle the world five times and strike him down fifty-fold.
16. The weak swordsman clings to his instrument. It is better you have a sword, but death must lie under your fingernails, if need be. Learn death with your elbows, death with your knees, and death with your thumbs and fingertips. It is said death with the tongue is useful, but I find words too soft an instrument to smash a man’s skull.
17. In manners of terrain, you must learn to cut yourself from it. You must cut even your footprints from it, if need be. Have complete awareness of each crawling thing and each precious flower, each blade of sweet grass and each clod of bitter earth, each beating heart and each being that thrums with love, hope, and admiration. Only then are you qualified to be their annihilator.
18. Excess heat and excess coldness are undesirable. Learn to read the weather.
Closing
1. It is said the greatest warrior-kings may sublime violence and forget all they learn about the sword. This is true. But the only true path to kingship lies through regicide.
2. Moreover, only the worst kind of idiot strives to be king.
3. My extreme hope is that some measure of wisdom will penetrate the thick skull of my apprentice. If not, may reading this manual demonstrate your powerful disinterest in it, and may its true value die with me.
4. Reach heaven by violence.
FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHTING evil by moonlight~!
“By the power of the moon, I will punish you!” Ha ha! We both got caught in the Sailor Moon spell.
WIIIIIIIIIINNING love by daylight!
NEEEEEEVER running from a real fight!
She is the one called KILL SIX BILLION DEMONS~Moon!
I wonder if the image posted earlier this week was meant to imply Allison spent some time with Zoss where-ever she was, and only now completed her journey. It was, after all, seemingly linked with the figure shown in the last panel of the page before, and she seemed to have… developed? her hair there, which was absent when she first arrived.
Concordance is everywhere and nowhere. One can spend an eternity in Concordance during the blink that occurs between here, and there. Dead people still existing in that place is the least of your worries.
Ooh, are we going to get some character development and humor? Those things were some of my favorite parts of the original forum adventure, I’m really interested to see them happen here.
Forum adventure? What forum adventure?
http://mspaforums.com/showthread.php?47341-KILL-SIX-BILLION-DEMONS-%28NSFW%29-NOW-A-FRUITY-WEBCOMIC <— That one, from the MSPA forums. This is the first incarnation of KSBD. Pretty different.
Lines like:
“YGHHOL SSNTHL ZZGOTL BALZZ says melissa, spittle dripping from her lips”
And people requesting for Fredric Nietzsche to hit on a teenager..
I like this place.
A thousand and one curses to Andrew Hussie for letting this fine place fall to ruin.
If you haven’t seen plenty of character development and humor in the story so far you must be reading something that isn’t K6BD.
“Like one, that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows, a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.”
Maybe, but i kinda doubt the story jumped this far ahead. I think the path back to her universe/earth just took a long time to pass through. Plus she spent three days in that reality, and three days have also passed on earth. It’s not that difficult to say that this isn’t the end of the story just yet. :^)
I’m *really* excited as to what will come next though. This is fantastic.
Of course it’s not over yet, she still has 6 billion demons to kill! She hasn’t even started.
Nice red shoes Alice
Theres truly no place like home.
The biggest twist of them all: The Key of Kings took Allison exactly where she wanted to be, and home appears entirely intact. What news shall there be of her boyfriend’s house, if any?
The smart thing to do would be to find someone who can teach one how to use a sword that size with proficiency in a relatively short time. Sadly, this Earth seems to be running low on those. Probably also wise to gain competence in a more contemporary bullet-spitting variety of weapon. Hopefully Allison comes to think along these lines once her relief wear off.
There is absolutely no difference in the use of a sword or a gun. Each is merely a tool, an extension of the self, that serves the purpose of making killing easier.
True mastery lies in making *oneself* into an object that deals death. A True King kills with sword, spear, rifle, knife, axe, hand, foot, or tongue with equal ease. They have shaped their Love into a flawless blade that may cleave even God.
Reach Heaven by Violence.
“tongue”
…So you too have also tongue-punched a man’s chocolate starfish to his death? I thought I was the only one.
But seriously, I agree with your statement with the amendment that practice in the martial arts assists one in becoming a twisting machine of death. Maybe she can find a few mentors in some other dimensions before doing away with six billion troublesome rats.
So Allison is back on Earth, huh? Guess we know where the demon horde is heading next. Been nice knowing you, guys.
Oh. Oh my. How intriguing. Let us hope her friend/roommate doesn’t notice the..rather large sword at the foot of the bed. Allison’s room seems rather nice, doesn’t it?
I’m afraid my ultimate statement on Meti’s manual is rather negative. I can see her point in some of the precepts, but its usefulness seems truly limited. Though, I am speaking as someone who has picked up the sword arts at a..later age.
Wow. Examining the beggining of the story reveals amazing consistency. Little things like the placement of furniture, the formation of the headboard, the locations of bottles and cups are the same. It’s amazing. You’re amazing. This tale is amazing.
I’m pretty sure that was her boyfriend’s apartment at the time, not her own.
Nah, Allison told 82 in chapter 2 that HER room exploded. Looks okay now, though.
I stand corrected. Also interesting that she looks to be on the second floor but as I recall the riders from outside rode right up to the room regardless.
So yeah, the last line in Meti’s manual seems to confirm that Maya is the apprentice she taught.
The twelfth precept also suggests it’s her.
Looks like the horns finally came off!
That may not be a good thing. Remember how she was told that the devil growing within her body had to be consumed? What would happen if it was otherwise?
Does this mean that she will soon be giving life to that Blue Devil 82 mentioned? Is she going to throw it up right at the feet of her roommate?
I certainly hope so.
Space and time are not universally valid, but merely a condition of the intuition of things (attaching merely to the subject, and surely valid for all objects of the senses, hence for all merely possible experience). But these conditions, as well as the concept of cause, in no way attach to things in themselves, but only to experience.
The utterance of the words “Kill Six Billion Demons” by the old King and by the stone corpse are the same event. Zoss lives, but he does not; few others have learned to emulate YISUN in this way.
Do not assume, either, that the living Demiurges at their Concordance are distinct from the stone figures surrounding the stone corpse of Zoss, despite the fact that one is ‘on top of’ the other, for the relation ‘on top of’ is not necessarily non-reflexive in the White Realms; neither shall one assume that the event of Jadis’s speech was different from the event of Zoss’s; for this identity of seemingly distinct events the very mechanism of prophecy. Of the demiurges, Jadis is the most comfortable with the nature of perception in the White Realms, where these things which appear as metaphor to us are simple matters of fact, and of the demiurges, she alone understood that the corpse of Zoss still resides in his ’empty’ throne.
I foresee a lot of awkward hats or even headbands in Allison’s future.
I am confused! Aha! But that is always good! I means there is more to learn!
I am impressed beyond the capacity for rational thought.
End of the first book? Does that mean I get to throw money at you soon to gain the compilation? This! In my hands! Now! 😀
Her outfit and the sword are one of my favorite visual images within these comics. It’s all wondrous, but something about her character wielding that sword really captivates me
I can’t help but wonder: if Alison travels by the art of division, and her black soul remains with the Conquering King, is what we witness now a body (and perhaps mind) with no soul within?
…And actually, if the instrument of Division is Want, it makes a degree of sense for her to be in two places, two times, simultaneously. A piece of her desires to return home to safety and simplicity, but the core of her desires answers, revenge and conquest.
It is an impressive gift indeed to maintain two contrary desires so vigorously.
I wonder if humans count as a type of demon.
because hey, there are 6 billion of them
Try almost 7.3 billion, according to Worldometers.
“It is said death with the tongue is useful, but I find words too soft an instrument to smash a man’s skull.”
Then obviously you aren’t doing it right.
I just remembered what Allison’s face reminded me of when she starts laughing!
It’s an American Dad episode (Fart-break Hotel I think?) with a woman who was thought dead starting to pull herself out of a river: http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110117223719/americandad/images/thumb/2/29/Sarahblanch.png/500px-Sarahblanch.png
She starts laughing… oohhoohoohoo…ahhahahahaha… *BAM* log to the head.
Allison’s roommate is that log.
Reminds me of one of the first episodes of Freeman’s Mind, after Freeman
s woken up after the resonance cascade and ping-ponging between various horror dimensions: “Ha, AHAHA! I’m not in crazy-land anymore!”
The relief is palpable