A...Leading Many

 
A king leading an army of many followers came across a wizard, who said, “with my powers, you can defeat many armies.” The king took the wizard with him to the next battle, and before the warriors even engaged, the wizard went to the front of the line, and recited a magical verse that protected those who had proclaimed heartfelt submission to the king whose name was pronounced at the end of the verse.  With this protection, the king’s men were able to win many battles, slaughtering many warriors, and enslaving any women who survived the onslaught.  
Hearing of this impending conflict, A chief called to all his allied villages to gather their best defensive force.  Upon hearing this call, a local demon approached the chief, saying, “I have heard the tactic used by the king, and I alone know how to neutralize it.  With my power, you can defeat any army.”  Employing the demon, the chief prepared his warriors for a battle to defend their homeland from annihilation.  Before the battle began, the wizard went to the front of the line, and recited the same protective verse as always.  The king’s men advanced rapidly, fearlessly chopping down the chief’s men.  In horror, the chief looked to the demon, who, with a menacing smile, recited a counter-verse that turned all of the spoken king’s loyalties against him, whether warriors in battle, or family and subjects at home.  Even if he had managed to escape the inescapable odds of two full armies against one man, he would have been ambushed by his closest companions once he was reported anywhere near his homeland.  The king  was killed by one of his own men, and the armies expanded as far as they could go.
The chief was happy to have defended his homeland, but the demon would not relinquish control of the warriors.  The demon could affect the loyalties of warriors at will, marching humans of ever-increasing numbers directly into each other with an ever-increasing mortality rate, just to turn around a small number of survivors and press them into fighting on the side that just defeated them.  The chief felt helpless against such a gruesome creature, so he did nothing to prevent the ominous war, and the distance of the carnage from the capital eventually calmed the chief into accepting the evil necessity that provided him and his family with consistent, relative peace.
Very distant from the chief and the demon, warriors who look nothing like the chief and who share none of his bloodline were walking in a wooded mountain expanding the chief’s domain, and in search of warriors to kill or convert.  The warriors heard what sounded like water rushing, and approached a clearing to fill their canteens.     Upon shifting through a clearing, the first warrior heard the rush of water, then saw a mystic in lotus position sitting next to the running stream, chanting a mystic verse.  The warrior immediately entered the lotus position, and began chanting the same verse as the mystic.  Then the second warrior did the same, and the third warrior did the same, and the fourth warrior did the same.  Every warrior who went within hearing range of the chant did the same, until there were no more warriors in the troop.  Instead there was a sangha of mystics chanting for peace.  When reports stopped coming from that sector, soldiers were sent from adjacent regions.  When those soldiers stopped reporting, word got to the chief and the demon that almost every soldier who went to that mountain stayed, with a few exceptions who were mostly offspring or near kin of the chief, or bastard children of the demon and the chief’s reluctant but powerless wives.  Those few survivors were all executed for treason, for not fighting to the death to serve the chief.  When they claimed there was nobody to fight, they were convicted of treason for not killing every traitor to the chief.
The chief, under instruction of the demon, went to defeat the mystic.  He secured his oldest son as the new chief on the possibility of failure, and knew that, even if he returned alive, his son would rather die than relinquish his title, and it would just be up to the demon anyway.  Leaving the capital, the chief felt relief, and as soon as he came within hearing distance of the chant, he became a mystic himself.  The demon heard this and was fearful that this enemy would defeat him, so he sent his entire army to attack the mystic, but almost all of those soldiers became mystics as well, chanting for peace.  The very few who returned to the demon claimed they attacked the mystics, but nothing happened anymore when they thrust their swords towards a mystic’s body.  They reported the mystics were chanting in unison, throughout the countrysides surrounding the capital, words of peace.  This infuriated the demon, who traveled to the mountain where he was told the first mystic had been found, apparently unaffected by the chant.  The demon searched the area of the stream and identified the most calm, most content-looking individual and asked, “How are you so powerful you can control the minds of so many, and withstand the attack of my soldiers?”
“I have no power.  Any influence or effect is the direct result of those others who chant with me.”
The demon drew his sword and sliced through the mystic, seeing his severed body fall into two pieces and his blood pour into a large pool in the crevices of the natural rock structure upon which the mystic sat.  The demon saw the carnage he had just inflicted, but then, much more acutely, much more intensely, the demon heard the chant for peace.  It irritated the demon to the point that it swung its sword at the nearest mystic, slicing the mystic in two, but the chant continued.  The demon swung furiously, at numerous mystics with the same result of carnage, with the unceasing chant.  When the demon felt defeated, it sheathed its sword and covered its ears, walking in shame back to the capital, where underlings will do his bidding.
However, as the demon saw carnage, the mystics saw rainbow bodies that never fully severed by the demon’s sword, and the severed parts regenerated after the sword had passed through.  They only felt the pain of disappointment and compassion when being sliced by the sword.  Regenerating was the result of the chant, because peace is a mirror that can gather no dust, and the sword was merely an interruption of the reflection creating the rainbow body, and not really affecting the body itself.