The Crimson Arsenal of the Throne
The Royal Guards’ martial legacy is forged not in mountains or temples, but in palace halls and battlefields. Their arts are designed not for beauty or philosophy, but for efficiency, intimidation, and absolute lethality. Unlike the elegant brush-sword of the Scholar’s Academy or the compassionate palm of Shaolin, the Guards’ techniques are brutal, disciplined, and unrelenting — weapons of empire, not personal glory.
Their skills are divided into External Arts (blades, fists, and chains) and Internal Skills (breathing methods that fuel ferocity, endurance, and loyalty). Together, they form a system meant to break rebellions, hunt assassins, and embody the iron will of the throne.
Soul Losing Blade
A sweeping strike taught to every recruit, its edge designed not only to wound but to ensure the enemy bleeds. The target suffers ongoing damage, their strength ebbing with every heartbeat.
Training Method: Novices practice by cutting through bundles of reeds soaked in red dye, watching the stain spread as a reminder of inevitability. Instructors drill into them: “A wound is not a strike — it is a sentence.”
Xuanyuan Technique (Internal)
The foundational breathing method of the Guards, said to descend from ancient imperial manuals. By sharpening qi into cutting force, even ordinary blows cause bleeding. This technique instills the principle that every strike must weaken the foe over time, until their defeat is inevitable.
Disciples train under relentless sparring, striking wooden dummies bound with fresh hides, learning to cut deeper with breath alone.
Soul Chasing Claw
A chain technique that embodies the Guards’ role as hunters of rebels and assassins. By lashing out with hooked chains, a Guard can drag an enemy toward them or pull themselves across walls and roofs. It is as much a tool of mobility as of domination, ensuring no foe escapes the emperor’s shadow.
Legendary Use: Commander Zhao’s disciples once stormed a Tangmen stronghold by scaling its walls with Soul Chasing Claws, pulling assassins down screaming into crimson ranks.
Tiancan Technique (Internal)
This breathing art amplifies adrenaline, sharpening strength and speed while hardening the body against pain. Users become relentless, their strikes empowered by sheer ferocity. The Tiancan Technique embodies the Guard’s philosophy: to overwhelm treachery before it spreads.
Practitioners are forced into grueling drills of combat without rest, their qi driving their bodies far past normal limits.
Eagle Claw Fist
An advanced unarmed style where hands strike like talons, tearing flesh and targeting eyes. Beyond damage, it induces bleeding and temporary blindness, breaking both body and morale. To face a Guard using Eagle Claw Fist is to feel as though one is prey beneath a predator’s talons.
Instructors whisper that it is not merely a technique, but a lesson: “The emperor is the eagle — we are its claws.”
Dark Heaven Technique (Internal)
This breathing method floods the body with qi and adrenaline, enabling Guards to strike harder and ignore pain. For a time, wounds mean nothing; the Guard fights as though invincible. Yet the cost is heavy — the user risks permanent damage to nerves and spirit.
Veteran Guards who rely on Dark Heaven often bear ruined bodies, yet still serve until death, unwilling to abandon duty.
Hell Soul Changing Technique (Forbidden Internal)
The most dangerous of the Guards’ arts. By embracing darkness within, a Guard may temporarily shed pain and mortality, striking with terrifying power. But this comes at the cost of their soul’s purity — those who practice it too often become hollow, more wraith than man.
Legends tell of the “Crimson Wraiths,” Guards who survived dozens of mortal wounds through this art, their eyes burning black, their humanity lost. To this day, commanders forbid its use except in the defense of the throne itself.
Training in the Royal Guards is merciless:
Discipline Above All: Novices repeat drills until individuality is erased. Formations, strikes, and even breathing are synchronized.
Pain as Teacher: Recruits spar with blunted steel until their bodies bleed. Only by enduring agony can they learn to master Dark Heaven and Tiancan.
Chains of Loyalty: Soul Chasing Claw is not only martial — it is symbolic. The chain reminds disciples that loyalty binds them as tightly as they bind foes.
Crimson Trials: Only those who master both blade and breath may don the crimson cloak. Failure is exile — or death.
Unlike other sects, the Guards do not pursue enlightenment, compassion, or art. Their philosophy is singular: loyalty made flesh, duty made blade.
Summary:
The Royal Guards’ martial legacy is forged for empire: the bleeding Soul Losing Blade, the hunting Soul Chasing Claw, the predatory Eagle Claw Fist, and the forbidden Hell Soul Changing Technique. Their breathing methods — Xuanyuan, Tiancan, Dark Heaven, and Hell Soul Changing — embody ferocity, endurance, and loyalty unto death. To train as a Guard is to abandon self, to fight as the emperor’s shadow, and to wield techniques that strike not only flesh, but the spirit of rebellion itself.