SPEEDRUNNING THE MULTIVERSE 2

©2023 Adastra339

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CONTENTS

Also In Series

Interlude 1 - The Ones Left Behind

1. Azcan

2. Rats

3. Tour

4. Artifice (I)

5. Artifice (II)

6. Artifice (III)

7. Artifice (IV)

8. Artifice (V)

9. Artifice (VI)

10. Artifice (VII)

11. Artifice (VII)

12. Drifting

13. Borrowed Power (I)

14. Borrowed Power (II)

15. Borrowed Power (III)

16. Borrowed Power (IV)

17. An Old Nemesis

18. The Parts of a Heart (II)

19. Friends! (I)

20. Friends! (II)

21. Friends! (III)

22. Mister Popular (I)

23. Mister Popular (II)

24. New Horizons (I)

25. New Horizons (II)

26. New Horizons (III)

27. New Horizons (IV)

28. New Horizons (V)

29. New Horizons (VI)

30. New Horizons (VII)

31. New Horizons (VIII)

32. New Horizons (IX)

33. New Horizons (X)

34. The Highest Bidder (I)

35. The Highest Bidder (II)

36. The Highest Bidder (III)

37. The Highest Bidder (IV)

38. The Highest Bidder (V)

Interlude 2 (I)

Interlude 2 (II)

39. Splendid Weaponry (I)

40. Splendid Weaponry (II)

41. Splendid Weaponry (III)

42. Splendid Weaponry (IV)

43. Splendid Weaponry (V)

44. Splendid Weaponry (VI)

45. Splendid Weaponry (VII)

46. Splendid Weaponry (VIII)

47. Splendid Weaponry (IX)

48. Splendid Weaponry (X)

49. Splendid Weaponry (XI)

50. Splendid Weaponry (XII)

51. Splendid Weaponry (XIII)

52. Splendid Weaponry (XIV)

53. Splendid Weaponry (XV)

54. A Divine Warning (I)

55. A Divine Warning (II)

56. The Tournament (I)

57. The Tournament (II)

58. The Tournament (III)

59. The Tournament (IV)

60. All That Power (I)

61. All That Power (II)

62. All That Power (III)

63. All That Power (IV)

64. All That Power (V)

65. All That Power (VI)

66. All That Power (VII)

67. All That Power (VIII)

68. All That Power (IX)

69. All That Power (X)

70. All That Power (XI)

71. All That Power (XII)

72. All That Power (XII)

73. All That Power (XIII)

74. All That Power (XIV)

75. Beyond the Sky (I)

76. Beyond the Sky (II)

77. Beyond the Sky (III)

78. Beyond the Sky (IV)

79. 150. Beyond the Sky (V)

Interlude 3: The Loneliest Man in the Multiverse (I)

Interlude 3: The Loneliest Man in the Multiverse (II)

Interlude 3: The Loneliest Man in the Multiverse (III)

80. Beyond the Sky (VI)

81. Beyond the Sky (VII)

82. Beyond the Sky (VIII)

83. Beyond the Sky (IX)

84. Beyond the Sky (X)

85. Beyond the Sky (XI)

86. Beyond the Sky (XII)

87. Beyond the Sky (XIII)

88. Beyond the Sky (IX)

89. Beyond the Sky (X)

90. Beyond the Sky (XVI)

Interlude 4: Calm

91. Storm (I)

92. Storm (II)

93. Storm (III)

94. Storm (IV)

95. The End (I)

96. The End (II)

97. The End (III)

98. The End (V)

99. The End (VI)

100. The End (VII)

101. Epilogue?

102. Demon Food (I)

Thank you for reading Speedrunning the Multiverse 2

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ALSO IN SERIES

Book One

Book Two

Book Three

Check out the series here:

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INTERLUDE 1 - THE ONES LEFT BEHIND

Another Plane, Another Time…

Dorian ascended. He was a rapture of light and blistering fire, a newly born star rising to take its place in the firmament. He was the only light in a dark, splintered world. Then, he was gone, rushed to another realm. The darkness dropped again.

The sky was a thick, mournful purple. Black splotches, void of light or color, blotted it down its length—where chunks of the very soul of the world had been punctured in the battle. But now, things had settled, and the fighting was done, and there was a winner and many, many losers. The winner was now gone. The world was left to rot.

Shriveled corpses of the losers peppered the ground, stretching as far as any eye could see, up and down high mountains, washing down vast rivers, corpses of all ages and sexes and species, drained of life. Stuck in all poses and positions: faces slack, eyes wide, mouths hanging loose, hands reaching for the heavens. The land was a grisly mausoleum.

One loser was the clan that had ruled this land. A mining clan. Cruel and powerful, it had held a stranglehold on the production of spirit steels.. It was a maker of war. Now, it’d been shattered utterly. The once-great palace, a miracle of marble spires home to a mighty patriarch, was beheaded.. Its huge, intricate dome lolled on one side, severed from its base. The steps leading up to the home were littered with the dead. And on these steps, kneeling on a carpet of bodies, was a boy no more than twelve years of age.

His lips trembled as he worked. His eyes were ringed with thick dark lines. Streaks marred his face where tears had dried. He dug through the corpses slowly and carefully, checking the faces of the dead one by one. Then, he’d drop it, quivering, shake his head softly, and move to the next.

The boy was named Jez, and he was the son of the patriarch of this clan. The clan was domineering, devilish as they came, but he was too young to know the extent of it. All he knew was that the man in the sky took Mother and Father away. All he knew was that he’d seen his little sister, scarcely past her fourth year, seized screaming from his arms by that mad storm of qi. Now, he was alone. Numbly, he kept searching.

he moved up to the top of the stairwell, sniffling, and took hold of a heavyset body. There was something familiar about it, but he couldn’t quite place what. Straining with all his little body, he brought it up and pulled it loose from the corpse pile. He gasped as he palmed the face. It was Ulrick, the head of his father’s guard! Shrunken, withered, his great heaps of muscle drained like a dried grape, yet unmistakable. His jaw, always so quick to jibe, was almost severed from his face. Jez flinched away from it.

Ulrick always kept close to the patriarch. Which meant…

The boy scrambled up, checking the corpses beside Ulrick’s in a frenzy. Guardsman. Guardsman. Another, frozen with his desiccated jaw gaping. He was getting closer, he could feel it. His fingers tingled, an awful weight settling on his chest.

Then, he saw them, two corpses holding tight to one another, shrunken, blackened by soot and scarcely recognizable. It was their clothing that caught his eye first: fine silks, night-time wear. They’d barely risen from bed when the attack began.

He clambered up and brushed the dust from their faces. He looked, his heart dropping to his stomach. He knelt there for a long while and stared, unblinking. Just yesterday, Mother had used those hands to comb out the tangles in his hair. Father had tickled Jez with a grizzled beard, cackling loudly. Now, they looked as black as the rest of the dead.

He was choked with emotion but also felt outside himself somehow, unreal. Only now did he notice his whole body trembled uncontrollably. He almost believed this was a very bad dream, the kind he’d wake up from in the middle of the night, running to his parents’ bedroom with tears in his eyes. He could imagine it now. Father would scoff and chuckle—”We’re steel men, son.. We fear nothing! Chest up, eh?”— with a wink and a hearty hair-ruffle.

Mother would shoot her husband a death-glare, then hold Jez tight, stroking his head till he’d melted in the warmth of her embrace. She’d give him that soft-lipped smile—crinkle-eyed and warm, the one that made him feel cozy all over and oh-so-safe. “The saints watch over you,” she’d whisper, nuzzling his cheek as her stray spun-gold hairs drifted over him. “Sleep, mi ame. All will be well in the morning.” She always knew what to say.

“Mother?” he croaked. There was no answer. The fantasy dissolved. She was gone., her body spread-eagled, broken. It looked almost pathetic, nothing like the mother he’d known. Father was gone, too, drained to near-nothing.. It was a vicious sight. He could hardly bear to look at them.

The air was heavy with a ghastly quiet. The sun, too, had hidden during the massacre. Now, it peeked nervously over the horizon, spreading pale, hesitant rays. He was the only one who lived to see the morning. This was real, and it was dawning on him at last. It’d all happened so fast—out of nowhere. Where were the saints?

There is a special kind of loneliness in being the only living creature in a sea of the dead. It was not a weight he was ready to bear. He was too young. He was on the verge of cracking open.

Then, at the very head of the corpse pile, he saw a familiar face. “Maia?” he whispered, voice breaking. He crawled over to get a better look. He felt like his heart was shriveling up.

His little sister had been hollowed out. Her teeth had been torn out of their gums. There were no eyes in those little black sockets. Her mouth hung open in a horrible dark o. Her left arm had been severed at the elbow.. It lay limp a few feet away. The wave of guilt that struck finally broke him. He felt like his chest was caving in.

“Maia…” he whispered again. She’d always looked to him with a starry-eyed love only younger siblings had.. She looked at him like he could do no wrong. Father said he was her protector. Then, she died, and he couldn’t stop it. He’d let her go.

“I’m s-sorry,” he said again, sniffling. The tears were coming, and he couldn’t stop them either. He felt so very small. He picked up the withered blackness that’d been his sister. He clutched it tight to his chest as he sobbed. “I failed you,” he choked out. “It s-should’ve been me.” he shuddered, and cried out, and felt like his whole body was opening and spilling out his insides. The only thing crueler than killing off a whole clan was to leave only one of its sons behind. Why had he been spared? Why him? There were no answers.

So far, Jez’s story was very common. It was unremarkable, especially where gods like Dorian were involved. Jez and his family were simply collateral damage—they had the bad luck to stray in the path of higher beings. Unfortunate but uninteresting. Did the man think about the plight of the ants on the road as he stepped on them?

Sometimes, in tales like these, the boy took his own life. Most often, he fostered a hateful vengeance in his heart. He vowed revenge. He trained, grew stronger, entered the Jianghu…and died, just like all the others. The road to the top is narrow and plagued with pitfalls, after all. The world moved on.

As the tears dried, still sniveling, he set his little sister down gently. he reached for her severed arm with a blank gaze. He brought it back up to the elbow joint. It didn’t stick back together. He tried again, eyes glazed, but the limb fell once more.

For a while, he sat there, unmoving. He could’ve been dead himself.

Brushing back his tears, he gingerly picked up his sister’s body. He was a talent for his age—already at mid-Origin—and he was strong enough to haul even grown men. But he wouldn’t need all that strength here.. Her skin had been drained paper thin, her bones hollowed out. She was sickeningly light. He took her, trance-like, and walked.

There was an empty valley some distance away.. He remembered it filled with cherubs and lined with big, shady trees. Ulrick used to take him and Maia there to play.. They’d spend hours climbing, picking red-green spirit fruit or splashing, laughing, in the crystal pools. In the space of a night, it’d all been leveled to slag. He set her down gently on a soft ash-pile, then stuck a resolute hand into the ground and yanked up a shower of dirt. In this manner, he began to dig.

It took the best of two hours to finish the grave. Gently, he lowered her in. Tears dribbled down his face, but it wasn’t like before.. Now, he felt like a faulty faucet, leaking emotions. His hands had steadied some now, and it was with careful, slow movements that he piled the dirt back over her. He covered her face last of all.. He took a long pause to imprint her every feature in his mind. He whispered a heartfelt prayer. Then, the dirt piled on.

He carved a gravestone for her, a small, crude memorial. He tried searching for flowers, found none left, and returned to kneel at the side of the grave. He prayed. He pressed his head to the dirt in a deep bow. He stayed there, unmoving, reliving his memories of her until late in the day. He recalled him teaching her first martial forms., saw them playing hide-and-seek in the orchard and feeding her night-time broths. He remembered the first time she’d called him ‘brother,’ her warm brown eyes adoring him, her little baby mouth making a mess of the syllables.. He remembered feeling his heart swell at the sight.

At dusk, he left the gravesite. He returned, hours later, with the body of his mother. The process began again. he went back for his father, buried him beside them, and drew a hammer from the rubble to mark the site. He did it all with a mechanical numbness. After it was done, he knelt there silently for three days and three nights. He let the sun and the stars wash over him. At the end of it, he was still swamped by grief, but he no longer drowned in it.

The intruder had taken nearly everything—but not his Interspatial Ring. Nor the Interspatial Rings stashed away in the rubble. In them were enough fasting pills to last him years. He could kneel here as long as he wished.

Then, the boy did something peculiar. Something that set him apart from all the other ants.

He went back to the corpse pile and took the body of Ulrick. Slowly and meticulously, he dug him a grave. He lowered the body in, engraved the face in his mind, and kowtowed. He soaked in his recollections of the man. He made certain he’d never forget. Ulrick would live on, if only in his memory.

He went back for the guardsmen, each of them. Some he knew by name., some he didn’t, but he performed the rites for them anyway. He imagined their lives had this fateful night not happened.. For those he didn’t know, he made up fantasies about them as he buried them. He liked to imagine them happy, laughing with their children around a fireplace, sharing tales with loved ones. The sun rose and set and rose again. Still, the boy went back. There were bodies to bury. Many, many more. He lowered each corpse to the ground with love.

It was perverse. A boy as an undertaker? Why did he do it—return each day for another body, even for ones he didn’t know? The bodies were legion, too many to count. Perform the rites for each of them, as though for a family member? A survivor’s guilt, perhaps., a duty he felt as the only living among the dead. But, really, it went deeper than that. Jez was a strangely emotive boy. He’d always been one to pour himself into others, and others into himself. He was too empathetic for his own good.. He might not have known them, but they were humans, and they were capable of love, and that was good enough for him. He let their deaths enter him, hollow him out. It was, in a way, a very long act of mourning.

Soon, he settled into the rhythm of the act. Each time he did it he felt his heart beating a little stronger. He felt a little more whole. It stretched on for weeks. Then, months. By then, the winds had scraped away the dust. Little specks of greenery took hold over the forgotten lands once more, some even sprouting atop gravesites. The cemetery expanded to cover the entire valley’s face. Still, Jez dug, mired in this valley of ashes, under a thick blanket of death. He moved under a strange compulsion—a duty. It bore him through all this darkness.

In the year that passed since the incident, no man from the outside came to visit. But, at last, a year in, a few songbirds were tempted to brave the badlands. Ferns sprouted on the land. The early morning sunshine, the small stubs of new saplings, the intermittent twitters of birds greeted Jez every morning, but his duty was the same. As he dragged another body, sometimes he teared up. After a year stuck in ashen blackness, any life was gorgeous beyond words. Every chirp was a symphony to him. He broke down at sunshine sparkling the dew on early morning grass. As he mourned the dead, he found himself falling in love with the world anew.

The days marched on., the weeks., the months, on and on, and still he stuck resolutely to his task. It’d become more than habit, a shard of his identity. Some part of him knew with a certainty he wouldn’t be complete until the task was done.

Three years. That was how long it took to give each of the dead a proper burial. He’d grown to fifteen now, burly from his years working the dirt and, in that time, he’d made peace with it.

He didn’t hate the man in the sky, and that was the most remarkable part of all. He did at first—but it was as a sort of blanket anger at the world. The kind of anger a man has against a natural disaster, or fate. He didn’t have it in him to hold onto that anger very long. It was not a healing emotion. Instead, he was filled with a deep and abiding love—a love for those who’d left them.. They’d died, and he loved them more.

He found himself loving those he didn’t know, too. He found himself loving the sunshine through the young, lush-leafed trees, and each twitter of each little songbird, no matter how small. He couldn’t help it. It was a tempered love, tender yet strong. He’d seen the depths of the cruelties this world could offer.. He loved it anyway.

In the end, he came to a resolution.

He loved the world too much. He wished to make it a place where everyone could love each other, and be free, and live in peace without suffering under the whims of passing tyrants. A fierce will to protect and heal blossomed in him. The third year passed, and he left these grounds at last. He vowed to change the world.

It was the most peculiar thing about him: He chose to do it with love.

That’s what made him so dangerous.

ONE

AZCAN

Time Elapsed: 1 Month, 1 week.

“Are you sure we’re in the right place?” Said Kaya, panting.

“Not at all,” said Dorian. He smiled at her. “Not this time, nor the last hundred times you asked.”

Kaya huffed, collapsing to the sands. She was drenched in sweat. “That’s enough for a day,” she gasped.

“Really?” Dorian smirked. “We’ve only been running half a day. Are you sure you’ve crossed mid-Vigor?”

She gave him a nonplussed look. “When’d you get so mouthy?” She wiped her face with a sleeve, sloughing off a curtain of sweat. “I miss the days when I could smack you around.”

She fell back, spread-eagled. “Urgh.” Her eyes scrunched shut. “I miss a lot of things…”

It’d been two weeks since she’d woken up to find her home and all its people gone. It was rough for her the first week—she’d been strangely cut-up about seeing Hento torn apart in front of her—but now she’d settled into a sort of quiet calm. Dorian still caught her staring up at the stars for hours on end, looking melancholy. Lost. These days, she was more likely to talk in grunts and head-jerks than in her usual lighthearted ribs. Dorian understood. If her life were a ship, she’d been sailing full-speed, gung-ho, masts billowing, for the best of nineteen years. Now, a hurricane had torn off the masts and had driven the vessel into rocky shallows. That was the word for her: sinking. The more he looked at her face, her body. Some hull of confidence had been badly punctured.

Maybe the monotony was getting to her. Stuck in a desert for two weeks with no concrete direction, following Dorian’s vague inklings of the stars. If he remembered right, each Oasis was wrapped in strong artifact-generated illusions. Mirages to confuse and ward off all but the strongest Spirit Beasts. It’d fend off humans, too, unless they knew what to look for.

The trouble was, Dorian didn’t. All he had was a hazy guesstimate. Hardly reassuring.

“If we’re getting close, shouldn’t there be people?” Sniffled Kaya. “Caravans. Routes. Lines waiting to get in! I don’t know.”

“There are no active trade routes,” said Dorian gently. “All shipping between Oases is done by stealthy peak-Profound experts carrying multiple Interspatial Rings. And these are much bigger than the ones we have.. These ones are high-grade. They can fit small mountains of goods. Out here, active routes are too risky.”

He waited for her to ask how he knew all that. Instead, she let out a, “Hmph!” And turned on her side. To him, it was cute.

There wasn’t much room for sentiment in a run like this, but he cracked a smile regardless. In the past few weeks, he’d managed, through a strange mental alchemy, to transmute the original Io’s feelings of familial love and kinship into something more acceptable—more like the love an owner has for a pet, an affection of a more disposable sort. It was adorable to see her brood. Mortals and their little problems.

As Kaya lay there, wrapping herself into a small pouty ball, Dorian set up camp. In a jiffy he’d sprung up the tent, set up some coals, and started roasting meat for the day. Apparently, wyrm meat had a very long expiration period, and he’d collected enough before he left the festival bloodbath to last several months.

The trouble was, the tournament was in less than a week. By Dorian’s estimation, they should’ve arrived already.

It’s there that he suspected Nijo would contact him—if at all. In the weeks since his departure from the festival, he’d heard nothing.

Half an hour later, Dorian finished up dinner and handed her a bowl of lightly seasoned meat stew. She snatched it, mumbled a small, “thanks,” and nibbled in silence.

He cultivated the rest of the night. In these two weeks he’d made heaps of progress.. He’d refined the inner organs and all his muscles in that time. As he rose up the ranks, his speeds slowed drastically. It was natural. Now, he neared the peak of Vigor. Another day, and he’d be ready to tackle the bottleneck between the Vigor and the Profound Realms. It was the cutoff that halted most fighters.. Even with his bloodline boost, he’d need to approach with caution.

* * *

The next day, they set off before the sun had risen. Four hours in—with Kaya panting heavily at his side—Dorian stopped. “Do you smell that?”

“Huh?”

“The air. It’s different.”

She sniffed. “Sure smells the same to me. Maybe a lil’ more humid.”

“That’s precisely it.” He frowned. Then, he streaked toward the clouds in three Cloud-Treading Steps and took in a snapshot of their surroundings. He fell, landing in a crouch and a cloud of dust.

“There are no sinkholes nearby,” he said. “Where’s it coming from? It’s almost like a sea breeze.”

Following his nose and his touch, he went toward the source of the breeze. “The Oases are all planted around a massive Sinkhole. Their illusions may cloak sight, but not this. We’re close.”

“You’d better be right this time,” said Kaya, gasping. “If you’ve got my hopes up for nothing, I’ll…I’ll…” Her nose wrinkled, and she let out a sigh. “I miss the days when I could threaten you and mean it.”

“Think of the icicle treats,” laughed Dorian, breaking into a light sprint. “Soon, you’ll have all you could want!”

There! The first indication of the mirage was a shimmer in the air, so faint it could’ve been a heat wave. It ran a vertical line like a seam in the fabric of the world.

They skated along the surface of the sands, nearing the light. it shimmered as though on the cusp of fading out.. The closer they got, the less tangible it seemed. Twenty paces away, and it seemed a trick of the light. Ten paces away, and Dorian could convince himself it’d been a figment of a desert-fevered imagination. Five, and it seemed incorporeal.. Three, and it was no longer there. A mirage?

“Well?” Said Kaya, arms crossed.

“Hold on.” Dorian stopped, frowning, and paid attention. He felt the heat on his fingers, up his arm in a warm lather.. He felt sweat on his thighs and his temple and his cheeks, trickling down in drips. He felt the sensations of weight in his feet and in his body.. He felt the lazy coziness of the air as it brushed over, felt each twitch of every fiber of his hand, felt stray itches running up his back. All the small sensations prickling at the back of his consciousness were brought out into the light.

Only now did he feel it. A vague conviction, a feeling. Not here, it said. Turn back. It was the suggestion at the base of a thought, which spun into the base of a belief—unquestioned but strangely solid.

What fun! These savages have discovered mind-magics. He closed his eyes, grasping for that thread of feeling.

Somehow, without looking, he could feel Kaya opening her mouth. she raised a quizzical brow. He held a hand up. “Wait!” he said and almost snickered when she choked on her words in surprise. “Let me listen.”

Purely by feeling, he started to move. His criteria was very simple. The stronger that conviction felt—the more he felt like turning away from a direction—he went toward it. They kept up like that for minutes under the hot, brow-beating sun. Kaya followed along without a word. Maybe she was too tired to argue. The only thing she did out of the ordinary was to pull him out of the path of a cactus. Quietly, they pattered along.

“Are you—” Kaya stifled the question. “No, you aren’t sure. Of course, you aren’t, yeah, yeah. Bleh. I only mean—” She paused. “Doesn’t it feel like the wrong way?”

Dorian grinned. “Why?”

He felt her frown at his back. “I…dunno.”

“Maybe it’s by design. Spirit Beasts would feel like it’s the wrong way, too,” he said and kept walking.

After a hundred steps—or it could’ve been two hundred, or five—the faintest hint of sound shimmered in Dorian’s ear. A hustle-and-bustle, almost like a lively town square. It was quickly silenced, blunted to nothing. He grinned. The voice in his head was now insisting with stern firmness that he turn back.. It was at the highest volume it could be before it’d surfaced as conscious thought.

Kaya’s breath caught. She stopped. He opened his eyes.

There it was again, that seam in the fabric of the world. Brighter this time, more corporeal, flickering at the edges like translucent fire.. Dark colors drifted over its surface. There was no sound. It was eerily quiet. Now, at the true doorstep, that voice went silent.

“Well?” Said Dorian with a gesture and a playful smile. “You’ve been banging on about it all week. You first.”

“I’ll be bled,” whispered Kaya. Her eyes popped as she pattered up. She poked at a seam.. A finger slipped through and vanished to nowhere, swallowed up by the flames. “Ee!” She yanked it back out, then wiggled it around to make sure it still worked.

“Relax, sis.” Dorian snorted. “It’s a doorway. It can’t hurt you.”

“Oh, off with you! I’m not scared,” she said. But she still stood at the entrance, hesitant. She reached out as though to prod it a second time. “It’s not like any door I’ve seen, is all. I won’t speak for you, dear brother, but I don’t go sticking my bits into holes I don’t— EE!”

She let out that last bit as Dorian’s foot connected with her back, and she was sent sprawling headfirst through the doorway. Dorian went up to the entrance, pressed his ear to the seam, and listened for confirmation.

“Bastard!” Came Kaya’s furious yell. Muffled, warbled, but clearly there.

Smiling, he stepped through.

To his surprise, Kaya didn’t try to strangle him the second he came. She was too busy gawping.

The stench was the first thing that struck him, a rancid wave, like rotting eggs and waste, which loitered over everything. A wall of noise: shouts, cries, hoarse yells. A steady drumbeat of clanging metal. The first things Dorian saw ran utterly against his mental image of the oasis. This…What’s this? A huge mass of worn-down tents of all sizes, some tall and pointy, others fat and squat, dressed all sorts of faded colors and fanning out as far as the eye could see. Some were in even worse condition than the tribes! Little flags flew from the tops of each one, adorned with black symbols—one to his left was two massive rat-like teeth crossed against each other.. Another bore a cartoonish devil-face. Some were defaced with black ink.

Between this giant swath of sad tents ran streets beaten flat into the sands.. They were choked with people who all looked like they’d climbed out of the world’s dirtiest sewer. Their hair was disheveled and greasy, their teeth yellowed and half-rotted, their eyes bloodshot. They were clothed only in torn rags, ripped tunics, leathery cloaks with holes nibbled through them. They moved fast, shiftily, head down.. A pervasive stench of shame rose from them, mingling with the other odors to make a uniquely dastardly brew. There must’ve been thousands here, and there wasn’t a washed man or woman among them.

Oh, and the grime! There wasn’t a tent that wasn’t streaked with some kind of purple or dark-green muck. The streets were a minefield of wastewater, trash, and feces. Most people stepped right atop them—barefoot. In the middle of the street was a curious attraction. Dorian saw a woman missing half her teeth wrestling a sack of bread from a boy missing half his arm. Then, a burly oaf of a man stepped between them, snarling. They scampered off, squealing, and the big man snatched up his prize.

But just as Dorian’s doubts started to settle in, his eyes trailed up. Beyond this wasteland. Rising as the backdrop to it all, some hundreds upon hundreds of feet away, was a wall of a silver-gold so luscious it seemed mythical. It was a glory of engineering, the lines between the bricks almost imperceptible. Their presence was only betrayed by the searing-white sunlight glinting across them. Tiny dots, soldiers, milled across the parapets, keeping watch.

Beyond that, looming beyond the wall, was a city. Gleaming. Stark-white stones made buildings, which thrust proudly at the sky. Towers, houses, shingles stretching on and on, a constellation of windows. Windows! Glass! It was the first he’d seen of such a luxury in this plane. Blue domes jutted out above the mass. The buildings seemed to keep on coming, one after the next. They were built atop a hill, it seemed—they filled up half his sight.

What most struck his eye was the density of artifacts swarming the city. Windmill-like constructs antlered up from the homes. Qi-lanterns hung suspended between vast cables. Some seemed to siphon qi out of the air. Others studded rooftops like nodes. These and a thousand other odd manufactures poked out of every building, flashing and whirring, shrouding the city in a mist of silver and yellow. Truly, it seemed like a hive of mechanized bees.

The most peculiar part of all was the massive network of marble tubes ringing the city, stretching in and out of it. Each segment must’ve weighed half a flood-dragon. They shifted of their own accord, disconnecting and re-connecting, driven by unseen hordes of Spirit Stones. With each slow, powerful shift came a sloshing sound, audible from even this distance. Water. These were aqueducts. They must’ve drawn from the major sinkhole at the heart of this Oasis. They even crawled out to places outside the walls, the one point of connection between the outside and the inside.

They called the Azcan Oasis the city of Artifice. Its calling-card was its unmatched expertise in qi-machinery. Dorian already had designs on that part of the city, but its offerings stretched far wider than that. Oh, there was much here to be done. It made Rust Tribe seem a ditch in the ground by contrast.

Dorian spread his arms wide. His teeth glinted in the sunlight, and a familiar eagerness bubbled up in him, spreading down his arms, tingling his fingers.

“Welcome, dear sister, to the Oasis!”

TWO

RATS

Kaya was stupefied—by the stench or the sights, Dorian didn’t know. He grabbed her wrist. “Hold on,” he warned. “And don’t let go.”

“Eh?” Was all Kaya got out before he dragged her into the disheveled swamp of a street.

Personal space was a foreign concept here. Bodies scraped and brushed and slithered by other bodies, all unkempt, all soaked in grime. In a minute Dorian had been jostled, shoved, pushed, and bumped into more times than he could count. Every step was a struggle of flesh. In five minutes, so much foulness had rubbed off on him that he was halfway to being as dirty as the rest of them. The stink could’ve knocked out a drake. He kept his eyes trained straight ahead, kept planting one foot ahead of the next.

Heads swiveled to them as they passed. Their cleanliness marked them out, but the way they bore themselves drew eyes, too. They stood upright. They strode with purpose in a sea of hunched backs. He felt like a cat among rats.

As they went, Dorian heard whistling trailing them. Jeers. Calls. Mostly they came from leering, dirtied men.

Kaya huddled into him. “The hells’ wrong with them?” she hissed, glaring at one offender. She was still dressed in travel garb, light and form-fitting with ample cuts for her skin to breathe. Back in Rust Tribe, few had batted an eye, but here…He glanced around. Everyone was fully covered in full-body robes. Some even wore masks which hid all except their eyes. He could hardly tell a man’s body from a woman’s at first glance. Kaya was scandalous by comparison.

“Get us out of here,” she said, looking pale and a little sick. She hunched in, trying in vain to cover herself with her arms. “Fast. Please.”

They stumbled into a fork in the road. There seemed no difference between the two paths. Dorian chose one at random. Another fork, and Dorian plunged on ahead. They forged down a street and cut behind two tents. Strange—the walls didn’t seem to be getting any closer as they went. These sorry excuses for streets had no order to them.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kaya slap a hand away. Its owner slinked into the crowd. “I’m sick of this place already,” she snapped. They plowed on, emerging at a plaza teeming with slumped-over stands, rotted carts, and the ever-present press of filthy bodies.

Then, there was a slapping sound. Behind him, Kaya yelped. Dorian nearly lost hold of her as she whirled around.

“Bastard!” She snarled, glaring at a fat man with a scraggly bush of a beard. He faded into the crowd, jeering. Her face was bright red. One hand clutched her rear. To the side, a huddle of men erupted in laughter. Dorian frowned. It prickled him that such miserable wretches had the nerve to touch what was his, but now was no time to pick a fight.

“That’s it!” cried Kaya. She sprang up. Dorian started.

“Wait!” he said.

But there was no stopping her. She ran after the man, muscling her way across the road, elbowing past passersby. Sighing, he followed.

They were most of the way across the street when she yelled out, “You!” A fuming, low bellow. The man jerked up in surprise. He saw her and grinned slickly.

“Yes?” he said in a thick, heady accent. A slug of a tongue squelched across his lips. Now that Dorian got a better look at him, he seemed different from all the rest—there was bravado in the man’s face. His shoulders were set back, careless. On his cloak was the same symbol Dorian had seen marking some of the tents: two long teeth, like a rat’s, crisscrossing.

“You know what you did,” she growled.

“I don’t know shit,” the man said. He gave her a slow once-over, lips curling. “What is it, whore? Come to ply your trade?”

Kaya lunged. He stepped out of the way, laughing, and grabbed her arm out of the air. For a moment they engaged in a contest of strength. Then, Dorian saw Kaya’s eyes widen as her arm started to fail her. The veins stood out on the man’s biceps as he bent her wrist. She cried out, forced to her knees. The man’s hand closed around her throat. Her face was a shock of horror as he leaned over her, grinning nastily.

Annoyance spiked through Dorian. The nerve!

The man leapt back as a Yama’s Chain lashed the air where he’d stood. He grunted, eyes narrowed, and fixed his gaze on Dorian. He hesitated for a second. Snarling, he faded into a narrow alley between two rows of tents.

“Are you all right?” asked Dorian, frowning. Kaya shook. She blinked tears from her eyes as she stared at her reddening hand. Her breaths came in fast and shuddering. She sniffed hard. “That— That fucking— AHH!”

She leapt up and pounced after the man before Dorian could get another word out. Drat. Dorian hurried after her yet again, a dull pulsing rising between his brows.

They raced into the alley. A beat later, Kaya ground to a halt in front of him.

The bearded man had come to a stop. Behind him, looking up in bewilderment, were a crew of bedraggled men sitting around on crates, half-finished bottles of ale sunk into the sand at their sides. All wore cloaks emblazoned with that cross-toothed mark. Coins lay scattered on the ground. Each of them held a hand of cards. They’d been in the middle of a drinking game. A few hands slid to the ground as they took in the newcomers. Then, as one, their eyes fastened on Kaya.

“Come back here!” she yelled, fists clenched tight. She wiped furious tears from her eyes. “I’ll tear off your godsdamned hand!”

Fuck’s sake. Dorian rubbed his brow. Now, his head throbbed in earnest.

“Who’s this?” hissed a thin, scarred man. Half his ear had been lopped off. The other ear bulged with tumors.

“Some slut I saw wandering the market.” The bearded man sneered. “Gave her a tap on the ass, as you do.” He croaked a laugh. “Seems she’s come bounding for more.”

“A tribes-girl? With tits like that?” A big oaf at the back laughed as he rose to his feet with slow menace. “Brother Longfoot, you shouldn’t have.”

“I’ve only just eaten, you sly wyrm!” A one-eyed dwarf leered. “How’d you know I was craving dessert?”

A chorus of gross laughter. The throbbing grew to a pounding.

Kaya gritted her teeth. Her face flamed bright red. Then, the auras flared out—nine of them, all solidly in the Vigor Realm.

“Here’s a lesson, girl, free of charge,” drawled the bearded man. “You’re not on the Outside anymore. You dress like that around here, no mark, walking around all proud-like—why, you’re begging for it. I’ve seen harlots in looser fits!”

He ran that slug-tongue over his lips a second time, his dull eyes narrowing. “You’re not on the Outside,” he repeated. “Here, no one cares to save you.”

Behind them, two more cloaks sealed the exit.

“What about the boy?” piped a voice.

“The boy?” The bearded man looked up and took in Dorian again. He cocked his head, his eyes intense and gloating. The look made Dorian’s skin crawl. “He’s a right pretty one, too, isn’t he? Brother Threetails can have him first.” His eyes trailed down, resting on Dorian’s neck, his chest, his stomach, then dipping lower. “Feisty, though. Leave him with all his parts when you’re done. I want him for a round. I never tasted tribes-boy before.”

This was a breed of daring Dorian seldom encountered. Here, in broad daylight, just a turn off the main street? There really weren’t any laws out here, were there? If he had to guess, gangs ruled these parts. They all bore the same mark. They were the law, and there was no one there to check them. They all seemed drunk on it.

It was high time he put an end to this charade. There was no room for diplomacy here. This would end only one way.

“I’m flattered!” sighed Dorian. He treated them to a gaze laced with contempt. “But I’ll have to decline. Unwashed mutts don’t do it for me.”

A pause.

“Strike that,” growled the bearded man. “Leave him all his parts, save for that tongue. Cut it out for me good, will you, Threetails?”

“Aye,” grunted the dwarf. As one, the men shuffled toward them.

It seemed it was time for this run’s first chain-problem. Dorian hoped he wouldn’t run into one for at least another year. He rolled his eyes. He’d need to make this quick and convincing.

The trouble with killing grunts was never, of course, the grunts themselves. It was the higher-ups. And their higher-ups, and the higher-ups beyond them. Kill a son, and his father comes running.

The difficulty was in covering his tracks. Removing eyewitnesses. Hiding the bodies. How many had seen the bearded man slap Kaya out there? How many saw her bounding after him? They’d caused quite a commotion. It was impossible to single out who’d seen them in all that roiling mass. His head throbbed mightily. Next time he went anywhere, he decided, he’d stuff Kaya in a sack and carry her around.

To hells with it. It was too late for regrets now. There was blood to spill. As the men closed in from all sides in a ring of lusty smiles, Dorian let loose his aura. Savage fervor smoldered in his chest.

The dwarf was first. He ran up with a throaty battle cry. A Yama’s chain ripped through the air like a whip. It caught him hard across the chest. For a moment, Dorian saw the man’s eyes bulge from the impact. Then, he was flung into the air, smashed against the wall with a loud thud, and flopped to the floor. He didn’t get up. Funny thing—Dorian’s headache had eased up. In its place was an old friend: a quiet, visceral bloodlust.

A short, tense silence. “You’ll rue that blow, boy,” growled the bearded man. He advanced, hands lighting with ruby qi.

Then, the chains unfurled in all their glory. One by one, each extruding from his hands, his chest, his back in smoke-shadow tendrils, a forest of snaking ink-black vines. As he neared the peak of Vigor, his qi grew ever-more potent. The shadows spread out, widening, lengthening, until they blotted out the sky above. In the same instant, the full force of Dorian’s bloodline flexed out, flattening every other aura there. Oh, this’ll feel good.

Blood drained from the bearded man’s face. He staggered back, gaping. Dorian saw fear in those beady eyes. “What in the nine hells is that?!” The smiles were wiped off the rest of their faces in an instant. A few leapt back to a battle-crouch, blinking fast. Dorian smiled viciously, his blood singing in his veins.

He stepped in front of Kaya, shielding her with his body. “How dare you touch what’s mine?” he breathed. The chains rose.

“Wait!”

The voice flew high over their heads, shrill and strong. A greasy-haired teen barged in from behind Dorian, shoving aside the grunts blockading the exit.

“Wait!” he cried. “Don’t hurt them!” It took Dorian a beat to realize the words were meant for the gang. He blinked, still hopped up on fighting spirit.

“Tch!” The bearded man stilled, gulping. “What, Pebble? Can’t you see the men are busy?”

“You’re not to touch them,” gasped Pebble. He held up a stone. On it was an emblem—the same crossed teeth which adorned all their clothes, but this was gold not black. “On orders of the Rat-King!”

The bearded man squinted up at it. The ones behind them rustled nervously. That caught all their attention. “What’s the king want with these dolls?” stammered one of them.

“They’re tournament competitors. The king’s promised them sanctuary,” said Pebble, head held high. An awkward pause as the men looked to one another, unsure of themselves.

Pebble squinted at the Longfoot and his lackeys, tapping his foot. “Well? We’re done here, yeah? Get on, then!”

A few grumbles floated over from the gang, but they did as told. One by one, they stalked slowly away. Longfoot glared, spat at the ground, and stomped after his men.

Beaming, Pebble marched toward Dorian and Kaya and bowed so deep his hair nearly brushed the floor. He did it awkwardly, as though it was the first time he’d bowed in all his life. “Pebble of the Mischief, at your service, good sirs! I’m to guide you to the competitors’ living quarters.”

“I…see.” Dorian’s heart rate was slowly settling. He dissolved a few chains into shadow. It was over, just like that? A part of him was almost disappointed.

Pebble shot them a big smile, turned, and strode purposefully away. “This way!”

Dorian glanced around, bemused, then shrugged. What else was there to do? He followed. A step later, he noticed Kaya wasn’t with him. She was rooted to the ground, still breathing in hitched and fast. “Sis?”

“Huh?” she yelped, swerving around. Her face was still deeply flushed. She looked out of it. “Ah!” she cried and stumbled after him.

THREE

TOUR

Very quickly they found out two things about Pebble. He knew his way around here with such familiarity it was like he was following a sixth sense—and he wouldn’t shut up. He seemed an excitable sort, and utterly oblivious to the fact that neither Dorian nor Kaya was much in the mood for talking. Kaya especially. Her face was dark as a midnight storm.

“So, you’re from the Outside!” he gushed, eyes shining. He turned around, started sizing them up, and kept walking backward at the same speed, just as confident. He swerved around passersby like he had eyes in the back of his head. “It’s been ages since I saw an Outsider. Is it true? Do you really feed off human flesh?”

Dorian raised an eyebrow. “No.”

Pebble cocked his head. “Oh, oh! You’re brother and sister, aren’t you? Are you married?”

At that, Kaya choked. A tinge of color rushed to her cheeks. “What?!”

“Isn’t that what you do?” said the boy innocently, his big dark eyes blinking. “Since there’s not enough folk to go around, you hafta— Well, that’s what I hear, leastways.”

“Say,” said Dorian hastily. “Who is this king fellow? What does he want from us? Why’s he helping us?”

They slipped onto a narrow street, curving street, and followed it between a set of food-stalls selling still-bloodied racks of meat. The stench wafting off them nearly overwhelmed the stench of the street. “The king?” said the boy. “Oh, yes! The king. Yes. The Rat-King—he’s the king of the mischief.”

“That’s your gang.”

“Precisely!” Pebble beamed. “For a man with half a brain, you’re rather quick.” He frowned. “That’s what they do, isn’t it? My grandma says they scoop it out with a spoon and drink it when you turn thirteen! Did it hurt?” He blinked up at Dorian hopefully. “Does it rattle around in your head when you jump up and down?”

“Wha— No,” started Dorian. This is what he’s on about? He’s so smiley it’s almost like his brethren didn’t try to force themselves on us, he thought. Or maybe it’s so common out here it’s simply a part of life. Not even worth mentioning. He paused. Or maybe the boy’s just an idiot. “Never mind all that. What’s this Rat-King got to do with us?”

“He doesn’t, not really,” said Pebble. Dorian caught a glimpse of the wall rising at the mouth of the alley. It was close, just a few hundred paces away. Then, they turned, and it was lost once more behind a wall of cut-up beast-skins.

“He’s struck a deal with the Oasis lord. He’s not to touch the tournament competitors—the ones from the Outside, leastways, who’re stuck on the Outskirts with the rest of us. He’s to give ‘em lodging.”

Pebble side-eyed him. “You two wouldn’t last a day out here without a mark. Too smooth and clean and pretty. If it weren’t us catching you, it’d be the Sand-Devils.” Pebble shuddered. “They’re a good deal worse, tell you what. Longfoot and his crew would’ve had some fun with you and let you be. But the Devils don’t like their playthings talking after.”

On that happy note, they broke into a section of clear air. There was now a section without tents, nor grime, nor anyone before them—a moat of nothing between the walls and the Outskirts.

Pebble pattered along the edge of this demarcation, humming to himself. They stopped at a patch of land a boat-length away from a massive, gaping archway. Four very serious-looking guards, armored head-to-toe, manned the gate. Each emanated an aura at the Profound Realm.

“Here we are! Yay!” said Pebble cheerily. They arrived at the edge of a vast slum. All around, Outskirt natives milled in and out of teepees and tents, heads down. Stretched before them in a crescent was a familiar cluster of smaller, cleaner tents, set a few paces apart from the rest of the Outskirts, but not far enough away to spare them the rancid smell. Each of these tents had a flag tied to them. Dorian recognized them from the festival. He saw a throng of Narong tents at a far edge. Some Yalta cropped up near the middle. The rest of the sixteen qualifiers were spread out in this manner.

“Your home for the next month.” Pebble beamed. Dorian took stock of the grounds and the wastelands surrounding them. Not twenty paces from their grounds he saw a woman dumping a barrel of pitch-black wastewater. Living here was one of the least appealing things he’d considered since their arrival, which was saying quite a lot. Behind him, Kaya gagged.

“It’s been a pleasure, sirs!” said Pebble. He bowed again and looked again like an alien trying to imitate human bowing. “Good day—”

“Hold on,” said Dorian. “We’re not housed inside the Oasis? Why?”

“Oh, dear heavens!” Pebble blinked. “Only full citizens have such an honor! You’ll be allowed in for the tournament. Maybe a few short trips. Otherwise, no, no. It wouldn’t be right. Anyhow, I’d better—”

“Don’t be in such a hurry.” Dorian looked to the walls, then to Pebble, his mind whirring. “How does a man gain citizenship?”

“Citizenship!” cried Pebble. “Don’t think about it! It’s nearly impossible.”

“How so?”

“Well, you’d need to prove your worth to the Oasis. You’d need to be a Tiered-man of some kind, like a Tier-1 alchemist. Or Warrior. Or— Aah, I shouldn’t even mention it—artificer. That last one’s but a fantasy.”

He glanced around furtively. “Don’t meet those marks before you’re eighteen—and Vigor, of course, that goes without saying—and you’re of no use to them. They boot you out. You end up here. That’s the end of you, if you’re lucky.” He gulped. “Really, I should be going. My pa’s expecting me—”

Dorian tapped his Interspatial Ring, and a big, golden twenty-five Lira coin materialized in his fingers. Sunlight gleamed playfully off its surface. Pebble trailed off, swallowing, captivated.

“You seem a knowledgeable sort, Pebble,” said Dorian. “Entertain a few more of my questions.” He hunched over, looking the boy square in the eyes. “Tell me more about these Tiers. How many are there? Who awards them? How does one go about attaining them?”

“Tiers…” said Pebble slowly, still hooked by the coin-light. “There’s six of ‘em. Six per job, yes, and the highest one’s given the rank grandmaster. The Tiers are given out by the most honorable guilds, they are! And they’re a stringent lot. Strict. Don’t take kindly to Outsiders. Best forget about it, sir.”

He made a grab for the coin. Dorian pulled it away, tutting.

“Not so fast. One more thing.” He leaned in with a smile. “Guilds, huh? Where can I find the guild of artificers?”

“That…” Pebble swallowed, eyes widening. “It’s hard to say outright. The route’s very complex, you see, very complex…easier shown than told, really…”

“It’s barely noon. I’ve got time,” said Dorian, drawing out another gold coin. “Show me.”

* * *

Dorian helped Kaya set up camp, a nice hide-bound teepee he’d bought off a merchant at the festival. She went about it mechanically. A light had gone out of her. She looked troubled, shaken. She chewed on her lip, lost deep in thought.

“I’m off, then,” said Dorian, leaning against the doorway. “You sure you don’t want to come?”

She grunted, plopped down on a pillow, and huddled up under a feathered blanket. Back to pouty Kaya it was. He stepped outside with a shrug.

“Ready?” Pebble’s smile was about twice as wide now that he’d been promised a solid helping of gold. Dorian was worried his face might split clean open.

“Lead the way.” He grinned. Off they went in a beeline for the Oasis gate. As they neared the soldiers flanking a set of thick metal doors, Pebble waved happily. “Xiu! Shang! Good day, good sirs!”

The soldiers looked considerably less happy to see him. “Got a permit?”

“Yup, yup.” He held up his golden cross-token. The nearest soldier squinted at it, then grunted, satisfied. A tall, fit one waved to Dorian. “And you?”

“He’s a tournament qualifier! He gets full access to the Oasis’ resources for the month,” said Pebble, looping an arm around Dorian’s like they were old chums. “Plus, he’s with me. Now—”

“Not so fast, runt,” said the soldier near the gate. He had a face like weathered sandstone.

Pebble drooped. “Aww, come now, Shang…”

“Corporal Shang to you,” said the man, eyes narrowed. He frowned at Dorian. “Where’s your IT?”

“What’s that?”

“IT. Iden-ti-fi-ca-tion to-ken,” Shang spoke it slowly and loudly like Dorian was hard of hearing or stupid. “Or do they not have them where you’ve crawled from?”

Dorian resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Pictures of decency, these Oasis types, truly. Either degenerates or snobs.

“I see,” said Dorian. He tapped his Interspatial Ring and fished out the token the late Official Zhang had given him. “Will this suffice?”

Shang inspected it for a moment, his eyes thinning to slits. At last, he stepped back with a grunt. He jerked his head to the soldier nearest the gate.

“Let ‘em through.”

The soldier pulled hard on a lever. A few seconds later, the door groaned slowly open, its hinges croaking with effort. Qi-lights hummed across its rusted bronze surface. It took fifteen seconds to swing in fully, admitting Pebble and Dorian to the street beyond.

If the Outskirts had struck him with smell, the Oasis struck him with noise. Hisses of steam, clatters of metal on metal, high-pitched squeals of qi blasted him as the door opened. Before them was a massive, tidy street, wide enough to march a parade through, and it ran straight as an arrow as far as Dorian could see. Flanked on either side, rising like canyon walls, were massive towers of stone that housed a colorful splash of stores and homes. It reminded Dorian of cities far-more advanced in technology—cities which fitted skyscrapers and towers. Crawling up each shop was the source of the noise: artifacts, puffing and steaming and whirring every which way. He couldn’t tell from a glance what most of them did. They certainly made for a spectacle, at least—a cyborg city.

The population density here must’ve been the highest in all the desert. The people who filled the street were the opposite of those outside. They stood with puffed-up chests. Each looked like they were very much sure of their place in the world. Their faces were clean, their skin soft and several shades lighter than that of the Outskirters. Their clothes were billowing bombardments of pastels, utterly unlike the drab grays and brows that made up the world outside. He was struck by a scent like fresh flowers, a whiff of the sea.

“Weird, aren’t they?” Muttered Pebble. “It’s like they’re from another plane. Some of ‘em never fight a day in their lives, can you imagine? Look at their faces! It’s like they’re porcelain dolls!”

He tugged at Dorian’s elbow. “All right!” he said. “Enough dallying!” They’d hardly stood there ten seconds. “Day’s bleeding out! Move, move!”

As they pattered along the street, the Oasis residents gave them a wide berth. A few curled their lips distastefully as Pebble barreled along, a cannonball of filth. He jabbed out at all manner of buildings as they went, quivering with hyperactive energy.

“There’s Shen’Hou Plaza…there’s the Mercer’s Guild…that sorry ol’ heap is where the old fishery used to be…”

“Mhm.”

“Oh!” Pebble paused for a second before a cathedral-like building, a huddle of towering gold-plated spires. In a wealth of proud buildings, this was the proudest he’d seen so far.

“Is this it?”

“Naw, this is Gryphon Academy. See the bust?” He jabbed at the life-sized bronze gryphon on a marble plinth before the entrance. Its jaw was wide open, one paw outstretched. “It’s one of the three Great Academies of the Oasis, where all the best and brightest go! My pa tried sending me to Serpent Academy, but the old people with the big hats—the ones who tested me—thought I was too dumb, I guess.” He looked sad for all of half a second. Then, his smile burst back on his face, genuine as ever. “He lost his Tier-license, and we got booted out. Err. That’s by the by! Life goes on!”

Pebble shot him a sly glance. “Anyhow, It’s where most of your fellow tournament fighters come from. Forty-five of the forty-eight from Azcan are academy pupils, including all the top seeds! But I guess you needn’t worry about that.”

Dorian raised a brow. “Pray tell, why not?”

“‘Cause…erm…” Pebble scratched his fluffy brown hair. “Well, you’ll get knocked out way before then, yeah? I, ah, don’t mean offense, sir, none at all, but the top seeds come from distinguished families with all the best elixirs and gear and tutoring. It’s hardly something a person who drinks wyrm-piss for meals can compete with.”

Alarmed, Pebble threw up his hands. “Ah, of course it’s not my place to judge, good sir! It’s cultural, yes, simply the way of the tribes…. There’s something natural about it, really, noble even…”

Dorian snorted. “Why are we here? Is the Artificer’s Guild housed inside?”

“Oh, no. I just forgot where I was going! You either turn left or right here…can’t recall which…” Pebble’s brows scrunched together. “I only went to the guild twice before—ever! They’re a rare bunch, those artificers…real haughty, too…” He paused.

“Say,” said Pebble, side-eyeing him. “Why are you seeking out the Artificer’s Guild, anyhow?”

“Hmm.” Dorian tapped his chin. To join. To ascend the ranks. To introduce innovations that will rock the field of artificing on this plane. To sell my creations and amass wealth. To gather influence over the city’s affairs. To leverage my status to access the highest of the Oasis’ high places. Its coffers, its vaults, its high councils. To drain this place of all its worth before Nijo’s merry band arrives to steamroll it.

“I think artifice may be my calling,” said Dorian with a shrug.

FOUR

ARTIFICE (I)

Pebble chose a direction. It was the wrong direction.

Half an hour and much scampering later, they came to a stop before a gold-domed basilica, easily the most impressive structure in its block.

It was a behemoth of metal and spinning cogs. Its pieces were in constant motion. There were the nodes on the roof, crackling with qi like oversized lightbulbs. There was the massive regal clock, nestled against a domed roof and whose wind-up tick-tick-ticking set a metronome heard for miles. Every inch of its silvery walls was inscribed with runes, which glowed a faint blue, like tiny rivers running down the building’s sides. Doors opened out of them at ground level, admitting brown-robed acolytes with hisses and click-clacks.

The main entrance was a bronze archway with its doors wide open. In front of it was a statue of a woman so old her face was entirely wrinkles. She was the owner of an impressive set of jowls. Jani Zhang — Mother of Artifice, it read. Even this was an automaton. Its eyes swiveled to passersby. It flitted between ludicrous show-poses.

“Here we are!” said Pebble. “The Artificer’s Guild, or the Right Honorable Artificer’s Guild. That’s the proper name.”

It looked like a church, albeit one that’d grown very fond of cogs and flashing lights. Then again…Dorian glanced around and saw a wagon steam slowly by—a very primitive vehicle, powered entirely by qi. Around here, it does resemble a religion….

Pebble perked up. “Ooh! Has the Heaven-Defying Mountain-Mover caught your fancy? It’s the newest gimmick outta the guild, forged by the high masters themselves! Only the noble families can afford one of them. Those artificers are weird folk, but their widgets sure are a sight.”

A sore sight, to be sure. And perhaps the least catchy name I’ve ever heard. That boulder on wheels did the job of a mule at a hundred times the material and qi cost. It was at best pointless. There’s much work to be done here, clearly! Dorian cracked his knuckles. Let’s get to it, then.

He glanced at the sun’s position. A little past noon.

“I suppose I can’t stay the night in the city limits?” he mused.

“No, sir,” said Pebble with a hearty shake of his head. “The Oasis locks up for the night at sunset. If you’re not out before then, the curfew officer’ll sniff you out.” He shook his head so fast his hair looked like a spun pellet-drum. “That’s no good, none at all! Last time I went visiting my ma’s grave—it’s by the sinkhole, see—I lost track of time and didn’t make it out. Those bastard officers beat me so bad I coughed blood for two weeks! Heh.”

Dorian quirked a brow. “Noted. In and out before sunset it is.”

He flipped another gold coin from his Ring and held it out. “Good work, Pebble. Your job here’s done. Scamper off.”

“Whoa…” Pebble leaned up so close to it that the reflection of the coin took up all his eyes. Then, he snatched it up with a toothy grin. “It’s been a pleasure, sir!”

He bowed a third time very, very low. His head banged against the ground. He came up with an, “Ow!” grinned again, and went off whistling.

“Oh!” he turned back around before he’d taken three steps, frowning. Dorian suppressed a sigh. “Yes?”

“Sir, you don’t mean to try to become an artificer, do you? I must tell you, I never heard of them accepting anyone who weren’t an academy brat, say nothing of an outsider…” He scratched his little head. “All I mean is, them artificers, they’re a proud, nasty bunch. Very stingy with their time. And they have big ol’ nail-guns. And fire. Lotsa fire. Best not to stir up anything silly, yeah?”

Dorian slid on variant nine of his ‘Who, me?’ innocent-smile expressions package. “Don’t you worry. I’ve got absolutely no silly business in mind,” he lied. “I’ve merely come to take a look. I’ll be out in a whiff.”

Pebble breathed out. “That’s a right relief to hear, sir. I got an old friend in the Mischief—name’s Squash-nose. He’s got a nose squashed flat as a crater, he’s famous for it! You should see ‘im, sir!” he giggled. “Anyhow, ten years ago, Squash-nose was an acolyte of a lesser academy, one of them back-alley ones. He really wanted to be an alchemist, see. Went in full of hot air and insisted they let him in.”

Dorian slid on variant four of his ‘Rapt Look’ pretend-to-be-interested expressions package. “What happened?”

“Well…before he went, his name was Bulb-nose.”

“Ah.”

“That’s my piece. I’ll be off.” Pebble gave him a hopeful grin. “Good day! Next time we meet, I hope you still have all your bits stuck on!”

* * *

Dorian was stopped at the entrance by two burly armor-clad guards. Both wore great red-velvet sashes across their chests, marked with the insignia of the guild. One of them frowned down at Dorian’s still grimy clothes the instant he came up. Nobody was a fan of simple tunics out here, it seemed.

“IT?” Said one, frowning down at Dorian behind a bushy beard.

Dorian held up the tournament token. The man squinted. He pulled his fellow guard aside. They whispered to each other. Dorian caught flecks of the conversation—

“…let in …Outskirts …? Impossible!”

“Had the token … can’t …”

“…exception … IT?”

They frowned at each other.

“Tournament …trials…”

Moments later, the big bearded one came back, grinding his teeth.

“All right. You can head in,” he said. He had the same half-constipated look as a baby being force-fed its least favorite vegetable. “Don’t try anything funny, you hear?

“Nothing funny,” said Dorian smoothly. Up went innocent-smile again. “Of course. Wouldn’t dream of it!”

He was through.

The lobby was a vast cylindrical foyer under a domed roof which admitted a single shaft of sunlight at the very top of the dome. Suspended in the middle of the dome, high-up, was a mess of massive gears, pulleys, and pipes, feeding in all directions. He suspected a cluster near the top was what powered the giant clock. The walls were carved with the same glowing runes he’d seen outside. Stone doors were cut into the walls in a semicircle, each etched with a different symbol—triangle, circle, square, book, lock. They were arrayed in two rows. Little marble staircases led up to the higher ones. It was an elegant, clockwork design. The flooring was simple sandstone, polished to a smooth shine.

There weren’t many people present in the lobby. Men and women in mottled brown robes streamed out of a few doors. They seemed to mark their status. The robes were dull, the sort eyes slid right over—servants, Dorian guessed. He saw a scant few—less than a handful in total—who wore gold-trimmed white robes. These robes were peculiar, not at all like the garb an alchemist wore. They weren’t flowing. Instead, they were puffy, sealed at the ends and made of a glossy material. Durable. The sort that’d ward off an explosion, which must’ve happened a lot around here.

At the center of the room was a big receptionist’s desk. It was two big black slabs of stone stacked atop one another and looked very imposing. The man behind it was thin, balding, with a few sad spurts of gray spouting from his wrinkled head. He looked comically small sitting behind it, looking all serious in his silver-gray robes.

When he saw Dorian, the same frown the guards had worn came over his face. Dorian rolled his eyes. It’s the clothes and the grime again, isn’t it? Before he left, he resolved to visit a tailor. And a bath, if they had public ones here. He likely didn’t smell very good either.

Dorian walked up to him, grinning. His boots, still muddied, left dark tracks over the floor. Time for a little fun.

“Yes?” said the receptionist. One quick, clipped syllable. He regarded Dorian coolly.

“I’d like to become an artificer,” said Dorian pleasantly. “How might I do that?”

The receptionist groaned. He looked unimpressed, almost bored, like he’d seen Dorian’s type a thousand times before. He looked down at Dorian over his long, thin nose as he pulled out a ledger from under the desk.

“You wish to take the Tier-1 exam, then,” he said. “Proctored by a resident artificer. Any Tier-1 artifact will suffice…”

Dorian nodded. Then the receptionist squinted, suspicious. “Which lineage do you hail from, precisely?”

“Lineage?” Dorian cocked his head. “Don’t have one!”

“Pardon?” The receptionist’s brows shot up.

“Don’t have one,” repeated Dorian with a grin. “Is it important?”

The receptionist bent down. He flipped a few pages. “Very well,” he said, a thin black line across his temple. His tone made it sound like things were not very well at all. “Which master, then? Which academy?”

Dorian shrugged. “I don’t have those either, but I’m sure eager to learn!” Admittedly, his artificing knowledge was a bit hazy. This mind was neither fast nor wide enough to store it all. He’d need a few cues to jog his memory.

“You— What?” The receptionist’s head jerked up.

“Truth be told, I haven’t done any artificing before”—the receptionist’s eyes popped—”but it seems like a fun job! I’d like a crack at it.”

All honest truths—at least, for his time on this plane. He rubbed his hands together. “It’s all about welding metal and qi, right? Doesn’t seem too bad. Can’t take more than an afternoon to pick up, surely.” A vein bulged on the receptionist’s forehead. He looked at Dorian like Dorian had grown three heads.

“So. When do we start?”

The receptionist boggled. His head tilted, his mouth dropped to a long oval O. His nose was scrunched up, incredulous, like he was about to sneeze. Then he threw down the ledger.

“Start?” The receptionist barked a laugh. Bits of spittle flew everywhere. “Start?” He leaned over the desk’s surface. “Who do you think you are, exactly?”

“Name’s Io, of the tribes!” Dorian stuck out a hand with a smile. “Pleasure to meet you.”

“Ha!” The receptionist snorted. “Io, of the tribes!” By now, he was attracting quite a number of stares. A few of the brown-robed servants had stopped to stare.

“Oh, me. The pleasure is yours, I’m sure.” He settled back into his seat, breathing heavily and pushed up his wireframe glasses. Then his face hardened.

“Have you come to waste my time, Io, of the tribes?”

“Not at all,” said Dorian innocently. “I’m simply here to learn. Is that so wrong?”

“Learn?” The man’s sneer took up half his face. Dorian could tell what he was thinking. What Dorian was doing was akin to striding into a university, asking to learn the alphabet, and declaring he’d walk out with a degree by day’s end.

“Yup! I want to pick up artificing, as I said. I’m very keen on it.” He brightened. “A quick scan of your libraries should be enough! I won’t be long.”

“You think you’ll learn the noble art of artificing from…from memorizing books?” The receptionist couldn’t restrain his incredulity. Then, the full implication of Dorian’s words hit him. “You…ou want access to our vaults?!” His face reddened by the word. “You impudent little—!”

He took a deep, heaving breath. When he spoke again, he managed to restrain his voice.

“I’ve manned this desk for ten years. Do you know how many fools I’ve seen come and go, begging to join? At least they had the decency to come prepared—a backing, blood, academy tutelage, years of study!” Dorian watched the man’s spittle fly more and more with each passing word. A curious observation: The madder he got, the more spittle he let loose with each word. It was especially bad when he hit consonants. By the time he got to the end, there was enough to mist the air. “It is not something some unlettered savage can simply pick up! Through perusing some tomes! The very thought, it’s unhinged!”

A streak of sunlight caught the spittle-mist, forming a rainbow. Dorian giggled.

“This is funny to you, is it, you crude little weedlet?” spat the receptionist. He was working himself into a righteous fury. “Do you know how many years, nay, decades of bloody hard work it takes to become a full-fledged artificer? This is an insult, an insult to the guild’s honor! Never in a thousand years could you, nor one of your dirty tribe spawn kind, touch the hems of a Tiered-artificer!”

A small, loose crowd had gathered to watch the spectacle. One of the side-doors had opened. Out poured a posse of chattering youths in lavish artificer’s uniform, laughing and chattering. They paused to take in the sight. Upon hearing the receptionist’s words, a few of the young men looked baffled. A few of the girls giggled.

“How dare you desecrate the guild with this nonsense? How were you let past the guards?!” The receptionist frowned. “GUARDS!”

The two guards stumbled in. “Yes?” croaked the bearded one. He blinked at Dorian, blinked at the crowd, at the receptionist’s puffing face, and put two and two and two together.

“You. Outsider!” He marched forward with a deep frown. “You told me you wouldn’t try anything funny!”

Dorian pretended to look baffled. “I’m not being funny. I’m serious. I would like to learn artificing, really! Then, I’d like to take this test of yours.” He glanced up at the clock. “I’m on a bit of a tight schedule. I’d like to get it all done today, please. We still have the afternoon—

“Carry this fool out, Jai,” snapped the receptionist. He sneered. “And rough him up for good measure. The guild’s time is not so cheap as to be wasted by any passing lowlife!”

The big man hesitated. “But, senior, he’s got a token of—”

“I don’t care if he’s the Rat-King’s nephew! Take him!”

A ripple of laughter rose over the youths. They pointed as though at a circus attraction. By their dress and looks, Dorian guessed these were talents—young masters risen fast to become guild members. Likely each came from a storied family lineage with top-tier education.

The receptionist turned to them with a bowed head, grimacing. “I’m very sorry you’ve had to witness this farce, honored sirs. It shall be dealt with posthaste.”

Dorian stretched his arms. He’d admit it: he liked needling silly folk a little too much. Even now, he wore a shit-eating grin. In his defense, all he did was ask questions like any ignorant tribesman! He didn’t ask for this receptionist fellow to get all huffy.

But Dorian never provoked without a plan. He tapped his Interspatial Ring, and the tournament token sank into his palm. Pebble had said it gave him full access to the Oasis’ resources, didn’t he? Tournament qualifiers got certain privileges. It was time to test just how true that was.

But before he could act, a second door cracked open. Out poured another gaggle of youths, mostly women. At their front was the sort of girl who wiped coherent thought out of the minds any red-blooded young man who saw her. She was short and lithe, her supple figure straining against a silky sea-blue dress. She was also strikingly pretty. Silky dark locks framed a set of entrancing dark-brown eyes. They took in the scene before her: the receptionist, the crowd, Dorian, the advancing guards—and widened.

She cried out, “Wait!”

Strange how for some, gifts seldom came in ones or twos. The heavens pile their favorites full of them. Even her voice was clear and melodic and velvet smooth. Arresting. The guards froze mid-stride.

Her lips pinched in perfect displeasure, she stomped over, spots of red on her cheeks.

“What’s the meaning of this?”

“Young mistress!” groveled the receptionist. He inclined his head. There was a bead of sweat on his brow. “This one is honored to meet you. I’m simply escorting out a vagrant, miss. It is nothing of concern to you.”

A quick intake of breath from the spectators. The receptionist paled. Even he seemed to know he’d overstepped. She threw the receptionist a dirty look. “‘Nothing of concern, Tao?’”

She folded her arms. The action seemed to bring a mountain’s weight on the receptionist’s shoulders. He gasped, folding into himself.

“The guild’s image is of no concern to me?” she said.

Tao’s face had gone very white. “O-of course not, miss! That wasn’t what I meant, not at all—

“Is this how we at the Artificer’s Guild treat our guests?”

Dorian looked between the girl and the receptionist, amused. The receptionist looked like he wanted to stop existing. His face was slowly inverting. “I-I see I’ve failed you, miss—truly. I—”

“If I’m to inherit my father’s guild, I won’t inherit its biases. This sort of narrow thinking is what’s gotten us our snobbish reputation in the first place.” Her voice was smooth and totally firm. “The guild isn’t merely for the rich or the powerful. My venerable grandmother, Jani Zhang, founded this guild to serve all the Oasis, including the Outskirts. Or have you forgotten?”

“I was wrong,” whispered the receptionist, dabbing at his trembling face.

“Her cardinal value was to live our lives for others. What sort of guild are we if we don’t help those most in need?” She tutted.

Dorian cackled internally. Get him, girl!

Then, she looked to Dorian with soft eyes, like she was looking at a stray cat bleeding out on the side of the road. Dorian looked down at himself. He was grimy, bedraggled, and smelled. He certainly looked like a stray. How very strange. What to do? For a second, he felt the absurd urge to meow.

Oh, what the hells? “Th-thank you, miss,” he murmured softly, hunching over. He did his best to look as pathetic as possible. He’d gotten taller, but he was still of average height for Vigor fighters. His build was strong but sinewy. His bloodline had made sure his skin, though dirty, was eggshell smooth. Once he hit Vigor, his features had turned lovely—one of the many perks of thorough cleansing and a high-Tier bloodline. He could be plenty cute when he tried.

He looked up at her with big doe-eyes, fluttering his lashes. If it meant a shortcut, he was decidedly not against being adopted by some rich guild lady. granddaughter of the guild founder, to boot?

He clutched his arm and bit his lip cutely. “I’m in your debt.”

She nearly cooed.

“Look how you’ve frightened him!” she said with a tsk. Tao looked like he wanted the earth to swallow him whole. He glared at Dorian, and Dorian got the odd feeling he was envisioning Dorian’s head on a pike.

“With all due respect, miss,” he bit, “generosity is a core value of the guild, of course, but this…this miscreant has come with naught but mischief in mind! He’s hardly the sort that deserves—”

“Not another word out of you,” she snapped, and the last vestige of life left Tao’s face. At that, she softened.

“Oh, Tao. I’ve been too harsh. You’re simply trying to do your job well. I appreciate your spirit. You mean well. You’ve got a good heart.” The receptionist’s face jerked up with hope. “But leave this to me, all right?”

“Yes, Mistress!” said Tao, flushing.

Then, she turned to Dorian and smiled. A master painter could’ve studied that smile for a lifetime and still failed to capture the fullness of its charm. Even Dorian felt it, though not nearly as much as some spectators. He saw half the men and a quarter of the women fall in love at once.

“What’s your name?”

FIVE

ARTIFICE (II)

“I’m Io,” said Dorian softly. He blinked fast, his eyes glistening as he looked up at her.

“Io,” she repeated, and her voice made the syllable a song. She smiled as she held out a gloved hand. “Come with me.”

He eyed the hand warily. With the cautious slowness of a frightened animal, he reached out and took it.

“He’s your issue no longer,” she said loftily to the receptionist. “Off you go.”

“Y-yes…” With another waist-deep bow, receptionist Tao slunk back into his seat. He made sure to glare fiercely at Dorian as he did.

In an instant, murmurs sputtered up all around them. Dorian was the center of attention—and of a good deal of suspicion—yet again. His plans had gone upside-down, but he wasn’t sad about it. He’d follow along, he supposed. Whether this was a pleasant surprise or not remained to be seen.

“Miss Lin!” called a voice, and a fetching young lad in artificer’s robes strutted up to them. Behind him was a loose throng of similarly dressed youths. He looked to the girl, then to Dorian with thinly veiled disgust. “You mean to take this“—he paused, as though racking his brain for a word. He settled on—”fellow…into our halls?” Unlike the receptionist, at least he had some tact about it.

“Yes,” said the girl warmly. “Why? What is it, Leo?”

He cleared his throat, then spoke like he was reading off a script. His voice was high and clear. “I feel it’d be improper to leave a lady of your standing alone with a foreigner. If you wish, I’d be honored to escort the both of you.”

Lin giggled. “Very thoughtful of you, but it won’t be necessary. I can handle myself just fine.”

“All right.” He fidgeted with his sleeve. “Will I see you at dinner?”

She shrugged as she grinned at him. Dorian saw his thoughts flee his head in real-time. “Why not?” she said.

Blushing and stammering, the boy left with his friends. Amusing. She has them on a string. Is this what she’ll try with me?

“Are you sure about this?” A girl behind her, one of her posse, regarded Dorian skeptically.

“Don’t worry, Su. I’ll be back before sundown,” she promised. “Meet you at the murals?”

The girl looked like she wanted to say more but thought better of it. “Don’t play too long…” she muttered. Then she went off with the rest of the girls.

Play?

Then, Lin turned her sun-like smile on him. “Let’s start with your clothes.”

Dorian blushed, scratching the back of his neck. “Err, clothes?” he said. “I only came to learn artificing, miss. I don’t mean to make a fuss…”

She held a hand to her lips as she giggled. “Don’t you worry. We’ll get to that in due time. First, we’ll get you cleaned and fitted. No guest of the Artificer’s Guild walks around in rags! Come.”

* * *

She took him up a flight of stairs, through a set of mechanical doors, then down a long hallway made entirely of sandstone. Light streamed in through a series of huge windows on one side, treating Dorian to a view of the main road below. They stopped before an archway blocked off by black curtains. steam curled at its edges. All around them milled a procession of servants.

“This leads to the servants’ quarters,” said Lin. “Inside you’ll find baths and a clean set of clothes.” Then, she frowned, a finger tapping at her lips. “Oh, dear. Do you know how to bathe?”

Before Dorian could answer, she snatched a serving-girl nearby. “You! Kindly bathe our guest in the servants’ baths and send him out in clean clothes.”

The girl was alarmed for a second. She looked horrified as she took in Dorian’s bedraggled appearance. Then, she inclined her head, flushed. “Yes, Mistress!”

Ten awkward minutes later—the serving-girl insisted on doing all the scrubbing herself, while also trying her best not to look at him—Dorian was back out, this time in a new set of robes. Servant’s robes, matte-black and nondescript.

Lin tilted her head as she took him in. A few stray hair-strands fell across her eyes as she inspected him. She tucked them back behind an ear and clapped, grinning. “You sure clean up nicely.”

She took his hand like they were old friends. Dorian didn’t resist. He was bemused.

“Follow me,” she said. And they set off.

“Where are we going, miss?” he said, affecting a flustered look. “To the artificing books?”

Her smile was enigmatic. “You’ll see. Walk with me.” They strode down the corridor and up another marble staircase. Lin pressed her token to an indent in the wall, and the stone door before them groaned open. They stepped into a hallway with a set of doors to one side, each marked with a sun or moon symbol.

“Tell me, Io,” she said and, even without looking at her, he could feel her gaze on his skin. She pressed a hand to his upper arm. The original Io would’ve been reduced to slobbering jelly. “Where do you come from?”

“Nowhere special,” said Dorian. He gave a nervous laugh, pitched an octave higher than normal. “A little tribe wandering the desert…”

Her frown was nearly a pout. “Don’t say that. Everyone’s home is special.” She sidled up to him with shining eyes. “Tell me about it? Please?”

What a strange diversion. By the look on her face, she was very insistent. I’ll toss her some bland answer. Then, back to the matter at hand. “It’s small, no more than two hundred in size, men and women and all…it’s no more than the number of people on that street”—he gestured out a window to crowd on the street outside—”if you can believe it. It was a lot of scavenging, foraging, sometimes hunting. We didn’t have walls like the Oasis, you see…”

“Mmh?” Lin’s gaze seemed to give off its own light. “It sounds like quite a tough life,” she murmured. “You must’ve had it hard all these years…”

Dorian squirmed. She was getting a little too close. “Yes, well, that’s life in the desert. About the artificing—”

“Did you ever meet with wyrm-kings? Exopods? Or packs of sandwolves?” She almost seemed eager for him to say yes.

“A few times. I lost my mother to a sandwolf,” he said hastily.

She gasped. Her hand went to her ample chest. “I’m so sorry!”

Dorian smiled awkwardly. “It’s okay, miss…it’s been a decade. I can hardly remember it.” What’s she up to?

As they went, they passed several men in artificer’s robes. The men stopped to gape, then seethe at him when they saw Lin on his arm.

After wandering a maze of halls and stairs, they emerged at an exit into an open-air rooftop space dotted with plush chairs and lined with a sandstone railing. From there, the whole of the city was spread out before them: blocky houses, gleaming towers, colorful plazas, all a chaotic bloat of stone and gears. Dorian’s lips twitched. Not a furnace nor vault in sight.

“Does that sort of—oh, awful, horrible tragedy—does it happen often?” She implored, putting a hand over her mouth. “Oh! That was rude of me…”

Ah. So, his first instinct had been right. He gave her a sad little jerk of a nod.

I’m a stray cat after all—to her, I’m a little tribes-boy she can dress and fix up and feel good about herself for doing it. The more tragic my backstory, the better she’ll feel, I wager. What I want hardly matters.

The little goblin of undying cynicism at the core of Dorian’s being nodded in satisfaction. This was almost certainly it, he thought. There were exceptions—idiots like Fate, for instance—but almost no one gave anything for free. If the cost wasn’t material, it was in intangible things—ego, for instance, or good feeling.

She handled him the way a child handled a doll. She’d already dressed him up. Now, she was bending him around her pinky finger. She had a host of little innocuous mannerisms—brushing back her hair just as it caught the light, or giggling and tilting her head just so, touching his arm or chest at innocent-seeming moments.

He was perplexed. It’ll be useful to have this strange creature as an ally. She seems important around here—I suppose I don’t mind humoring her. Still, daylight’s draining. I didn’t come here for clothes or a scenic tour.

“I’m real sorry to rush you, Mistress, but my sister waits for me back at camp,” said Dorian. He made a big show of being too embarrassed to meet her eyes. “Can we start learning artificing, please? Or…will you teach me?”

* * *

Lin almost petted the poor boy. He was adorable—so innocent, so kind, so full of hope! She wanted to stuff him in her purse and carry him around all day. She’d feed him cream-puffs and dollops of sugar and give him head-pats when he was well-behaved.

She noted with relish how his face lit up red as she touched his arm, or tilted her head, or slapped his chest with a laugh. She didn’t miss how his eyes flickered down when she hopped, or how they trailed her as she went upstairs. Savage boys are still boys, after all…

This one was a fine specimen—the finest she’d seen from Outside. She could tell from the moment she first laid eyes on him. Tan skin, darker than any she saw around these parts, smooth like chocolate. Muscles in all the right places, but still nicely svelte. A gorgeous face too. He was simple—a little dull, as their kind often were, but she liked it that way. She wouldn’t mind keeping this one about.

I wonder what he tastes like.

She shoved the thought from her mind instantly, a little horrified at herself. She helped him because it was the right thing to do. It was the duty of the noble to help the downtrodden. It was what Grandmother had always said! Yes. That was why they were here.

Then, she realized he was looking at her, expecting an answer. What had he asked? Oh, right! The silliness with wishing to become an artificer. It was her duty to help those in need, of course. She’d clothe him and feed him and send him on his merry way, along with a few artifacts to play with—but there was nothing to be done about his cute little dream. Artificing was tough, brain and body intensive work. And even if he could handle it, there was no substitute for a decade of formal training. Best for him to stick to his role. Let the Oasis-folk do the hard metalwork.

How best to rid him of the fantasy, she wondered, without hurting his feelings? This was a soft, sensitive boy—she could tell. He needed to be handled tenderly, with love and care. She was worried saying it outright might break him. He’d been near tears at that old fool Tao’s berating.

“Hmph.” She pressed a finger to her lips. Then she lit up as idea came to her. She’d show him how tough artificing really was, she decided. He’d draw the conclusions himself. “Why must you be in such a hurry?” she said, smacking him playfully on the arm. “Very well, as you wish! This way.”

She led him back inside. They descended several flights of stairs, crossed a handful of hallways, and re-entered the main chamber. All the while she pried him with questions about his past—his sad, lovely past. She heard of how he woke before sunrise every day to drain cacti for his ailing father. She heard of how he and his tribe spent months escaping a horde of gryphons. She heard of how just two weeks ago, he lost his dearest friend, Hento, to a Vordor attack. She saw him sniffle, fighting back tears as he did. It made her feel like her own heart was splitting in two.

“I’m so happy we met, Io,” she gushed. “We’ll be great friends. I can sense it already.”

“Aww, miss…” he said, blushing, scratching the back of his neck, “you’re too kind…”

They stopped before the door to the Furnace Floor proper: a sliding door twice as high and wide as all the others. This one was airtight and marked with a simple hammer, but the thuds of crashing metal on the other side still reverberated through the floors. She pressed her IT to an indent in the wall.

“You’ve told me so much about you,” she said, wide-eyed and beaming. “It’s time for me to share my world.” The door slid smoothly open.

It was like they’d been transported into the belly of a volcano. A wave of heat burst out of the open doors, fluttering their hairs.

She grabbed hold of his hand and led him through the doorway. “Stay close,” she said.

They emerged at a metal catwalk overlooking a vast factory floor. Below, a network of bulging wrought-metal furnaces lined up in rows, fitted with exhaust-tubes linking up to the ceiling. Each furnace belched plumes of fire-aspect qi. Hooded artificers worked at each station, wrestling big roiling balls of fire onto sizzling, glowing masses of molten metal. At their sides were tubs of qi-dense water for quenching. Clangs of metal on metal rang out endlessly in the din. To those who’d never seen it before, it must have been an overwhelming sight.

“This,” said Lin, sweeping her arms out grandly, “is artificing!”

She looked at him, expectantly. For a half-second, Io looked strangely conflicted. Then he met her gaze and flinched.

“Whoa!” His face was suddenly a picture of awe. Just as I thought. He pattered up to the rusted railing, leaning in for a better look.

Smirking a little, she pointed to one of the artificers below. “See that man?” She pointed at one of the artificers below. He was carefully wrangling a frothing python of flame with one hand and pounding a cube of silvery metal with the other—an impressive feat. Intimidating, she thought. “He’s a Tier-1 artificer, the lowest rung of the artificer profession. See how he’s grabbed hold of the flame?”

Io nodded, transfixed.

“That skill is called flame-throwing,” said Lin. “It takes years of practice to do right. If it’s not right—if you lose your focus for just a second—you may blow your hand off! It’s tough, risky work. Less than one in a hundred who try it succeed…”

That ought to disillusion him some. It’s not for you, cutie. She turned back to him, already imagining ways to comfort him. She’d put a hand to his crestfallen face or offer him a shoulder to lean on. Give him a hug, maybe. There, there…

Instead—

“Awesome!” breathed Io. He looked at her with stars in his big brown eyes. “When do we start?”

She frowned.

What?

SIX

ARTIFICE (III)

She looked at him, expectantly. At which point, Dorian remembered he was supposed be a flabbergasted tribe bumpkin.

“Whoa!” he went.

“See that man?” She pointed at one of the artificers below. He was wrangling a little squirt of flame with one hand and tapping a cube of silvery metal with the other. “He’s a Tier-1 artificer, the lowest rung of the artificer profession. See how he’s grabbed hold of the flame?”

He nodded.

“That skill is called flame-throwing,” said Lin. Her tone was as though she were telling him a spooky story as she tucked him into bed. “It’s the most basic skill in artificing, but it takes years of practice to do right. If it’s not right—if you lose your focus for a mere second—you may blow your hand off! It’s tough, risky work.”

There was that expectant look again. I’m supposed to be scared, I gather? Or awestruck? How amusing.

“Awesome!” breathed Dorian. He turned back to her with stars in his eyes. “When do we start?”

“E-eh?”

“Flame-throwing!” said Dorian, leaning in and clasping her hands. “Please, teach me!”

She stared at him for a few seconds. Then, she burst into a peal of musical laughter.

“I see how it is. Is flame-throwing not impressive enough for you?”

“It is,” gushed Dorian. “That’s why I want to learn it!”

“Hmm…” she pressed a finger to her lip as she scrutinized him. By impressive, she means frightening. She wants to scare me off artificing. He grinned innocently. You’ll need to try harder than that.

“All right! If you’re still this eager after we’re done here, maybe I’ll teach you,” she mused, smirking. “First, let me show you my favorite station in this room…”

She looped an arm around his, pressing her head and chest tight against him as she led him along. She’s gotten pretty daring. I got the impression the Oasis was a conservative culture. Dorian’s eyes glanced down involuntarily. In the heat she’d loosened her blouse, which fell carelessly down her shoulders. His gaze fell lower, down the curve of her neck to other shapelier curves…his arm burned at the spots where it met her softness. He was already sweating in this sweltering heat. She was, too, he noticed, glistening softly in the red light…A different kind of heat rushed up his body. A cacophony of unwelcome thoughts rushed to mind. He wrestled them down in an instant. Until now, he’d kept Io’s baser instincts firmly in check, too—no matter how much chest-tapping she’d done. “Tch!” What an embarrassing lapse.

“Something wrong?” she said, looking up at him, and this time it was her turn to blink at him innocently. She was very satisfied. He could see it in her eyes. He realized he’d been staring.

You devious little…

“N-no! Nothing!” he yelped, flinching and turning away. His face red-hot as she giggled. This time, his feigned embarrassment mixed with a smidge of real feeling.

It wasn’t that he’d not seen her kind before. But in Io’s body, his predicament was rather like being a great driver stuck on a piss-poor locomotive with a wheel missing. He’d shed most of Io but there were still some annoying vestiges stuck in him like gunk in the little spaces between teeth. He was affected by nonsense that ordinarily was nothing to him. He pursed his lips.

The rows of artificers were organized by rank. The farther they went along the catwalk, the more heated the flames in the furnaces got, the louder the bangs. The first three rows of artificers had all been either peak-Vigor or early Profound in strength. They arrived at the fourth row, which was peopled only by Profound-realm veterans. Each of them dealt with colossal, steaming chunks of metal. They used miniature spears to carve in runs to their sides. Each station exuded an aura of electric wildness, a tension, as qi was stuffed and trapped within the runes with each stroke of a spear.

“These are the Inscribing tables,” said Lin in hushed tones. “All Inscribing masters must pass three rounds of artificer’s debate with guild elders, attain high reputations for craftsmanship, and have at least two decades of experience.”

She batted her eyes at him. “You’ve not even lived two decades yet, have you?”

“No, miss,” said Dorian, wide-eyed and demure.

“I didn’t think so. Can you imagine spending twenty years of hard work here? Working metals hours upon hours a day?”

Dorian didn’t miss a beat. “Ooh, I’d love to!” he grinned. “It looks real fun!”

She took a step back, an inkling of a frown on her lips. “You think so?”

“I can’t wait to try it…” It was his turn to look at her expectantly.

Her cheek twitched. “See those runes?”

“Yeah?”

“Each of those takes hours for a Profound-realm master to carve. Simply learning it is impossible for most and takes years for the talented. And it drains you, too—more than if you ran from here to the horizon and back!” She arched a brow at him. “Sound fun?”

He nodded fast.

“Hmm…” This time she leaned in so that their faces were mere inches apart, so close he could smell the scent of citrus in her hair. She squinted at him. A beat. Then she stepped back and giggled.

“All right. I like a challenge. Let’s see if you find some of the Furnace’s other offerings impressive.”

She took him by the hand—not the arm this time, he noticed, just the hand—and dragged him to the next show-and-tell spot. A high-level Profound Realm master with fire-aspect qi was breathing fuming air on a massive wrecking-ball of steel. Dorian clapped happily at the sight. She dragged him to a Tier-3 alchemist welding together a cannon. He oohed at it, entranced.

Her cheek twitched again. “All right, mister,” she breathed. “Let me show you Master Yi! He’s carving a rune that could down a Flood-Dragon. When he failed his first attempt at it, it took off one of his arms!”

Dorian gasped. “He’s doing all his inscribing with one hand?”

“Yes,” said Lin with poorly contained smugness.

“Whoa! He’s got such heart!” he gasped. “So inspiring. I want to be just like him…”

Lin let out a high-pitched squeal of frustration. She tried to play it off as a cough.

At each failure to frighten him off her cheek twitched a little more, her frown grew a little more pronounced. By station six she wasn’t even holding his hand anymore. Still he held steadfast in his convictions. All the while she went about, wearing herself out from post to post. By her ninth try at scaring him she was grinding her teeth. He nearly laughed.

She may as well try showing a blind man Mt. Tai.

* * *

At first she thought he was cute but dumb. But it was the cute sort of dumb—like the dumbness of a canine chasing its tail.

Now she thought he was cute but very very dumb. And this dumbness was not cute. Not at all. In fact, it was starting to irritate her.

Artificing isn’t for you! Why can’t you get that through your thick little skull?

She had half a mind to dunk him headfirst into a Furnace himself. That’d teach him a little fear. A waste of that face, but the brute has got to learn somehow…

Then a new idea occurred to her. She smiled. She must’ve let a little of the venom of the idea seep into her smile, because he recoiled a little at her. “Miss?” said the dumb stupid idiot, his brows pinched together with uncertainty. “Are you fine?”

“I’m as well as can be,” she said, still smiling. He hesitated. “Um, miss, you look a little—”

She dragged him in and latched onto his arm again. He squawked at the sudden move. “I’ve got one last place to show you,” she said. Before he could say another word, she dragged him along.

She hadn’t planned on making a scene, but at this point she was beyond caring. Whispers drifted over from all around them as they passed.

“Where are we going?” said the stupid dumb dummy.

She thought about replying with ‘you’ll see,’ all mysterious-like, but she was too exasperated. “The artificing rooms,” she said primly. “My private workshop, in fact. You want to see artificing close-up? You’ll get it.”

She took a vicious joy in seeing his dumb dimwit face light up. Just you wait…

They crossed the foyer, passed a sputtering receptionist Tao, and curved into a hallway after she fed the gate her IT.

Outof the corner of her eye, she saw Leo emerge soot-ridden from one of the rooms. Oh, Leo. She could tolerate him most times, but she was at the end of her stick. His smug face made her chest prickle with annoyance. She watched discreetly as he took in her on the daft dolt’s arm. Shehe watched his face twist red with rage.

Now, Lin was a good girl. This was an undeniable fact. Lin went out of her way to help others—she was the one who’d pushed for and designed last year’s aqueduct expansion plans to bring the Outskirts fresh qi-water. She was the sort of girl who picked up any stray litter she saw on the streets. Hells, she was helping this dumb stupid idiot dummy with his stupid dumb stupid dream! She was the kind of girl her grandmother would’ve been proud of.

But sometimes—just sometimes—she liked to be a little bad.

She leaned over, hugged the dope’s arm tight, and snuggled into his chest.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Leo’s face fall. She could see the steam rising from his piping-hot ears. She giggled.

In learning artificing, she’d studied the Laws of Conservation of Qi from since she could walk. She had a theory of her own: the Law of Conservation of Happiness. She’d come up with it one fine summer day twelve years ago, when the neighbor-boy—the son of Azcan’s Minister of Finance, no less—had called her a “big fatty.” That had made him happy and her sad. Then she kicked him swiftly up the balls. That made him sad and her happy. Happiness was conserved. It was her first big revelation.

Now she could see Leo was growing very unhappy, and she could feel satisfied happiness at that fact flowing into her.

“This way,” she said as they reached the end of the hallway. She pressed her token to the indent, swung the door open, dragged the stupid dumb-dumb in and shoved him onto the bench.

Then she flexed her fingers, forcing down the urge to cackle madly. Behind her, the Furnace roared to life with a crackling bang. Her eyes flashed. “Let me show you,” she breathed, “what real artificing looks like.”

SEVEN

ARTIFICE (IV)

What was this girl about to do to him? Dorian was a little perturbed.

She seemed a normal sort when he first saw her. Then she’d gotten steadily more unhinged.

His eyes trailed to the Furnace. Qi-flames licked at the edges. The way she was looking at him sent a cold draft down his spine. Either she wanted to stab him to death or devour him whole.

He glanced around the room, searching for something to distract her with. It was a bare, blocky room with walls of a porous black foam. A clock hung above the door. The flooring was thick metal. It was fairly minimalist. On a wall to the left was a cabinet, and in it were uniforms—the puffy blast-protection ones Dorian had seen worn by a few artificers in the lobby. To the right…Dorian perked up. Jackpot.

“Is that a bookcase?” He pointed to it. It sure looked like one. Black hide-bound tones sat in a stone shelf, etched with gold lettering on the spines.

“What?” She frowned, following his finger. “Oh! Yes. It has tomes with blueprints for artifacts of each Tier.”

“Won’t it be burned?”

She snickered. “Watch.” A smolder of fire-qi leapt to her outstretched palm. Then she walked over, picked out the first tome—Artificing: A Beginner’s Guide, Ed. XV—and set the flame to the first page. It fizzled out.

“Fireproof pages,” she said with a crooked grin.

“Ooh. Can I see?” He thrust out a hand. Finally! An artificing text! A vast trench of submerged memory buzzed beneath the surface of his consciousness.

He was nearly salivating. She looked at him with shrewd eyes as she mulled it over. “Hmm…why not?”

She pressed it to his outstretched palm. There was that smile again. “Pretty, right?”

“Very,” he muttered, flipping open the pages. His eyes ran down the words. Diagrams of qi-flows, instructions for heating, for imbue-ing, for the precise mechanism of Inscription…he felt a lock click in his mind.

“See those?” she said, leaning over him. Her smile was an innocent condescension. She likely didn’t even know she was putting on airs. She spoke as though to a small, dumb child. She pointed to the title.

“Those are letters,” she said. He flipped a page, totally absorbed and only half-listening. “They hold knowledge. This book has all the knowledge you need to become a Tier-1 artificer.”

Fireworks went off in Dorian’s brain. Knowledge streamed into a spot between his eyes. It was like something on the tip of of his tongue had finally come to him—except that revelation was happening a thousand-fold. The flow here, down the arm and through the meridians of the hand, is imprecise. It makes no use of the Taiping acupoint. And what does it suggest here? It times the imbuing too late, at the point of quenching—by then, half the qi is lost! Dorian flipping through the pages almost as fast as his eyes took them in. After his physique had hit Vigor, his processing speed had leapt up.

And after I finish refining the brain, my comprehension speed should shoot up again too…

The girl said something else. It was lost in a muddle of Dorian’s thoughts. He kept flipping, poring over the images. He was lost to the world outside. The basics of Artificing, as refined in the Multiversal Standard, solidified in his mind. A warm shock of joy ran through him. Yes! This is how it should be.

He’d never gone deep into the study of Artificing before. Like medicine, it was one of the fields in which he only had cursory knowledge. Even so, he’d forgotten more about artificing than the highest masters in this dumpy plane ever knew. And bit-by-bit it flowed back to him…

The book went on to list a glossary of nearly a hundred of the fundamental artificer’s runes. Each had a different function. Each would need hundreds of hours of muscle-memory alone to master.

Then the book snapped shut and was yanked out of his hands. He looked up, blinking in confusion, to see Lin’s flaming face.

* * *

What was the idiot doing? He was flipping through the pages like a toddler with a picture-book.

She gritted her teeth. So far, this visit was going very differently than how she’d imagined it. She’d come here to get him up-close-and-personal with qi-fire, maybe singe a few hairs off his head for good measure. Or scare him to tears, just a bit.

Instead, he’d spent five minutes head-down, not even looking at her—and she knew for a fact he wasn’t reading it! He was flipping pages so fast he hardly had time to see them!

Hmph. We’ll see how long you can ignore me for. The fires in the furnace had climbed to their peaks. They were raring for use. “Isn’t it hot in here?” she said. She turned around and rolled up the sleeves of her blouse with slow, stretching movements. Her shoulders were bare in the light. She loosened the bow on her neck, exposing more skin. Then, she turned back, a triumphant grin on her face, only to see the doofus was still flipping.

She twitched. Her hands curled to fists. she snatched the tome straight out of his hands.

He looked up at her as though he was awaking from a deep dream. “Huh?”

“Forget the pictures,” she said, breathing heavily. She couldn’t wipe the annoyance off her face. “Why don’t I show you the real thing?”

He still seemed out of it as she yanked him from his seat and dragged him to the front of the furnace. He looked around, bewildered.

“Erm. Aren’t we going to wear those?” He nodded to the safety uniforms hanging on the wall. “What if something blows up?”

“There’s no need for that,” she said. “We’re only dealing with low-level Artificing today.” If something does happen to blow up, all the better!

“Watch this!” Qi coated her hand as she thrust it into the furnace. Then, frowning with effort, she drew out a tongue of flame. It nuzzled her hand like a tamed animal. She smirked as she saw his eyes latch onto it.

“Flame-drawing. The simplest skill in flame-throwing,” she said, her chin proud and high.

For a long time, the goon said nothing. He simply stared at her hand deeply, like it held a secret he was slowly unraveling.

She frowned. That can’t be it. She snorted at herself for thinking it. The ninny’s just mesmerized by the pretty fire.

“Can you do it again?” He looked up at her with big, pleading eyes. Aww. How could she say no? This time she grabbed a big ol’ fistful of flame and shoved it right in front of his nose, so close it nearly singed his brow.

“Here!” she crowed. That should do it.

He didn’t so much as move. Not even a flinch. Instead, his gaze grew even more intense. She moved her hand left. His eyes followed. Right. They tracked her palm again. It was almost eerie. Frowning, she let the flame back to the forge. What’s wrong with him?

“This takes Azcan’s greatest talents years to master,” she said.

At the same time—”That looks pretty easy,” he said with a nod.

They stared at each other.

“Easy?” For the first time Lin felt the urge to slap the dumb look off his face. “Easy?” A Vordor pecked out his brains as a baby. That must be it.

Then a really bad thought came to Lin. Mean, even—totally out of character. But she couldn’t help herself. “If it’s so easy, why don’t you give it a try?”

She regretted it as soon as the words left her lips. But she’d said them. It was too late to take them back. He grinned stupidly. “Okay!”

And stuck his hand straight into the fire. Her heart dropped. “Wait!”

Then his hand emerged with a second later with a flame. A qi-flame. Not on his hand, not setting his fingers on fire—dancing on top of his palm. Stable and docile. Wait. What?

She looked at him, at the flame, at him, at the flame. She rubbed her eyes and bent in close, inspecting the palm. His hand was not on fire. Not even burnt. What? The thought echoed in her brain, rattling around. What?

“Like this?” he said.

“Impossible…” she whispered. Her thoughts felt like leaves in the wind, fluttering in random spirals. It doesn’t…I…

His hand closed. The flame extinguished like it’d never been there at all, and she looked up to a face brimming with purity.

Heat rushed to her cheeks. “Again!” she shouted. She never shouted.

He was happy to oblige. In went the hand. Out it came, fire in tow. “Am I doing it right?”

“…”

“Miss Lin?”

“You’ve done this before!” she cried, heat rising to her face. She slapped him on the arm. This time there was no playfulness—she did it hard. He winced.

“N-no!”

“You came here to laugh at me, didn’t you?” She sniffed. “Is that it?”

She rounded on him, one hand on her hip. The other jabbed at him angrily. “Who taught you? The Sphynxes? The Rogues?”

He showed his hands helplessly. “I never did this before in my life! I swear!”

Her brows knitted together. “No…that’s not right…” she whispered to herself. “They’d never train a savage…I would’ve heard of it…and there’s no furnaces in the Outsides…urgh—then—then…how?”

“I saw it in the book just now,” said the dumb-face with a shrug. “Then I saw the qi in your hands. I guess I—”

“Shut up!” She snarled as she spun back to him, hands balled to fists.

She marched over to the furnace again, head held high. “The second skill of flame-throwing,” she hissed. She drew out toe flame, then sent it spiraling in wide ribbons along her hand. The creature bent down to look at it again with that same ferocity. “Flame manipulation.”

This time she didn’t even need to prompt him. He reached one hand into the Furnace and drew out the flame again. In truth, this should’ve been done with the safety-suit. Fail this and the flame would burst out spectacularly, but she was beyond caring.

Not five seconds later, that thing had it leaping around in his palm like a well-heeled mutt! She couldn’t believe it. She literally could not believe it. It felt like there was a new distance between her mind and her eyes. There was a hollow ringing sound in her ears. She felt a little faint.

“I’m doing it!” said the beast. How had she ever found that face cute? That delighted smile was the nastiest thing she’d ever seen. Then his eyes turned on her.

“Are you all right, miss?” he said, frowning. He reached out to her.

“Don’t touch me!” she yelped, leaping back. Then she yanked out a tongue of flame out of that blasted clunk of a furnace.

“The third skill of flame-throwing,” she choked out. “Throwing.”

She threw the flame up like a ball. It fell to her hand, still holding its shape.

She watched the savage put his hand in. She watched the savage take his hand out. She watched him throw the ball up. She watched him catch it. She watched him make a mockery of her profession. Then she watched him shrug. Shrug!

She felt like she was burning alive. Dimly, she noticed she was shaking.

“Like this?” the brute asked with the foulest smile she’d ever seen. “That wasn’t so hard.”

Her brain felt like a raw egg that this brute had cracked open. All of her thoughts slid straight out of her ears. She had no clue what on Izod was happening. There was only one thing she knew with certainty.

“You…you played me like a fool,” she whispered. She broke down in tears.

* * *

Dorian had never been a great student of the human condition. He was a great student of human cynicism, perhaps, and human want. He could reasonably predict the relevant behaviors. But of the broader make of psychology—the useless, softer things, he was near-clueless. Even in his past life which had needed the most charisma—Yeshiva, the goddess—most of his job had been to look pretty, make rousing speeches, and ruthlessly squash the enemies of the church. He let his bishops and popes do the hard rabble-rousing work.

Which was all to say that he had little idea how to comfort a crying girl. Oops…I went a little too far, didn’t I?

“You—you beast!” she roared, glaring up at him with eyes filled with angry tears. Without warning she turned and punched the wall with a rage-filled roar.

The whole room shook with the impact. A fist-sized hole dented the wall. Dorian stepped back, eyes widening. She’s much stronger than she looks. An aura of the Profound Realm flared to life in the room. A bloodline of immense nobility wrapped around it. Bad. Very bad.

She sniffled. “You’re bullying me!” she declared. “I hate you!”

Dorian laughed nervously as he eyed her fists. “Please, miss, there’s no need—”

“ARGH!” She punched another hole in the wall. Then, just as Dorian thought things couldn’t go worse—

“Miss Lin?!” Came a voice from outside. A male voice. A concerned male voice. “Are you all right?”

Dorian froze.

Then the door was pried open.

Leo barged in, panting. “I heard a noise—”

He froze. He took in the crying Lin, the holes in the wall, then Dorian’s helpless face. Fuck.

“Look—there’s been a misunderstanding,” said Dorian, putting up his hands. “I—”

“Mudspawn!” Roared Leo, his face bulging with rage. “You touched her?”

“No—”

“You dare?!”

He lunged.

* * *

Lin felt so many things she could hardly sort them out. She was angry. Really angry. And humiliated. She knew that much.

Then the door burst open, and Leo’s dumb face poked through.

“I heard a noise—”

She saw him leap to the nearest conclusion.

“Look, there’s been a misunderstanding—”

“Mudspawn! You touched her?”

The grin was wiped right off the bastard’s face.

“No—”

“You dare?!”

She perked up, wiping the tears from her eyes. This would do. This would do just fine. She felt a thrill as Leo unleashed his early Profound-Realm base. Her villain was only at peak Vigor. The distance between the Realms was heaven-and-earth! She imagined that villain’s irritatingly pretty nose broken and bent. A crooked nose would look better on him anyway, she thought.

Good-Lin screamed at her to get up and stop the fight, but Lin wasn’t in control. Bad-Lin had tied her up, taped up her mouth, and shoved her into a closet. Now, Bad-Lin was driving the wagon off a cliff at full-speed, cackling madly all the while.

This should teach the fool a lesson. Plus, she rather liked the idea of two boys fighting over her—even if this was really a one-sided assault. She’d step in before the bones got broken, she decided. Until then…a sadistic smile lit up her face.

She saw Leo lunge, his hand wreathed in a gauntlet formed of his trademark yellow qi. Wyrm-king lineage, only two grades below my own. It was overkill. He would’ve crushed the savage without using his bloodline at all. He must be really mad. The fact gave her a perverse joy.

Then something very weird happened. The first never connected. It almost connected, then…the savage’s face slipped just out of the way. It looked like Leo had aimed for the wrong place. Leo looked as surprised as she did.

“Can’t we talk this out?” said the ass. Was that resignation in his tone?

Leo lunged again, screaming, and the ass slipped again—just out of range. He frowned as Leo whirled around like a maddened bull.

“I’ll gut you like a fucking fish!” Shrieked Leo, and the thug sighed long and slow.

“Don’t take this personally,” he said.

His bloodline unleashed. It felt like a storm cloud had rushed into the room. Darkness choked the air. Great thick shadowy tendrils burst out from all over him—huge chains formed of links of smoldering shadow. They took up half the room in an instant.

His bloodline is pressuring mine, Lin realized with a shock. And he’s a full half-realm below me! It shouldn’t have been possible. Her bloodline was derived from the Golden Roc, purest of the pure. It was one of the highest-grade bloodlines in all the desert—and yet…

Leo had already started to lunge. It was too late to arrest his momentum. She saw his face pale, his eyes pop out. Then the chains poured over him like a nest of massive pythons. For a moment he was lost under a cocoon of shadows. There was a scream. It was choked off.

There was a long silence. Lin’s blood pounded harshly in her ears. She stared, wide-eyed, acutely feeling her blood rushing up and down her body, the rising and falling of her chest. She could hardly form coherent thoughts. They slipped away like river-water between her fingers.

When the shadows fell back, Leo’s face was pressed to the floor. Smoky chains locked each of his limbs. He was spread-eagled, flat on his front, and utterly powerless. Submissive. Defeated.

A ridiculous feeling washed over Lin, a feeling that said if she tried him, she’d end up just the same.

The man before Leo stood tall, gazing down at him. He looked almost bored.

Lin felt a sharp pang of something unidentifiable.

“Sorry,” he said to Leo. “There’s been a misunderstanding. Miss Lin was showing me basic artificing. There’s no need for violence.”

Then, his gaze settled on her, and she found she couldn’t meet his eyes. She felt herself blushing furiously.

“I think I’ve figured it out,” he said. “I’m an artificing genius.” He smiled at her. It was the prettiest thing she’d ever seen. Everything around his face swam before her eyes. The world narrowed to just him. She felt dizzy.

“O-oh…” she whispered.

“Take me to the testing site, will you? I’d like to start on the first test,” he said. He pressed a beautiful hand to a beautiful chin. “Actually, since artificing is a lot easier than I thought…”

He glanced at the clock. “There’s three hours left,” he murmured. “How many Tiers of tests can we squeeze in, do you think?”

EIGHT

ARTIFICE (V)

“Will you behave?” said Dorian, frowning.

Leo nodded, goggle-eyed. “Really?” Dorian shot him a stern look. “You’re not just saying that so I’ll let you go, are you?” More frantic nodding. “Fine.”

Dorian released the restraints and Leo leapt back to his feet with an instant.

He dashed to Lin’s side, spreading his arms before her. He had the posture of a very scared scarecrow. “Call the guards, miss!” he cried. “Sound the alarms! I’ll hold him off! Run—”

That was all he got out before Dorian clamped a chain over his mouth. “Naughty,” sighed Dorian, wagging a finger. Grappler builds are fun. I should’ve tried them more in past lives.

“Let’s try again. Will you behave?”

Lin was steaming. “Um,” she said. She stood there, mouth a little open, her tongue staging a mini-revolt. Then she gulped. “Leo,” she said, struggling to scrounge together the shreds of her composure. “Io is a guest here—my guest. Please, be calm. I’m fine! More than fine. I was a little excited earlier and…I, ah, made a bit of a mess. That’s all.”

“MMDMH?!”‘ said Leo.

Lin blushed. “Um.” She swallowed, met Dorian’s eyes, blushed, and looked down. She shuffled her feet. “He won’t cause a fuss anymore. Will you let him go?”

Leo stared at her in horror.

Dorian scratched his cheek, pretending to think for a moment. How amusing. Then he shrugged and unraveled the chains. Leo collapsed to his knees, gasping. Dorian helped him back to his feet with a hearty slap on the butt. The boy’s yelp reached an octave hitherto unknown to man. He scrambled straight out the door.

Then, Dorian turned to Lin and held out a hand. “Please, show me the way, Miss Lin.”

“Of course,” she breathed, nodding shyly. “This way…”

* * *

Minutes later, Leo Ouyang was dashing up the highest spire of the Artificer’s Guild, taking the steps by twos, trying to hold back tears. What happened to his dear Lin, his lovely Lin? Mind control? Some perverse elixir?

This was the worst thing to happen to him since mother revoked his day-drinking allowance. He frowned. This might hurt even more. “AHH!” he cried again.

The savage had to be punished, that much was certain. And Leo knew just the man to do it.

He rounded a corner and came face-to-face with a wyrm skull, broken in half down the middle. He flinched and couldn’t smother the squeal as it left his lips. He must’ve seen it a hundred times, but it still always got him. It meant he was getting close. As he ran, he passed an armory’s worth of axes and gauntlets, all won in honor duels. Teeth. The horns and bones of great beasts, mounted as trophies on the walls.

Finally he arrived at a door. At the top, etched in stone by a rough hand with a jagged knife, read: MARTIAL ELDER KAL. ENFORCER.

And underneath, written in blood, was a sign: DO NOT DISTURB.

Leo gulped. The last time someone had annoyed Elder Kal, that some-one had become a no one, and then promptly had his skull mounted on the wall. This was the same Elder Kal who’d broke the back of the Beast-Horde of 327C, the man who’d shredded the legendary drake Whistlethorn with his bare hands! For a moment, Leo paused. That sign did look very convincing.

That memory of Lin making love-eyes at the savage wormed its way into his mind again…

Shrieking, he shoved his way in.

* * *

Martial Elder Kal sat curled-up atop his dragonbone seat, giggling under his impressive set of mustaches. He held in his hand the latest of a kelp-book—a delightful invention, printing flashy tall tales on leftover, low-grade kelp, released once a week. It was just the thing to unwind with after a long, stressful day cracking idiots’ skulls together.

This one was named Forbidden Romance #78. It was his favorite of the kelps. A love story between a brave Oasis young master separated from his family and a Tribes-girl with gravity-defying bits. Finally, after months of flirtations—stumbling upon her bathing at a nearby sinkhole (incidentally, also the scene chosen for the cover art), fending off rivals in his love-quadrangle, and finally getting her stodgy old goat of a father’s approval—Kal had cheered aloud at that scene—they were finally on a moonlit walk together. They confessed to each other, kissed. She arched her back, his hands went lower…

“Oh my,” rumbled Kal, red-faced, reading the page between his fingers. Now, the young master was removing her top, which an accompanying illustration depicted as having the thickness of a drawstring. Things were getting steamy. He turned the page, transfixed.

Then, the door burst open.

“Martial Elder!”

Kal sat bolt upright, chucking the book to the floor. “WHAT?!” In times like these, he was thankful his beard covered up the bulk of his face. He was red all the way to his ears.

Oh. It’s this fucking moron again. His friend Duke Ouyang’s moist blob of a son. “Didn’t you see the godsdamned sign?!” he hissed. “What fills that thick skull of yours, you dickless boob? Fluff and fucking earwax?”

“This junior is wrong!” Babbled Lilly. Leon? Kal frowned. Leo. Yes. That was his name. “This junior is not worthy—” Kal took a step at him, and he flailed back on his ass. “P-please don’t hit me!” he cried. “I can’t take it! My skin’s really sensitive, mother says I bruise easily!” It took a second for the boy to re-collect his thoughts. “Urk—um—I—I wouldn’t have come if it wasn’t urgent—”

“Spit. It. Out.” Kal’s beard bristled with each word.

“Your Niece—she’s been kidnapped!”

Kal froze. Then his blood froze. “What?!”

Leo dabbed at his sniffling face. “We were walking along, her and I, when this savage ambushed us in the hall! He sneak attacked us…before I knew it, he ran off with her!”

The full force of Kal’s Earth-Realm cultivation base exploded. Every glass cup in the room shattered in an instant. A sudden gale of fuming heat swept over the room.

“WHERE?!”

“I saw him running for the testing rooms—”

Kal charged out the door like a cannonball.

* * *

“One Tier-1 Test, please,” said Lin to the gray-haired lady manning the desk. Behind them was an archway which led to the guild’s state-of-the-art testing rooms, a grid of scaled-down furnaces and mini-toolboxes.

“Right away, Mistress Lin,” said the lady. She paused to look at Dorian, bewildered. “And who is this? He isn’t the test-taker, surely…?” “My guest,” said Lin with a smile. She squeezed his hand. “And he is. If you must be formal about it: I, Lin Zhang, hereby authorize this test by my authority as a Tier-3 artificer.”

The lady blinked at her behind two wide-rimmed glasses. Even standing near Dorian seemed to make her uncomfortable. “I see…As you say, Mistress.”

She jotted a few notes down on a pad. Then she flicked a switch attached to the desk. Above, a white light turned on.

“A Proctor will be here shortly,” she said. She nodded to Dorian, then flinched as he nodded back. “Kindly follow me…at a distance…”

She disappeared beyond the archway. He moved to do so, but was stopped by a hand on his wrist.

Lin was looking up at him hopefully. “When will I see you again?”

Gently, he pried her hand off. “If I pass, we’ll surely see each other around the guild often.” He bent down and kissed her hand for good measure—a short, chaste kiss—if only for the look on her face. She looked like she was on the verge of toppling over. It’s far too much fun to mess with these silly mortals. “It’s been a pleasure,” he whispered.

Then, he turned and, without another look back, went past the archway.

* * *

Lin felt like she was in the middle of a very pleasant dream. Everything was brighter, somehow, glowing. She couldn’t keep a smile off her face. She could feel lots of eyes on her, could feel rumors swirling about, but she didn’t care. She wished this could last forever.

“Good day, Lin,” said a breathy voice, and the feeling crumbled. She whirled around to see the last person she wished to see.

Eudora Azcan, in all her annoyingly tall glory, surrounded by her posse of lapdogs. One of the brightest stars in the year above Lin’s class, the sixth daughter of the Oasis lord. Long, rosy-brown hair flowing to a slim waist, two perpetually scornful eyes, and a smirking mouth all sat atop two long legs. If Lin was honest, she’d been jealous of the girl for years—she had grown to only average height by the most generous of measures. And that was before she’d stolen Lin’s first beau when Lin was barely thirteen. It’d been six years, and Lin still wasn’t over it.

Lin had never seen the appeal of the girl. Those legs were too long, she decided. Like stilts. Lin thought she looked like a jester atop them.

“So,” said Eudora, “I see you’ve found a new toy. Bored of the healer’s son already?”

Lin bristled at her. “He’s not a toy, Eudora. He’s a friend. I’m not surprised you can’t tell the difference. Don’t you have better things to do than poke around my affairs?”

“Don’t flatter yourself. You’re not half as interesting as you think you are,” drawled Eudora. “But it’s hard to avoid when half the guild’s blathering about this new savage-boy you’ve adopted. And to rush him to the testing chambers, no less—without a thought about the guild’s face!” She giggled. “How typical of you.”

Before Lin could retort, a wall of heat whooshed in from across the hall.

With it came the massive meatball of a man that was her uncle—the Martial Elder Kal, decked in full battle regalia, his forest of a beard streaked red at the tips. His whole body was a massive knot of scar tissue. Lin felt for his foes in the dueling arena or the battlefield. Fighting this big lump of a man must’ve been like trying to scale a cliff face with no footholds. Where would they even start to resist, with a man like this?

“WHERE’S THAT BASTARD?!” Boomed Kal, little fires in his eyes. Lin frowned. “Good afternoon to you too, dear Uncle. Where is who?”

Then, Kal took her in. He looked surprised. The weight of his fully flared aura dimmed a few notches. “Lin?”

“Who else? And must you make such a scene every time you enter a room?”

“But…” When Kal frowned, it looked like his whole face was swirling. He waddled up to her. “Are you hurt? Did you fight him off?”

“Why would I be hurt?”

“What? You were kidnapped! Weren’t you?” Two canyons of a frown settled into his face as Lin shook her head. “Fuck! I should’ve known. I’ll whip the piss outta that boy.”

“Don’t you worry, Martial Elder. Lin wasn’t kidnapped,” said Eudora over her shoulder. There was a note of gloating in her voice. “She went with the savage quite willingly. They had to pry her off him.” Eudora sighed. “Hardly known him three hours, and she’s already fish-eyed over him. How precious.”

“What?” said Elder Kal.

“She’s insane. Don’t listen to her,” snapped Lin. “And will all of you stop calling him ‘the savage’? He’s got a name. It’s Io. And he’s got as much a right to take the Tier-1 exam as anyone else!”

“You…brought him—a sav—Outsider—who you’ve just met—to take the damned Tier test?” Choked Elder Kal.

“Yes.” Lin thrust out her chin. “Do you have an issue with that, uncle dear?”

* * *

Martial Elder Kal felt like his brain was leaking out of his ears.

His niece had gone cracked in the head, but he’d known that about her for years. She was headstrong at her core—just like him. How would he handle her?

That Eudora girl was a right bitch and a troublemaker, but liar was usually a stretch too far for her. Did his niece really have the sweets for some savage-boy? She did look a good deal ruddier than usual…he didn’t get it. Why?

Then, out from the unwashed corners of his mind floated Forbidden Romance #78…the young master, seduced by the exotic savage girl with the gravity-defying tits…

He stiffened. Alarm bells were clattering in his mind.

“Listen,” Kal heard himself saying. He tried to affect a soothing tone, but it came out as gruff and rough as usual. “This ain’t a good idea, niece. You can’t be letting sav— Outsiders in willy-nilly. I don’t care how big his tits are!”

“I see,” Lin crossed her arms. “So now it’s your role to parent me and decide who I can and can’t befriend—or, for that matter, who can and can’t take the tests! Remind me, uncle, are you the Martial Elder or the Overseer Proctor?”

A pause. Kal wracked his brain for an answer. When she got mad, Lin was a small ball of distilled spunk. There was no winning with her, not when she was like this. He took a long, deep breath.

“You’re right, you’re right. As usual,” Kal nodded, grinning a big ugly friendly grin. “S’not my place to herd you about. Clearly, I wasn’t informed of the full picture. Now that I think on it more, it’s great you’re making new friends from Outside. Huzzah, I say! Huzzah!”

“Uh-huh,” said Lin, a brow raised.

Kal squinted at the desk-lady. “Has the boy gotten started? How long’s he been in there?”

“We’re still awaiting a proctor,” intoned the lady.

“Say. I’m an elder of the guild. I’m a Tier-5 artificer, and as it turns out—I’ve got some spare time on my hands. Why don’t I proctor this boy’s exam?”

Lin gave him a sharp look. “Uncle…” she warned. He raised his hands in mock surrender. “Why must you look at me like I’m some villain? I’m your chummy Uncle Kal! Look, I’ll be fair. I’ll be good. Swear it on my honor.”

Which would’ve been a more convincing oath if he had any honor to start with. Without waiting for a response from Lin or the desk-lady, he cracked his knuckles and strolled on through the archway.

He was on his merry way to fail this savage-boy harder than anyone had been failed in the history of Tier testing.

No forbidden romances. Not on his watch!

NINE

ARTIFICE (VI)

The testing room was spare. Blank sandstone walls. A workbench, with a small box of assorted screws and hammers. Blocks of raw material. A furnace. A bookshelf stacked with reference materials. An anvil. A clock. All made of a dark-gray metal. That was it.

Dorian waited, legs crossed, as the clock ticked slowly by. There was no sign of a proctor for the past quarter-hour. He was starting to think one might not materialize. Outside of one prominent exception, guild didn’t seem very fond of him.

Ah, bigotry. It was an all-too-common roadblock on his runs. It was also very silly. These Oasis-folk considered Tribesmen savages. The Ugoc thought the Oasis-folk were savages. The Tribes called each other savages. Dummies, the lot of them! To Dorian they were all savages, him included. Why make such a fuss about it?

Speaking of—there seemed to be a commotion outside. Lots of high voices. A silence.

Then the door opened, and a huge, very hairy man squeezed his way through. He was big, heaped with fat, but underneath were cords of thick muscle too. At a glance Dorian could tell he was at the Peak of the Profound Realm. It was in the thickness of the repressed qi leaking out from him, but it also showed in his bearing. His face was hard as weather-worn stone.

“So, you’re the savage-boy,” he said. His voice sounded like two great boulders scraping against each other. He folded his arms as he took Dorian in. “You want to be an official artificer, do you?”

“I do,” nodded Dorian. “Shall we start?”

For a long, awkward moment, they stared at each other. It was mostly this fellow doing the staring. Lots of staring at Dorian’s chest, for some reason. Is he a proctor, or is he here to throw me out?

At last the big man let out a snort. “Hmph!” he stomped across the room and threw himself across a metal bench. It was metal, and it still groaned under his weight.

“My name is Martial Elder Kal,” said the man. “I’m here to make sure the guild keeps up its high standards.”

Then he leaned in, his mustache bristling. “This is the Artificer’s Guild! This isn’t some hunky-dinky crafts-hut in whatever Outsider hole you crawled out of. The Azcan Oasis is the Armory of the Desert. Every artificer is first-rate, no matter the Tier. Here’s a friendly word for you: don’t look down on this test. Slapping two blocks of steel together won’t cut it. It must meet my standards. You must be fucking perfect—” he banged his meaty fist on the workbench for emphasis—”and even then, it likely won’t be enough. I don’t care who you’ve sweet-talked. You pass if I say you pass. Got it?”

Why is everyone in this guild so intent on scaring me?

Dorian nodded, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. “I understand, sir! I won’t take this lightly, I swear it.” He bowed. “It’s an honor to test for the Artificer’s Guild. I won’t let you down.”

Kal narrowed his eyes at him. “‘Least you picked up some manners. That’s good.” He groaned, settling back in his seat. “Hey. Where’re you pulling this confidence from? You know how many savages this guild’s let in? Zero. There’s always a savage every few years who thinks he’s special. None are. Day ends, we kick ‘em out, never hear of ‘em again. They go back to eating out of their hands and bathing in Vordor-piss.”

Dorian was a little speechless. Is this guy meant to be a proctor or a heckler? He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I haven’t even started the test yet! He’d expected some push-back, but from some sneering, judgey official who played his prejudices close to his vest. Pleasing this off would be a much thornier kind of challenge indeed. I’ll need to get creative with this fellow, it seems.

It obviously won’t do to match his anger. Step one—deflect with nonsense.

“Well…worrying doesn’t help, does it?” said Dorian with a wan smile. “Whether I’ve got what it takes or not, I’ll always believe in myself. I can’t control the result—only how hard I try. So, I’ll try my best.”

Step two—Get to work.

* * *

By the end of his first rant, Kal had expected the boy to piss himself. He’d expected the boy to shit himself after the second. But he’d finished spraying spittle and the boy’s pants were still disappointingly clean.

He’s got nerve. Kal could respect that. A disappointingly flat chest, too, but he was easy on the eyes—that much Kal could give him. Otherwise, the savage-boy was nothing special. Nothing at all. What did his niece see in him?

“The task for the first Tier is to craft a Tier-1 artifact. Simple.” He gestured to the bookcase. “Use any manual you need.”

“What about for Tier-2 and 3?”

A vein in Kal’s head bulged. “Worry about finishing this fucking test first, eh? You have the hour. Go.” Usually, test-takers were given five, but the thought of being stuck in a room with this fool that long made him want to dunk his head in a vat of molten steel.

He plopped down on a bench, yanked out Forbidden Romance #78, and started to read.

“Won’t you supervise me?” asked the boy.

Kal waved him off with a grunt. “I’ll inspect it when you’re done,” he snapped. “I’m here to make sure you don’t blow anything up too bad.”

Supervise? What for? All I need to do is wait out the hour, slap a fail on him, and go home. Or is the boy under the impression that what he does matters? Kal snorted. The boy could make a textbook-perfect artifact, and Kal would still send him scrambling.

Kal was the Martial Elder: the Elder in charge of enforcing the guild’s laws and protecting its members with fairness. In theory. In practice Kal made no pretense to being impartial, whatever the hells that meant. ‘Fairness,’ he’d long held, was the romantic concoction of airheaded writers—the kind he’d seen tanning on feather-beds in their sinkhole-side villas, the kind who’d never made a hard choice in their lives. A good judge was about being right, which was very distinct from being ‘fair.’ And Kal was almost always right.

The only thing any writer was good for was erotica, Kal thought as he flipped a page of Forbidden Romance. The minutes trickled by with aggravating slowness. The more he read, the more he found he couldn’t lose himself in the pages like before. This was steamy shit. Top-grade. Lots of moaning and thrusting going on. It didn’thing for him. As he read about Young Master LI’s mighty dragon and Huntress Yasha’s moist sinkhole, he couldn’t help superimposing that savage’s smirking face over Li, and his poor niece’s on Yasha…

He thrust the tome aside with a growl and looked up. Nearly a quarter of an hour had passed. There was no clanging of metal. The boy was still reading a Tome.

Li did a double-take. It’s the wrong fucking tome! He was reading from the tome for Tier-2 artificers, and flipping so fast the pages were almost a blur in his hands. Is this meant to impress me?

Or can the savage not read? Either way, Kal was ticked off.

“That’s the wrong tome.” He snarled.

The boy looked up, blinking. “Oh. Oops.” He set down the tome and picked up another tome off the shelf.

It was read Compendium of Artificing - Tier-3. Kal had to restrain himself from leaping up and strangling the boy. Did they not have fucking numbers out in those wastelands? He took several deep breaths, counting them one by one, just as his wife always told him to do. By the end of it he was only trembling. Why am I mad? Let the idiot fail.

The boy read and read and read. The way time was passing now reminded Kal of that time he took a particularly painful shit after a week of eating only raw Endspider meat—he only got a little drop of shit out at a time, screaming and grunting with effort, his asshole begging for relief. Every second felt like one of those little drops: passing through him and leaving him in agony. But this was even worse ‘cause it was mental. Even looking at the boy made him want to smack him up the face Finally—finally—the boy set aside the tome.

Then he moved a shelf lower and picked out another. This one read The Complete History &amp. Genealogy of Azcan Artificing. Vol 1. A fucking HISTORY book!

Kal imagined murdering him in graphic detail. It’d be easy. He’d hit him on the ear so hard his brain-matter would splatter out the other ear. The room was locked and soundproofed. After he was done he could turn on the furnace and chuck what was left of the boy in. He’d enjoy watching that stupid face burn.

After five minutes of reading, the boy put the tome down. Finally. Finally! …and pulled out The Complete History &amp. Genealogy of Azcan Artificing. Vol 2.

The boy must be an Ugoc agent, Kal thought, sent here to assassinate him via induced aneurysm. Watching him flip through that tome was death by slow poison. The worst part was he seemed to be enjoying himself. He stopped on a page, nodding and smiling. Kal couldn’t take it anymore. Three-quarters of his time is up!

“Aren’t you going to fucking forge?!” he screeched.

Io looked up, startled. “Oh! Yes. But first, I thought to do my artifact justice, it’s only proper that I educate myself on the history of artificing…”

It was the most wyrmshit thing Kal had heard in his entire life. “What.”

“How can I use artificing techniques without understanding their histories?” The boy had the nerve to look up innocently at him.

Kal sprang up, dashed over, ripped the book from his hands, and tore it apart at the spine in one swift motion. “BY MAKING THE FUCKING ARTIFACT, YOU SCUM-HEAD NIMROD! IT’S NOT THAT FUCKING HARD! IT’S PUTTING HAMMER ON FUCKING METAL, NOT A FUCKING NINTH-TIER ALCHEMY DISSERTATION! FUCK!”

A smile flickered across the boy’s face. For a second he looked weirdly enigmatic. “Trust me,” he said. “It is useful to my forging process. I promise.”

Kal picked him up and chucked him at the anvil. He made a nimble arc in the air, landing feet first and looking chagrined. “All right, sir! It’s as you wish. I’ll begin forging now.”

Kal couldn’t take it anymore. The urge to strangle the boy was nearly overpowering. He turned away and dragged out another kelp-book, trying to distract himself.

Fifteen minutes, he told himself. Fifteen minutes and I’ll never need to see that blasted face again.

* * *

As it turned out, it was sooner than that. Ten minutes. That was all it took. “Done,” said the boy cheerfully.

Kal whirled around to rest his eyes on the product. And his brain caved in a little. It wasn’t any Tier-1 artifact he recognized. It was a stick.

A stick.

It was a stick.

That smiling imbecile made a stick.

As he spoke, his voice was strangely soft. “What is this?”

“It’s a stick,” said the boy proudly.

Kal charged the boy and closed two meaty hands around his neck.

* * *

In truth Dorian hadn’t meant to piss off the Martial Elder—though admittedly that was a nice bonus. all right—perhaps that was a lie. Maybe he meant to piss the man off just a little. But everything he said was true. He did need the history books, for more reasons than one. He did need to consult the higher-order Tier compendiums. He had a plan in mind.

Black spots filled his vision. This was a bit troublesome. All his plans wouldn’t amount to much if he died here on the spot. A man didn’t reach Martial Elder without some restraint…right?

Then the hands let go, and he collapsed, panting and sucking in air.

“You have one sentence,” growled Martial Elder Kal. His craggy face reminded Dorian of a volcano on the verge of eruption. It even bubbled a little. “Explain yourself.”

It took a few seconds for Dorian to regain his breath. Then he coughed, smiled, and spoke. “It’s not just any stick.”

TEN

ARTIFICE (VII)

He flipped open the Compendium of Artificing - Tier-1. It was a very long volume, sorted by popularity. On the first page were qi-powered clocks, lanterns, small-scale machinery…he kept flipping. Soon he arrived at the page he was searching for. He pointed.

Kal leaned in. Dorian saw his bushy brows shoot up. Dorian saw him bark a laugh.

“Did you stop to think why that thing is at the back of the book?” Hissed Kal. He jabbed at it. The image read: Wizard’s Stick. Dorian knew it as a staff. The description was simple—it was an instrument which stored a qi-technique. It took the user’s qi and spat out the technique. A very powerful tool, in theory. It made all sorts of hard-to-learn or incompatible techniques easy for the masses.

But it had one key defect—something which meant that in all likelihood, there wasn’t a single working Wizard’s Stick in the Azcan Oasis. All the instructions to forge it were lost.

“It’s not real!” snapped Kal. Strangling Dorian seemed to have sated some of his rage, which left him merely very mad instead of murderous. “The Wizard’s Stick is a myth, made up by the same ancient idiots who thought swallowing Roc-dung cures male-pattern baldness! The only reason it’s still kept in the tome is the guild council—that posse of gormless fossils—has a raging hard-on for ‘tradition!’ A stick that shoots techniques? It’s the stupidest thing I ever heard!”

Kal looked on the verge of tearing his hair out. “Is this why you picked it?” Hissed Kal. “‘Cause making a stick is easy? It has to act as a Wizard’s Stick too, fool! Without the spells, it’s a shitty backscratcher!”

Nodding, Dorian swept over to the stick and picked it up. He channeled qi.

It was like the entire stick had become one long bright-yellow bonfire. A bellow of warmth and light gushed out of it. It shined so bright it could’ve been a lighthouse beacon.

That shut Kal up. He stooped over the stick, peering at it closely. A few slow seconds ticked by. “Huh.”

He snatched it out of Dorian’s hands, tested its weight in his palms, and fed in his own qi in. There was an instant assault of light, an eye-searching flash, a rush of fierce flame. He let it burn out. “Well,” he said at last, looking bemused. “Shit.”

“The history tomes mentioned the Wizard Stick’s discovery. I figured it’d be fun to recreate the lost steps,” Dorian’s eyes twinkled.

“…Huh,” said Kal again. His great jaw worked slowly. A fat frown sagged on his face. He took a deep breath. He injected a thread of qi and watched the Stick light up again. He seemed to be having trouble wrapping his head around it.

He stared at Dorian. “So,” he said slowly. “So. You found a forgotten artifact, hashed out its blueprints, and slapped up a working prototype of this—this Wizard’s stick. In under an hour.”

“Yeah. What do you think?”

“That’s…” Kal’s face twitched as he mumbled. “Fuck. That is pretty good. Fuck!”

Dorian perked up. “Does this mean I pass?”

“No!” Yelped Kal. He swallowed. “Absolutely not.”

Dorian cocked his head. “Why not?”

A pregnant pause. “Hum,” said Kal. “Good question. One moment.”

One big hand scratched his big tangle of a beard as he thought. The moment stretched on to half a minute, then a minute. “Aha!” Crowed Kal, lighting up. “Yes. I’ve got a reason.”

Dorian could see his composure slowly rising back up, like a heavyweight fighter crawling back to his feet after he’d been floored by a hard punch.

“I’ll admit it. It’s…not a bad effort,” said Kal. That phrase seemed stuck in his throat. It looked like it killed a small part of him to voice it.

“In the end, though, you’ve still made a shitty lamp.” He was picking up steam again, but he still looked off-balance. “It’s clever, boy. I’ll give you that. But the artificers the guild admits make clocks, or carved daggers, or plate-mail. That sort of shit. Complex shit. You made a stick. A shiny stick, I’ll grant you. But if that’s all you got, the guild’s not the place for you.”

The big man swallowed, looking reluctant. “It’s…a fine effort for a savage. But I can’t pass you.” He folded his arms. “That’s that.”

“Oh,” said Dorian, affecting a sad look.

Fine effort for a savage? Please. Dorian wagered that if he didn’t look quite so dark and smell quite so bad he would’ve been admitted on the spot.

“Look, boy,” said Kal, grimacing. The man put a hand on Dorian’s shoulder. “The guild may not be for you, but you’ve got something. Something special. A real spark. Not many kids have an eye for blueprints. Work hard at it, and one day—who knows? Maybe you can start up one of them solo shops in the Outskirts.” Kal shrugged. “As it is—it ain’t a good fit. Half the guild would riot if I let you in. Just how it is.”

Weird, he’s gone soft on me. I guess I’ve earned some respect.

Kal looked resigned, even a smidge upset as he stood. “I’ll walk you out,” he muttered. “Least I can do.”

But Dorian didn’t move. He simply smiled. “But…I’m not done.”

He cleared his throat gently. “Maybe now is a good time to mention that it’s not just any shiny stick.”

Dorian walked back over to the workbench and thumbed one of the three disks he’d made. It looked like a finely wrought ornamental bronze coin.

“The default spell this Wizard’s Stick holds is [Glow],” said Dorian. “It’s true—at its base form, that’s its only function. Except…I noticed Wizard Sticks had a curious trait,” said Dorian. “Each Stick held only one spell. To swap spells, you needed a totally different design with its own qi-channels and qi-aspects! It’s horribly wasteful to make a new stick for every spell, don’t you think?”

He tapped the side of the stick. Kal’s eyes darted to a little indent.

“Boy,” breathed the big man, stiffening. He almost looked nervous. “What did you do?” His voice had dropped to the soft register he’d used before he strangled Dorian. Dorian hunched his shoulders over his neck a little, just in case.

“I made a few small fixes,” He thumbed the disk in his hand. “Each Stick needed a new design ‘cause the qi-channels and aspects are carved into the Stick itself, right? But what if the qi-flows of each spell were stored outside the Stick? In, say, a disc?” The disk slid into the indent and was secured with a click. The ridges of the disk pulsed with icy blue light, snaking a stark sigil across its surface.

Dorian poured in his qi, and the air chilled to freezing. A burst of cold light shot out of the tip of the Stick, crackling against the ceiling and bursting into a blanket of glittering white, a a blizzard in miniature. Sleet slashed at the walls.

“SHIT!” Kal leapt back, ducking under a tuft of white. “Fuck! What the hells was that?!”

“It’s a spell!” Laughed Dorian. “This one’s called [Snowshot]. It’s basic—the Yalta learn it as children.” Dorian waved the tip of the Stick around. Frost drizzled off the ends.

“You made that white stuff shoot outta your stick?!” Kal eyed it, incredulous.

Dorian winced. “Well, I wouldn’t put it quite like that—but yes.”

“How?!”

Dorian plucked out the disc and held it up. Glimmering on its surface were little carved runes, hot to the touch. Latent qi swirled across the grooves like water on a riverbed.

“Shit,” murmured Kal again. Dorian got the sense it was the word the man defaulted to when he didn’t know what else to say. He rubbed his eyes.

“You inscribed it?” he said, snatching the disc from Dorian’s palm. He squinted at it, holding it up to the light. “Fuck me,” he murmured, befuddled.

While Kal soaked that latest little nugget, Dorian was happily plugging in a third disc.

“Let’s see what this one does!”

Storm-clouds of qi blustered angrily above them. A peal of qi-lightning cracked across the roof of the room, sizzling the air.

Dorian set down the stick and gave a little bow. “Now I’m done,” he said, smiling. “So? What do you think? Not your average back-scratcher, eh?”

Kal had plunked down onto a seat, cradling his face in his palms. Kal’s face was scrunched up in hard focus. His hands wrestled with the hairs on his head. He was muttering madly to himself all the while.

If he was a sensible man, he’d be leaping straight for the conclusions Dorian laid out for him. Dorian hummed as he waited.

“How?” Croaked Kal, his head still hunched down.

“Qi-channels, sir,” said Dorian, shrugging. “I was an alchemist’s apprentice—I got a good idea of how qi went up and down the body. So, I carved the Stick’s insides to mimic the basics of human qi-channels and lined it with qi-conductive bronze.”

“No,” said Kal. “How’d you think to do that?”

“Um. Dunno. How’d no one else think to do it?” Dorian brightened. “Oh! I bet it’s ‘cause they picked the wrong metals. The book says copper and silver are best for conduction, but only bronze is stable enough to hold the spells together. Says so in the book.”

“No,” said Kal. His head shot up. Dorian saw fervent red veins against the whites of his eyes. “How’d you think to do that?”

“Oh!” Dorian pretended to think. Now’s a good time to drop a hint. “I always had a good eye for puzzles—maps, constellations, all sorta stuff about fitting things together…”

Kal froze. “Not to boast, sir, but I also have a real good memory,” mused Dorian, scratching his chin. “Once I see something once, I never forget it. I usually get a lotta things most of the way right after I see it once, too.”

Then, nonchalantly, “I was reading up on this Jani Zhang lady—she founded the guild, yeah? It said she was born with a few tricks too—Perfect Intuition and Perfect Copy…and I thought ‘huh. Sounds an awful lot like what I got. Nice!’”

History: a great source of convenient alibis. Dorian knew those tomes would come in handy.

Kal was speechless. Groaning, he started kneading his temple. Dorian kept on rolling.

“Oh! Inscription’s a Tier-2 technique, isn’t it? I hope it’s all right I for a Tier-1 test…”

“…”

“Hey, here’s a weird thought. If the requirement for a Tier-1 test is to craft a Tier-1 artifact…is the requirement for the Tier-2 test to craft a Tier-2 artifact?”

“…”

“Isn’t inscription what makes a Tier-2 artifact?”

“…”

“Does that mean this counts for the Tier-2 exam, too?”

“Stop yapping and let me think!” said Kal, taking a ragged breath. “Give me that.” He grabbed the Stick from Dorian’s hands and brought it close enough to his face he could’ve licked it. Gingerly he turned it about, scrutinizing its sides and the disc-slot.

When he lifted his shaggy head back up, his eyes were bloodshot.

“This,” he breathed. “Do you know what you’ve done?”

Lovely. He’s come to the right conclusions. Let’s lay them bare.

“I think so,” said Dorian, nodding. “If a citizen needs fast transport, they no longer need years learning a secret qigong technique—they can buy a Stick. They don’t need wood- or kelp-burning for cooking-fires. The right disc will do. Most folk specialize in one branch of qi—but this brings the world of qi Techniques to their fingers. As spells.”

He paused. “But armies…that’s where things get real fun! With the right Inscriptions the Stick can make perfect fireballs—far better than the common Vigor-soldier can do. It can switch spells in an instant—it can target a Vordor with lightning, or a wyrm with earth. Its casting can’t be interrupted like a warrior’s focus can, either. Am I right?”

Kal’s face was slack. He looked like he’d been struck on the back of the head by a meteor.

“I think I could make them take Spirit stones as fuel, too—for even stronger spells, with no need to draw your own qi at all! Can you imagine—blasts that consume a whole Spirit Stone? It’d be strong enough to down a Profound Beast! But…that’s Tier-4 stuff, I think. I couldn’t figure a way to get it done in the hour.”

Dorian looked to the Martial Elder with hope. “If I got a workshop here, though—I think I could make it work. And more.” He scratched his chin. “I wonder what I could do in a week, or a month…”

What he didn’t say aloud—I wonder how much I’ll make selling the crap out of this thing. Establishing a monopoly and squeezing the state and the people? It’ll be obscene! Oh, I can hardly wait…

Kal had turned to wide-eyed stone. He wasn’t moving. Dorian couldn’t tell if the man was breathing. “Shit,” he croaked as he drew another shuddering breath. “SHIT!”

Then, Dorian got a hair-raising suspicion. He tensed a little. Wait. Have I pushed him too far? Have I crossed into the realm of ‘suspicious’—or even worse, demon-possessed? Dorian had been burned or drowned or stoned his fair share of times for being too much of a smart-ass with his talents.

Kal seemed a forthright, blunt fellow. He had a soft side, too. He’d even been warming to Dorian, hadn’t he? If Dorian read him right, he wasn’t the lynch-mob sort…

Still, he kept his eyes on Kal’s hands and tucked his chin in. Just in case.

Then, he gave Kal a wry smile. “So, Martial Elder. Do I pass?”

ELEVEN

ARTIFICE (VII)

Kal mulled it over. There were a few possibilities.

One. His longer career as a prize-fighter had finally caught up with him. He’d taken one too many blows to the head. His brain had been tenderized to mush, and now it was cooking up some fantasy that the reincarnation of Jani fucking Zhang had strolled in in the guise of a savage-boy. A grinning, very annoying savage-boy.

Two. He was dreaming. Or someone had snuck mushrooms into his morning tea. But he quickly dismissed that thought. His dreams never got this dumb.

Three. This boy…might just be the real deal. That one was the toughest to swallow of all. Was he truly about to let a boy without a lineage, education, or even Azcan citizenship into the guild? It was lunacy! He’d have the council up his ass for the next year!

Yet…the Stick. That was certainly the real deal. It was early aughts yet, but if that thing got some tinkering, and if the boy was as clever as he made himself out to be…

Kal groaned. He wasn’t meant for this sort of—whatever this was. His problem-solving method was mostly punching things till they stopped flailing. Fuck it. He stopped thinking and went with his gut.

“So, Martial Elder. Do I pass?”

Martial Elder Kal was morose. “Oh, wipe that smug fucking grin off your face, will you? What the hells am I supposed to say after all that? No? Fuck!”

“Does that mean—”

Kal pulled something out of his vest and chucked it at the boy full-speed. The boy somehow caught it out of the air. He glanced at it. His brows shot up. In his palms was a glinting Token emblazoned with a gold Tier-1. On the other side was the guild’s crest, a hammer in the center of a gear.

“Really?” The boy grinned ear-to-ear. Then his grin waned a fraction. “But…didn’t you say half the guild’ll riot?”

“Fuck ‘em,” snapped Kal. “If they do, they’ll have to deal with me.”

“Sir…” The boy’s eyes watered.

“Oh—and don’t wear that thing around here. You’ll embarrass the other Tier-1s. Come back tomorrow and I’ll pin a Tier-2 badge on you.”

“Sir, you’re too kind!” The boy looked on the verge of happy tears. That was it for Kal. If there was one thing he couldn’t stand, it was crying, whiny, snotty brats. Especially brats who’d made him swallow his words. Kal felt his pride physically. It was a tender spot right above his heart. It throbbed like hells.

“Don’t be silly. We aren’t friends, kid. I don’t even like you. Truth be told, I find you irritating as hells. But you’re a member of the guild now, and I don’t abide nonsense aimed at any of our artificers.”

The boy nodded, eyes wide as a newborn’s.

“Now get out of my sight!” Kal roared.

With a small bow, the boy skipped out of the room.

Groaning at the walls, Kal pinched at his forehead. “What have I gotten us into…?”

* * *

Lin met her friend Su at The Melted Chalice, a café placed conveniently near the main lobby. It was a quaint, charming place with a dark, smooth, wooden decor. Lamps hung on chain-links above, puffing with soft pastel lights. It was lightly peopled this late in the afternoon.

Across a small circle table and two matching cups of Spirit Bamboo tea, Su was prattling on about the tournament. Lin was only half-listening. Her eyes kept drifting to the entrance to the testing chambers on the other side of the lobby. She wondered how Io was doing. I hope Uncle isn’t too hard on him…

She caught herself. She was being absurd, and she knew it. She hardly knew the boy! Why should she care? Why did she care? She didn’t care, she decided. She was simply bored. She needed distraction after weeks of grueling tournament training. That must be it.

Then she he blinked. Su was snapping her fingers. “Hey, what’s the matter with you?”

“Sorry,” she said with a little half-hearted laugh. “You were saying?”

Su gave her an unimpressed stare. “I’ve set up more sparring for us,” she said, and Lin suppressed a groan.

“At this week’s end, with the boys from the Sphinx Academy’s class-1. With Ma Yun!”

“Oh…”

“He’s seeded in the Top-10—Master says he’s a lock for the quarterfinals. This is our chance to test ourselves against the real heavy hitters.”

“Mhm.”

“O-kay. No. Don’t you m-hm at me, Miss Zhang,” Su put her arms against the table and leaned forward. Her eyes narrowed to slits. “What’s wrong?”

“What?”

“Is it Eudora Azcan?” Su tsk-ed. “What’d she do this time? You can’t let her get to you! That’s her specialty. I heard she broke up Mistress Wei with her fiancé, just so she could screw with the poor girl’s head before their duel. The worst part is it worked.”

Lin started. “No!” she stammered. “Yes! I mean, well—Eudora did try me earlier today, but you know how she is. She hasn’t gotten to me.”

“Is it the tournament? First-round jitters?” She crossed her arms. “You’re seeded. They won’t throw you anyone good in the first round. This year’s tournament is special—and it’s not just all the added prizes.” She wrinkled her nose. “Did you hear they’re letting in Tribes-folk and Outskirters, too? You know my opinion on that. You’ll likely be paired with one of them in round one. It’ll be trivial.”

Lin felt a strange flicker of annoyance. “What’s wrong with Tribes-folk and Outskirters?”

Su looked nonplussed. “Not this again. You’ve spent your whole life inside the city walls. You have this sunshine-y idea of those people. You don’t know them like I do. I was an Outskirter—I lived there the first nine years of my life! They’re wyrms! There’s not a decent man among them.”

“I don’t want to hear this.”

“Well, it’s true.” Su stopped to take a sip of her tea. She watched Lin with those sharp almond-brown eyes. “The best thing about them is they’re a timid, feeble lot. No real threat.”

“What about the Outsiders? The tribes-men?” said Lin. “Aren’t some of them strong fighters?”

Su snorted. “If you think any of them will make it past the second round, I have a flying carp to sell you.”

“I don’t know. A few of them seem quite skilled…”

Su paused to squint at her. Lin squirmed. Sometimes she thought her friend could read her thoughts straight out her head.

“It’s that savage-boy, isn’t it?” she said it like a statement, not a question. “He’s on your mind.”

Lin flushed. “What about him?”

“Lin, you’re of age now. You’ve got to stop associating yourself with folk so far beneath your station—especially not his kind! If you must fulfill this self-flagellation you call charity, donate some rations and be done with it.”

Lin scowled. “You sound just like my mother. And father. And brother. And every other bore telling me to do things I don’t wish to do. Don’t be boring, Su.”

Su sighed. “You’re impossible. All I’m saying is people might think—how shall I put it—swan wishes to eat toad meat.”

Lin paused for a second too long. His face rose unbidden in her mind. That dagger-sharp line of his jaw, his coal-black eyes, the feeling of his strong, muscled chest…that cool look on his face as he pressed Leo to the ground…she felt heat rising to her cheeks.

“Really?” Su rolled her eyes. “Oh, Lin-Lin, you’re hopeless.”

“N-no! Of course not!” Lin laughed nervously. “Don’t be silly. It’s been three hours. I hardly know him!”

“Right,” said Su with a frown. “We both know you’ve got weird taste in men. You’re the same girl who got the hots for Young Master Kang ‘cause he liked wearing his hair in a braid.”

“I was eleven!”

“Sometimes I forget you aren’t.”

Lin glared at Su, but Su was placid as a spring pool. As usual.

“I don’t get it,” she muttered. “What’s so enticing about him, anyway?”

Before Lin could reply, she broke into a sudden smile. Her eyes fixed on someone behind Lin.

“Leo!” Smiled Su. Placid pool no longer. Now, she was as bubbly as she ever got. Groaning, Lin looked back. And you’re berating me for my poor taste in men?

Su’s smile wilted as soon as fast as it’d come. Leos’ face was demented with poorly restrained rage.

“The hour’s up,” he said.

“So?” Frowned Lin.

“That savage’s exam is done. He’ll come out any moment.” His lips curved up in a mean little grin.

“The exam lasts five hours.”

“Not for him.” Leo was buoyant with joy. “Elder Kal’s only given him the one! Ready to see your little boy-toy booted out of the guild, vermin-lover?”

A burning coldness took Lin’s chest. To Lin’s side, Su gasped. Though Lin had always seen the ass underneath, Su had been taken in by Leo’s facade. Usually the boy was a picture of noble courtesy. Especially to Lin. That scuffle with Io must’ve really needled him.

“You think I didn’t notice you draped all over him?” Spat Leo, his eyes burning. “You think I don’t know what you two did in that private room?”

Lin’s teeth clenched so tight her jaw hurt. How dare he?

To her side, Su was horrified. Her face was drained of blood. “L-Lin?!”

“You’re a fucking disgrace!” Snarled Leo. Lin was acutely aware that the whole of the café—no, the whole of the lobby—was staring at them. Her hands clenched to fists. Her head rushed with rage. It only built like a surging wave as Leo kept speaking. “How did it feel, letting that filth taint your bloodline?”

Silence. There was a choked, restless silence.

This—this impudent worm! Lin’s rage crashed in her ears. She was swept along in a scalding-hot rush of it. She leapt to her feet. The words rushed out before she could think about them.

“It felt really fucking good, actually,” she heard herself say. She was so mad her vision had started to swim with red. She didn’t know what she was saying. All she knew was that it drove a dagger deep into Leo’s heart. She could tell by the look in his eyes. Good. She was filled with that familiar, heady rush of sadistic joy. Trembling, she twisted the handle.

“He’s so strong. So big. I was helpless under him as he destroyed me. You know the feeling well, don’t you, Leo?”

Leo’s face was somehow pale and flushed at once. “You—you godsdamned whore!”

“And you know what? I loved every second of it!” She bared her teeth at him.

Before Leo could reply, the ‘he’ in question strolled out of the testing corridor. Lin nearly fell over then and there. Her face was suddenly very, very hot. She hid her head in her hands. Did—did I just say all that?! She wanted to crawl into the sinkhole and drown herself. What the hells is wrong with me?

Leo’s face had taken on a hue of sea-salt. His fingers stabbed into his palms. He looked like he wanted nothing more than to beat the living qi out of Io.

Then Martial Elder Kal emerged from the corridor, his big mouth drooped in a frown. Leo’s eyes flashed.

“Martial Elder!” he cried as he dashed for the Elder with his arms outstretched like a drowning man snatching at a lifeline. “I wish to lodge a formal complaint!”

“What now?” Growled Kal. Leo pointed a shaking finger at Io, who looked faintly amused.

“This savage has duped Miss Lin, assaulted me, and dared to demand a Tier-1 test! He’s most flagrantly disrespected the guild’s honor!” Leo swallowed. “I request the savage be flogged at once! And—and for the crime of assaulting me, break his arm for good measure!”

Lin was so mad she could scarcely breathe. But just as she was about to run over and give Uncle Kal a piece of her mind—and Leo a piece of her fist—the Martial Elder let out a loud exasperated rumble.

“Look, kid. I don’t know what sort of pissing match you’ve gotten yourself into, but issues between guild members are best settled one-on-one. Don’t call me if it’s anything short of murder or embezzlement.”

“Wha—?” Leo gaped. Then the rest of the Elder’s words hit him. “Between guild members? Sir, you passed him?!”

“Unfortunately.” The Elder fished for earwax with a pinky as he spoke. “I’d have loved nothing more than to boot him out, but the little fucker’s the most talented artificer this guild’s seen in a decade. Had to let him in. Nothing to be done for it.”

Leo’s mouth hung open like a fish. The more the Elder spoke, the wider his eyes got. By the end of it his eyes looked about to fall out of his skull. “B-B-But—” he spluttered. “But—” He opened his mouth to speak, but all that came out was a high-pitched whine. “Euurrggh??”

“Indeed,” said the Martial Elder dryly. Yawning, he made to stalk off. But he paused after two steps.

“Oh, yes. One more thing.”

The slap came so fast Lin heard the crack before she saw Leo spinning to the ground with a cry. There hadn’t been any release of bloodline or Aura. One moment Elder Kal was two paces off, the next he leaned over Leo with fury lighting his face.

Leo, meanwhile, was curled up and clutching at his reddening cheek. He cried out, whimpering.

“You lied to me. You made me rush down twelve fucking flights of stairs for nothing! The next time you mistake me for your dog, I’ll mistake you for a whetstone. Understood?”

“Y-yes, sir!” Still massaging his cheek, eyes brimming with tears, Leo struggled to his feet. The Martial Elder grunted and left.

Io giggled. Leo swerved to face him. “You find this funny, do you, you blasted demon?! I’ll fucking—I’ll—” Leo spluttered at him, but the words seemed stuck in his throat. Lin saw the precise moment the memory of how their last encounter went kicked in—he flinched like he’d been stung.

“You’ll do what?” asked Io mildly. He took a step in. Leo flinched and stumbled back. His face shifted in an instant. All the fight rushed out of him.

“S-stay back!” he yelped.

Fingers of shadow wafted off Io like a halo of midnight. A sliver of his bloodline leaked out. The air felt a little harder to breathe. His eyes were ice-cold. Dispassionate. A chill went down Lin’s spine.

“You seem to have an issue with me, fellow Leo,” He said in his velvet-smooth voice. “Let’s resolve it here.”

Leo nearly flinched out of his skin. He swallowed. Most of his hotness had had been slapped out of him. Now, he looked strangely small. Small and shivering.

“You said you wish to break my arm?” Io said. Lazily, he extended his arm to Leo. “I won’t resist. I promise. But after you’re done…I get to break a part of you. What do you say?”

He grinned, baring all his teeth, and it was then that Lin knew she’d been wrong to tell Kal not to call him a savage. In that grin was an animal ferocity the likes of which Lin had never seen. His canines glistened in the light. His eyes were so cold and bright they could’ve been shards of dirty ice. Every man in the room knew with a stone-cold certainty that he meant what he said. He wanted Leo to try it. He was trembling with eagerness at the thought.

And it was then, too, that Lin realized that this wasn’t the person she thought she’d spent the last few hours with. There was a wild viciousness under those pretty features. Her heart quivered in her chest. She didn’t know what to feel.

“No,” choked Leo. There was a wetness dribbling down his legs onto the floor. In any other situation Lin would’ve found it funny.

The pressure vanished in a snap. The lights shone brightly above. It was like there’d never been any pressure at all. When Io smiled again it was warm, without a hint of sharpness.

“Good.”

Lin caught his eye. An electric thrill shot through her. Then he turned on his heel and left.

The lobby exploded in whispers and shouts.

As Lin reached for her tea-cup, still shaken, she saw Su with her face cupped in her hands. The girl’s eyes wouldn’t leave Io as he walked out the front gates. For a long while they lingered on the place he’d been. She was blushing! Lin could count on one hand the number of times she’d seen the girl blush.

“I…think I get it now,” Su breathed.

TWELVE

DRIFTING

The air seemed fresher as Dorian strolled out of the doors of the guild. Humming to himself, he took stock of the sun in the sky. That whole jaunt had gone faster than he’d expected—there was still an hour or two left, it seemed, before he’d be kicked out.

Would he be kicked out, now that he had an artificer’s badge? Pebble had said guild membership was an avenue to citizenship. But if this Oasis worked like any of the bureaucracies Dorian knew, there was likely still a glut of paperwork and waiting between him and certified citizenship. The badge wouldn’t keep him from being booted out unceremoniously at sunset.

He’d be fast, he resolved. There were only two small errands to run anyway—nabbing a good set of Oasis-approved clothes and checking out the sinkhole. It was an hour’s work, tops.

Hmm. There was a familiar prickle in his mind. A soft, hair-raising sensation. I’m being watched. He made a casual half-turn.

Crouched in an alley to the side of the guild was a boy studiously pretending to forage through trash. As Dorian approached him, he could see the beads of sweat multiplying on the boy’s thin head. This was an unseemly animal. One of his brows had been burned off. His head was bald, his figure small and squat and swaddled in torn rags. It was obvious he was from the Outskirts.

“Hello,” said Dorian with what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “My name is Io Rust, as you know. Might I know yours?”

At first the boy pretended not to hear him. Then, when he noticed Dorian wasn’t he lifted his head with the greatest reluctance.

“You talking to me?” Rasped the boy.

“Yes. And you are?”

“Don’t got a name.” The boy shifted uneasily. “You a constable? Come to lock me up?”

“Please,” sighed Dorian. “Drop the act. You’re a grunt of the Mischief. Sent to monitor me for your gang after Pebble left.” It was a bit of a stretch, but Dorian said it with absolute confidence. Like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

The boy flinched. His single brow jerked up. Ha! So I’m right.

“What mischief? Never heard of it,” the boy mumbled, struggling to school his features.

“Right…” Dorian rolled his eyes. “Well, if you were a member of the Mischief, I’d want you to take a message to your Chief. Tell him this.” Dorian drew out the artificer’s badge and flashed it in the boy’s face. He saw its tiny reflection glinting against the boy’s shocked yellow eyes. Then he pocketed it.

“Tell him Io Rust is a Tier-1 artificer. I suspect there aren’t many artificers in the Outskirts. Tell him I’m open to hearing offers for my services.”

“Uh-huh,” muttered the boy, fidgeting. “Listen, mister, I don’t know a Mischief. But…if I did, I’ll let ‘em know.”

* * *

It was important, when acquiring a new status, to start milking it right away. Contacting the Mischief wasn’t merely a business move—he suspected the gangs were the richest of the Outskirters, but their hoards likely paled in comparison to the wealth in the citizenry proper. No. He flashed his status to they knew to tread lighter around him. It was one thing to mess with some Tribesman with no Oasis ties. It was another to offend someone affiliated with the proud Artificer’s Guild.

Speaking of contacting potential patrons, when was Nijo going to make a move? It’d been a month. Dorian suspected the Ugoc prince would send him a note once he’d arrived but so far, still nothing. Strange. Was this an implicit rejection of his offer, or was Nijo simply biding his time?

No matter. I can afford to be patient.

Dorian pattered along the dense, sun-beaten street, scanning for the store he looked for. Machine-shops and bustling eateries lined the streets on either side. Stacked on top of them were living-spaces and other shops splashed with color. He even saw a huge, gold-studded pagoda perched above a healer’s office—Temple of Jez, it read. The crowd choked up the street. The sun’s heat was an oppressive weight in the mid-afternoon. The population density here was literally suffocating. Everything everywhere was in constant motion. If it wasn’t the people, it was the incessant thrum of machinery—metal doors clanking open, the click-clicking of clock-towers, the hiss of steam pipes, or the looming groans of the aqueducts as they disconnected and re-connected, casting thick swathes of shadow on the crowds below.

Dorian kept browsing until he came across a tailor’s shop. Finally! He went in and emerged half an hour later with several new sets of clothes—the first was well-fitting robes, unassuming, slate-gray and made of sturdy fibers. It wouldn’t look out of place here as servant’s wear, and it’d also blend in well enough in the Outskirts too. A solid compromise. He bought a full-body cloak for Kaya, the poor girl. She’d need to bear the Outskirts a while longer yet.

Truth be told, Dorian wasn’t sure of his long-term plans for her. He couldn’t drag her along forever, could he? Meh. I’ll figure it out when I’m done here. Worst-case, he’d drop her off at some settlement and move on. The thought gave him a little pang of regret, but that was only the ghost of Io causing a ruckus.

In his final few minutes, Dorian went toward the center of the Oasis. He followed the lines of the aqueducts in the sky. They all seemed to converge in one spot. A few minutes of sprinting later, he arrived at the end of the street.

He was struck by a crisp watery breeze. The street opened up to admit a vast expanse of sky-blue water. It was clear as glass and pulsed with qi. The late-afternoon sun made a stark-white streak of light down its middle. The sinkhole luxuriated in the sunlight—sunlight sparkled all along its rippling, lapping surface. It was easy to forget he was looking a sinkhole. He could’ve been looking at the twilight sky, a mad and infinite ecstasy of stars winking softly, set against a subtle, depthless blue. Underneath the surface was an endless forest of light-green kelp and other sea-grasses, clinging to the edges of the sinkhole. All manner of multicolored sea-critters drifted about, some rough-skinned, some smooth. Some scaled, others skinned. Silvery fish bigger than grown men floated lazily beneath the surface. Other smaller fish, purplish in hue, flickered about in huge schools. He saw a few massive shrimp peeking out from behind kelp boughs. Translucent lobsters hid in cracks in the sandstone walls. The sinkhole’s currents flowed through them all, seemingly without reason, moving to an unknown will.

Dorian frowned. Scratch that. He saw what made them move. The sinkhole was surrounded by high, steel walls. Sliding over them every few hundred meters were the openings to an aqueduct. If the sinkhole was the world’s largest bowl, these aqueducts were the world’s largest straws, sucking greedily at waters which never ran dry.

Something else intrigued Dorian. The closer he got to the sinkhole, the more he felt a harmony with it. Or, rather—something within it. The closer he stepped, the more his bloodline started to throb in his veins. It was unmistakable. resonance.

Somewhere deep in that sinkhole, there was something kin to his bloodline. Perhaps it came from the same species. More likely it came from a related species. Perhaps it was a dormant, bloodless body part, like a fang long since drained of its bloodline powers. Nevertheless, it intrigued him.

Strange, that this would come up here. If the sinkhole held a relic with bloodline powers cousin to his—or even better, another matching bloodline scale, though he doubted it—he could brew Booster Elixirs to significantly speed up his cultivation. Perhaps he’d even unlock greater potentials in his own bloodline.

As of now, he had only an inkling of knowledge of the bloodline which lay within him. It was probably serpentine. Definitely strongly Death-aspected. If he could get his hands on Resonant relics, it might be a gateway to greater understanding—and with it, greater Techniques…Worth pondering.

But there was no getting closer to the sinkhole for now. The walls which surrounded the sinkhole had a number of gates, each of which was flanked by serious-looking guards. They rebuffed any who went too close—”No entry without a permit!” shouted one of them.

Dorian shrugged. The sun was setting. It was an excursion for another time. All in all, he was satisfied with all he’d gotten done today. He sauntered his way back to camp.

* * *

Kaya was curled up in a blanket in her new tent, sniffling and shuddering, trying her very best not to cry. She was failing. Her sobs forced their way through gritted teeth.

It was almost made her angry enough to stop crying. What was wrong with her? She wasn’t a crier! She’d always been the one who made fun of her brother for crying! She was the strong one. The cheery one.

Or rather, she used to be. Now, she didn’t know what she was anymore. Not cheery. Certainly not strong—not anymore, as today’s scuffle proved. That man’s leery grin was etched into her mind. His tongue ticking those ugly lips as he bent her to the ground. The feeling of him forcing her to her knees…that feeling of horrible horror as she felt her body failing her…

She hated it more than she’d hated anything in all her life. Her nails dug into her palms, drawing blood. She sniffled and wiped the tears from her eyes. She hated those tears too.

She felt a great deal of things she’d never felt before. The worst of them was this new, strange sensation that’d slipped in through the cracks of her mind. Weakness.

She hate-hate-hated it. And she hated most of all that she could do nothing about it but cry. Crying was what weaklings did. She was Kaya Rust! When she ate a punch, she stood, grinned, and fired back. Always.

But that was back then, in a simpler time. Back then, when she had this…unquestioned confidence that she always could stand back up. That no matter how hard she got hit, she’d always prevail. She knew she wasn’t really invincible, of course, but deep-down she’d always assumed no matter how tough things got, she could win out. She’d believed it with all her heart.

She’d been so stupid. So naive. Hento’s body—that same lithe body she’d held so tenderly the night before—broken before her eyes. Moki, Tadi, Humita, even Muata, all broken. Just like that. So cheaply, strewn like dirty rags on the sands.

Her mind flashed back to this morning. Some cold, sober part of her knew that if she tried hitting that man again, she’d be hit back so hard she wouldn’t be able to get back up. If she’d been broken like that, in that dark alley trapped by his men—if Io hadn’t been there…

She pulled the blanket closer over her, covering herself up with it. She wanted to dissolve in it. Another ugly new feeling—shame. She hated that too.

It was blessedly quiet outside. At least she could wallow here in peace, in this little cloth-walled tent. The stink of the Outskirts was all-pervasive. After a few hours, she’d almost gotten used to it. Was this her life, now, getting used to shitty things? Would she get used to these feelings? This stink? This life? Would she cover herself up and hunch over and grovel out for the rest of her sorry days? What was she? Where was she? What was she doing here?

A third ugly new feeling. Loneliness. She’d never been lonely back in the Tribe. If not Io and her boy-friends, she had her gatherer girl-friends. She missed even the simple things, like cracking jokes in the morning with the head Gatherer, a wizened old lady named Malia, or singing bawdy songs around the dinner-fires with the rest of the Hunters-in-Training, slurping messily out of soup-bowls. But she couldn’t do any of that anymore, ‘cause they were all dead.

Maybe she should’ve died with them.

That was a line of thought she’d tried so hard to resist. But now, she was slowly being sucked in. The thoughts bore down on her, choking her. She sucked in a shuddering, hacking breath.

When the screams came, she was almost thankful for the distraction.

First was the eruptions of qi. Then a blood-curdling scream. Kaya leapt to her feet. Another qi. Another scream. To the right, an explosion of auras—three or four of them, all in the Vigor Realm.

To the left there flared a response. More than a dozen auras, all at least mid-Vigor. A few were in the Profound Realm. All brimmed with hostility.

Are we under attack?!

Kaya’s first instinct was to dash out and figure out just what was going on.

But a new feeling halted her in her tracks. She was overcome with a sudden, overpowering fear. Her chest felt so tight she could scarcely breathe. Her breaths came out in gasps, rattling in her ears. She felt small as a speck of dust. Tears threatened her eyes. She felt herself frozen, trembling.

And finally—finally—her anger won out.

“Screw…that!” she gritted out.

Battling every impulse in her body, she stormed outside.

THIRTEEN

BORROWED POWER (I)

She rushed into a standoff.

On one side were the bronze-skinned fighters of the Narong Tribe, dressed in dark-brown smocks. Young Master Narong stood at their front. His forearm was slicked with blood.

On the other was a gang of men cloaked in dark-yellow robes. Cowls left shadows over their eyes. A dark-red symbol, like the laughing face of a devil, was etched in the center of the hoods. Heading them was a bald, musclebound man with silver studs running up one ear. His smile was practically a sneer. Two rows of dull silver teeth were set crookedly in his mouth.

Kaya spotted where the scream had come from instantly. One of the yellow-robed men clutched an arm, which hung limp at his side. The tendons had been severed in a stroke.

“Is this necessary?” The man yawned. “Isn’t it easier to cough up the damned fee? I don’t want to hurt you, believe me.”

A dense aura roared out from him. Peak Profound.

Three men behind him pulled back their cowls in unison. Their auras joined their leader’s in one colossal wave of power. All in the Profound Realm. Each of them was bald, with that red devil-face etched between their eyes.

Kaya tensed. So, these gang-folk were trying to extort the Narong—and the Narong had taken badly to it. What would she do? What would the Narong do? Their only Profound master was the Patriarch!

“Do not think that we tribesmen are easily bullied,” snapped Young Master Narong. He didn’t look a lick frightened. Behind him the Patriarch and a few Elders approached, all looking grave. All combat ready. Except the Patriarch was hunched over, favoring a side.. Kaya bit her lip. Was it a lingering injury from the festival battle?

Young Master Narong must’ve known his odds were poor. Still, he put up a brave face. “If you must have violence, I will grant it to you!” he roared. “Win or lose, there is a cost to provoking those who hail from the Tribes!”

“Is that the message exterminating you will send?” The bald ringleader thought for a moment. “I think not. I think the message will be: Defy the Sand-Devils, and annihilation is your fate.”

The men behind him roared their support, and the ringleader grinned nastily. “You’re in the Oasis now, children. This is the Outskirts. You follow our rules.”

“And if we don’t?” said Narong softly. His eyes were the sharpest part of his knifelike body.

The ringleader’s brow creased. He strode forward, straight for the young master.

A few Narong Elders rushed up, trying to interpose themselves in front of the young master, but the Profound-Realm Sand-Devils dashed forward to cut them off. The injured Narong Patriarch was stuck against a frowning mountain of a Profound-Realm Devil. Young Master Narong found himself isolated.

All eyes went to the ringleader. He kept up his calm strides. Narong met him head-on, defiant, refusing to give ground. The ringleader bared his teeth.

“I’ll offer you a chance. Win a duel with me and we’ll waive the protection fee…for tonight.”

“Hmph!” Narong spat on the ground. “Impudent!”

A new, vigorous Profound-Realm aura blossomed against the others. It was Young Master Narong’s. He’d ascended to Profound! Its presence made the air hiss in pain.

There was a blur of motion, a shrill, shrieking sound—the sound of something very sharp moving very fast—and a silence.

Young Master Narong’s fist was enveloped in the man’s own.

Kaya saw Narong’s eyes widen. She saw the man sneer. And her own encounter this morning flashed before her eyes. She knew what would happen before it did. Her heart was leaden in her chest.

The man squeezed. Hard. Kaya saw the veins stand out angry purple against his skin. There was a series of sickening crunches.

To his credit, Narong didn’t make a sound. There wasn’t a hint of weakness in his face. The only indication he felt it at all was a new tightness in his jaw.

“No screams?” The ringleader snickered. “Cute, kid, but it’s useless bravado. Here’s the thing—”

His other hand latched onto Narong’s upper arm. In a brutal flash he drove his knee through the joint of Narong’s elbow. The snap would haunt Kaya’s dreams.

But not as much as the wretched cry that left Narong’s mouth. Blood gushed out between his lips. He’d been biting his tongue to keep from crying out.

“They all scream eventually.”

Then the ringleader lifted a fist, winding back for a blow that’d take Narong’s head clean off. Kaya couldn’t bear to look, but she couldn’t turn her from it either.

One moment the man stood upright, his fist a blink away from smashing Narong’s head like a caved fruit. The next he was sent flying back, crashing into a tent and collapsing it to its canvas and timbers. Kaya blinked.

Standing in front of Narong was the massive body of Young Master Yalta. An impassive scowl dominated his brutal features.

Kaya was as surprised as Narong was. “Why…?” He gasped, blood still his mouth in sheets.

“We’ve lost everyone else,” he rumbled. He turned a bitter gaze on Narong as he held out a hand. “We’re Tribesmen. We must help each other. We’re all we have left.”

Kaya felt a sharp twinge.

Then the timbers stirred. The bald head emerged from the rubble. He dusted himself off. He wasn’t injured in the slightest—not cut, not bruised, not pained in the least.

“Cute. Real fucking cute.”

One moment the ringleader was collapsed in the tent. The next, he stood upright a foot in front of Young Master Yalta, his fists raised. There was a sound like a thunder’s crash. The big man hardly had time to raise his brows before he was sent careening at impossible speeds through a huddle of tents. He didn’t rise back up.

The ringleader flashed his teeth. “Now you’ve got my blood going,” he muttered. His skin was red all over, like he was boiling in his own qi. “Ah-ah! Now you’ve done it!” His eyes were two black-red orbs of distilled bloodlust.

“Anyone else want a try?” he crowed. “Come, tribesmen! I won’t rest till I’ve had my fill! Show me your fighting spirit! Or are you a race of cowards?!”

Kaya saw Pearl frowning at the edge of the crowd. Young Master Zhaopai and a few others stood there too. no one answered the man’s call.

Roaring, the ringleader beat his meaty chest.

* * *

What the hells did Dorian walk into?

Whatever this nonsense was, it screamed ‘not-my-problem.’ Kaya registered him first. Her eyes widened. She opened her mouth.

And he clamped a hand over it.

“Quiet!” he whispered.

This was most definitely not the part where either of them opened their big mouths and got themselves a pointless fight. After this morning, Dorian had learned his lesson with her—she needed to be kept on a tight leash.

Somehow even that little flicker of movement caught the ape’s attention. His big head swiveled to Dorian, and Dorian tried not to groan. Saint’s sake. I shut her up! I didn’t say a word! He sighed at the skies, exasperated. What more do you want from me, fate?

“You’ve got some fiery eyes.” He gave Kaya a stare which could’ve bored through steel. “You spoiling for a brawl, girl?”

“Not at all, sir!” Interjected Dorian with a bowed head. “We’ll gladly pay your fee! We don’t mean any trouble.”

Evidently that hadn’t been the answer the man was expecting. It didn’t make Dorian very popular with the other Tribesmen, judging by the looks the Narong- and Yalta- folk were giving him.

It couldn’t be helped. Unlike Young Master Narong, Dorian was not an idiot. He wasn’t about to bleed for ‘pride’ or ‘honor.’

“Oh?” The ringleader frowned, brow wrinkled in disappointment. “So someone among you’s got some sense.”

“Name your fee,” said Dorian earnestly.

“Fifty thousand Lira.”

“…”

You’ve got to be kidding me. Really?

This bald freak knew very well Dorian wouldn’t pay it. It was an absurd amount. The only recourse was battle.

Which irked Dorian immensely. Oh, come on! Am I truly about to be dragged into this? There was no fairness in the world—he knew that as a matter of fact, but sometimes he felt it especially acutely. This was absurd. This was the universe being a jerk to him for no reason whatsoever. Dorian felt very grumpy about the whole matter. The ape sneered at Dorian in a manner Dorian gathered he was supposed to find intimidating.

Fate, you truly are a heinous bitch. I’ve just finished artificing, and you’re about to make me stretch my legs again? It’s nearly suppertime! You couldn’t save this shit for tomorrow?

He sighed. Despite his facetiousness, in truth it’d involve a lot more than leg-stretching. From what Dorian had seen, this man was at Peak Profound. It was an entire Realm above Dorian’s peak-Vigor. He settled into a crouch. Even he couldn’t take this task lightly.

There was one last-ditch try at his disposal. Maybe—just maybe—he could milk his newfound status as an artificer to a solution which didn’t lead him into an incidental war against one of the Outskirt’s ruling gangs. And that was the best-case outcome, the one where he won this fight. Hardly a guarantee.

But another voice cut in just as he thumbed his Interspatial Ring. A familiar, bubbly voice.

“Enforcer Chai!”

It was Pebble. The boy who’d guided Dorian this morning. He was so small Dorian would wager his balls hadn’t dropped yet. Which was why it was nearly comical to see him waltzing onto the battlefield out of nowhere, a big grin plastered on his face.

“A good evening to you, friend!”

The ape’s face twisted in a snarl. “Pebble. What the fuck do you want?”

“I’m simply here to give you and our brothers the Sand-Devils a gentle, neighborly reminder!” Pebble beamed. “This little chunk of land is under the Mischief’s protection. You must’ve confused it with the Meat district. An honest mistake, to be sure! But I hope you’ll be off. You’ve frightened our guests, sir. And you’re threatening a guest most important to the Rat-King. That’s no good—no good at all!”

There was a long pause as Chai took Pebble in. The boy didn’t go up to ChaI’s hip. Then Chai burst out in a bark of horrid laughter, whirled around, seized Pebble by the front of his shirt and brought them face-to-face. Pebble looked bewildered.

“I’m so damned sick of you and your paper king, sticking your snouts in other men’s affairs!”

His spittle sprayed all over Pebble’s little face. “The only reason you’re alive, you little buck-toothed imp, is that I have the barest shred of courtesy left for your ruler. Do not mistake it for weakness.”

He thrust Pebble to the ground. The boy gave a little gasp. Kaya squirmed against Dorian’s arms, but Dorian held her tight.

“Now scram!” Shrieked Enforcer Chai.

“I see,” said Pebble, looking glum. “Erm. I’m really sorry about this.”

Then a mountain’s weight settled on Dorian’s shoulders. He was crushed to his knees in an instant. What? Kaya was bowled to the ground. All around them, men and women collapsed on the spot. The world was warped with qi. A sudden field of immense pressure had bloomed on the field—

—and Chai was at the center of it all. Every single muscle on his body was tensed, but he couldn’t move an inch. Not even his eyes would obey him.

Dorian knew what this was.

Domain.

It was a field that could only be generated by those who’d touched a Dao. Well, I never. The runt’s in Earth Realm! And he’s been there a while, by the looks of it…

The pressure which flowed off Pebble was thicker than even the Frost Dragon’s.

Dorian watched, bemused, as Pebble stood up and brushed the sand from his clothes. Pebble looked around guiltily. “I’m about to do a bad thing,” he squeaked. “Please don’t think less of me, friends!”

Two small hands held Enforcer ChaI’s thick neck from either side. The digits sank in, carving little indents of blood until each finger found solid purchase. ChaI’s eyes were still wide as dinner plates.

Then Pebble started to unscrew. It was like ChaI’s body was a bottle and his head was the cap. ChaI’s head turned, and turned, and turned, and as it reached the limits of human dexterity—just when you’d expect the turning to stop—it kept turning, smooth as can be. The only indication that something was wrong was the ear-piercing crack as his spine snapped inside his neck. His lips drooped, his eyes spinning in their sockets.

Pebble kept unscrewing. He turned the head round and round until the skin was severed from the base, until the muscles and the bones and the tendons had all been twisted off. Then he tapped his Interspatial Ring, pulled out a sack, dropped in the dismembered head, and sealed it up. He did it all calmly as can be, no fuss. His smile had waned a fraction but Dorian got the sense that he was forcing it. As though the first few times he’d killed he’d been too smiley and someone had told him it made him look psychotic, so he’d gotten in the habit of toning it back. Looking at him, Dorian got the sense the boy was as content as he ever was.

Then the pressure let up and everyone let out a long, collective breath. For a few seconds, not a man dared to move. All eyes were wide and locked on the boy next to the headless body—a body which gushed like a fountain.

“I’m real sorry about that,” said Pebble, scratching his head sheepishly. “My boss likes proof that the deed was done, you see.”

He nodded to the Sand-Devil contingent, who looked one loud noise away from fleeing.

“No more tomfoolery from you all, I trust?”

They couldn’t have nodded faster. Pebble’s beam came back on his face. “Excellent! Then please have a pleasant evening, everyone!”

As the Sand-Devils scampered off and the rest of the Tribesmen regrouped, shaken, Pebble made a line straight for Dorian.

“Greetings from me and my king, Io Rust!” he cried with a bow. “Sir, I rushed over as soon as I heard of your promotion. I’d like to offer my heartfelt congratulations!”

He pulled out a plate from his Interspatial Ring. On it was one soggy burnt stone. “I was so happy for you I baked you a celebratory muffin!”

“Thanks?” said Dorian, taking the plate gingerly. What a strange, strange day.

“I hope you and the missus don’t think that, ah, regrettable display is who I am,” said Pebble, rubbing at his wrists nervously. “I’m a talker, not a fighter—I try not to involve myself in the messier affairs! But sadly it means folk forget who I am. They feel the right to be downright rude to me sometimes. It hurts my feelings, but they don’t care at all!”

Pebble licked a dab of blood off the corner of his mouth.

“It appears not,” said Dorian dryly. His mind was somewhere else, connecting the dots which led up to this weird moment.

“Oh! I must apologize for the Sand-Devils…they’ve gotten in the habit of trespassing on our territory of late. It is the sworn duty of the Mischief to protect all tournament participants assigned to us. Especially those guests of most importance! We wouldn’t wish to disrespect the Artificer’s Guild!”

What a curious chain of events. This afternoon I told that rat outside the guild to report my artificer’s status to the Mischief—in hopes of partnering with them, and of gaining some guarantee of protection. Who knew it’d come in handy so fast?

A few quick words in the afternoon, and a man’s head was unscrewed by evening. Fancy that. It was one of Dorian’s favorite kinds of victory: with precautions, one could win a battle one didn’t know would happen without needing to lift a finger.

“Talking of artificing…my king wishes to say that we hear your offer of a business partnership—the Mischief is open for negotiations! He shall soon summon you to discuss the matter in-person.”

It seems there’s more to the Outskirts than simply squalor. If there’s fighters of Pebble’s strength—and stronger—there’s bound to be a great deal of money and resources, too. Dorian would bet a dragon’s hoard that there was a black market lurking in these parts. A black market he’d do well to enter.

“I’m eager for it. Give him my thanks for his hospitality.” Dorian shook Pebble’s hand. “And might I say—lovely beheading technique, my young friend.”

“Why, how kind of you to say, sir!” Pebble blushed. “I’ve had lots of practice.”

* * *

The evening ended peacefully. Pebble left after answering the last of Dorian’s questions—

“I can now apply for both citizenship and housing in the Oasis, right?” said Dorian.

“Yup!”

“Can I bring my sister along?”

“Unfortunately not, sir. If she’s not a citizen, she’ll need to stay behind.”

Kaya stared up at him. Then she chuckled sadly. “Go ahead,” she said. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be okay.”

“Don’t talk nonsense,” said Dorian with a laugh. “I’m not leaving you behind.”

Not now, in any case. The marginal value of living within the city walls when I can commute in and out freely is negligible. It’d be very silly to spend all that time and resources on her, only to strand his one trusted ally for comfier pillows.

But what he said really seemed to get to her. “Brother…” she whispered tearfully. Then she tackled him with a hug and buried her head in his chest. Sobs wracked her body. Dorian stood there awkwardly, patting her head and wondering why everyone was so keen on crying today. She did seem stressed of late. Maybe this was her breaking point.

“There, there,” he said, which was the sort of thing he figured humans said in these kinds of situations. He gave Pebble a farewell wave, then started to waddle back into the tent. Kaya wouldn’t let him go.

“I won’t be a burden.” Kaya’s muffled voice floated up to him. “I’ll get strong for you.”

“I’m sure you will,” sighed Dorian. He was wondering how best to extract himself. Maybe he could swap himself out with a blanket—she was crying so hard she probably wouldn’t notice.

When Kaya glanced back up at him, her mouth was set. Her eyes, still watery, burned fiercely in the dim light. Dorian was taken aback. She was as serious as he’d ever seen her.

“I mean it—I won’t let you down!”

FOURTEEN

BORROWED POWER (II)

Kaya woke two hours before the sun rose. She donned her new loose gray robes and snuck outside. Lights still dotted the walls and the city beyond. There was the cranking and whirring of metal, but it was as dark and quiet as it ever got around here.

She staked out a spot between the walls and the campgrounds, distant enough from both that she wouldn’t draw attention. This time of day the air was cool, a light blanket nuzzling her skin. She breathed deep. She felt still. Calm. Ready at last.

In the past month she’d done her share of crying. Once when she was very young, the Tribe had been struck by a brutal dust-storm. It’d torn down half the Tribe’s tents and beat a half-dozen Tribesmen to death. Little Kaya had cringed in her tent, whimpering until the wee hours of dawn. That was kind of how she’d felt at the festival, too—except the festival massacre made the dust-storm seem like a summer breeze. That horrid feeling hadn’t left her since. She spent her nights curled up, letting the feeling of her smallness smother her. In a way it felt good to soak in the gloom.

But in the end, none of that wallowing helped any. The storm had passed. It was time to rebuild.

Slowly, with ginger care, she dredged up those familiar pain-stained memories. Blood, broken bodies, her Tribe shattered before her. Of that Rat’s dirty fingers against her neck. One by one they flashed through her, carving their own brands of hurt in her. But she’d played through them a thousand times. By now she’d blunted her fear. In its place was a rising, bubbling, white-knuckled rage. She let it crackle through her. Her hands firmed to trembling fists.

It was time to face the truth. She was pathetic. She’d failed her Tribe, and now she had only one person left.

Her most hated recurring nightmare stabbed at her, unbidden—Io’s body shattered against the ground, his playful eyes bloodied, staring at nothing…

No! She blinked back the tears. I won’t fail him too.

[Ray]. A scorch of blazing qi, drilling a smoldering tunnel through the sands.

She curled her lip at it. So pathetic! If that [Ray] had hit the Vordor that’d snatched up Hento, would he still be alive? If that [Ray] had struck that mongrel Rat, would he have dared touch her?

Again.

[Ray]. Sand kicked up in a molten cloud. Not enough!

[Ray].

[Ray].

[Ray].

Again and again…

She felt like a little girl again. Back when she and Io first played with the other kids. Back when the boys would shove Io down dunes and try to claim her for their own. They’d been handsy then too. Back then she’d had to down her share of dumb brutes. She’d needed to bite a few before they learned that the girl with the pretty hair had some teeth to her.

She had to find her teeth again.

* * *

At sunrise, a soft voice greeted her.

“Isn’t this a pleasant surprise?” It was Io. She hadn’t noticed him approach. He was sat back against a dune, exuding a lazy calm. It was still a shock to see him at times. She almost couldn’t believe this was the same brother who used to cry at thunderstorms.

Where’s he found all that confidence? Then, with a hint of bitterness, can’t he lend me some?

Io rose with catlike ease. His smile was brighter than the rising sun. “How long’ve you been out here?”

“Two hours,” she panted.

“A good time for a break.” He offered her his arm. “Come on in! I’ve made us breakfast.”

Breakfast, as it turned out, was a plate of cut-up purple fruit and a slab of strange wheat-colored…things. They smelled like nothing she’d ever known.

“These Azcan folk have the strangest customs,” her brother was saying. “For instance—”

He held up a tiny two-pronged trident and speared a fruit with it. Then he brought it to his mouth slowly, nibbling at the edges.

“They call this a ‘fork,’” he said with a grin. “Isn’t it fun?”

Everything about this Oasis irked her. The people, who either had too much decency or too little. This fork was all that was wrong with this place, she decided. Needless, weird little instrument to fix a problem that didn’t need fixing! Hadn’t these weirdos noticed people had hands? Was all that chug-chugging, crank-cranking, all that smoke in those big high confusing towers—was that all useless nonsense too? Was this a city of damned forks? She snatched up two fruit-slices with her bare palms and swallowed them whole.

“We’ll work on your table-manners another time,” sighed Io. He studied her with sparkling eyes. “So. What’s got you worked up?”

She bit into another chunk of fruit. Now, this was a useful, good new thing. The Oasis was a place of forks and not-forks. This fruit was most definitely a not-fork.

“I’m not worked up,” she said around a mouthful of seeds.

“This time of day you’re usually still asleep. That, or curled up all sullen-like. But today you’ve got some color in you! I’m happy to see it.”

“Blegh.” Kaya spat a few seeds out, then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Fine! So I got a few hours of training in. And?”

“Any reason in particular? You never wake up this early.”

Kaya paused. “I… Yeah. There’s a reason.”

She swallowed again, but this time she had nothing in her mouth. Just a lump in her throat. “I’m not strong anymore,” she said hoarsely. “I can’t protect you. Hells—yesterday I worse than useless.” It killed her to admit it. “It feels like I can’t do anything right.”

She stared bitterly down at her hands. Lately the world seems to be trying to tell me that I’m only worth something if I spread my legs. “I don’t wanna hold you back,” she whispered. “I want to be strong again. For you. Otherwise…what good am I?”

When she looked up at him again, he was frowning. Her heart sank like a stone in her chest.

“Don’t you dare think that way.” He shook his head. “You’re my sister, not a spirit stone. You’re not useless, whatever the hells that means! You’re good enough just as you are. Never forget that.”

She sucked in a sharp breath.

Those darned tears threatened at her eyes again. So stupid! Why’d she always feel like crying nowadays? It wasn’t anything like her!

She turned away from him, away from the surge of feeling. After the festival she’d been feeling all kinds of new good-bad feelings. She didn’t know how to deal with any of them. She felt the urge to shy away from it, like a gut reflex.

“Aren’t you full of pretty words today, brat?” She couldn’t keep from choking a little. “You oughtta be a bard.”

There. Now, she had some distance, space to force down this big knot in her chest.

Then, he leaned over and hugged her. She froze.

He looked exasperated. “They’re not pretty words, sis. I’m saying how I feel.” He ruffled her hair, then looked her straight in the eyes. “Listen. To me, you are enough. I mean it.”

…Damn it. All her defenses went up in smoke. She was cracked wide open. She leaned into him as she sobbed. It’s not fair…I was holding up so well!

After all that horrible shit. Losing her allies. Her lover. Her whole damned Tribe. And worst of all—that memory she’d been trying not to dredge up all this time—

Being tied up by men she’d thought were her closest friends. Mere hours before, she would’ve died for the man who held a knife to her throat.

That hurt like she couldn’t believe.

For weeks she’d felt like she’d been falling down a dune with no bottom, tumbling, choking, sand stinging her eyes…

But there was a bottom, it turned out. Io stood there, arms outstretched, ready to catch her, smiling that cozy smile.

No matter what this awful wreck of a world throws at me, at least I know one thing for sure. She couldn’t stop her tears. I’ve got a brother who loves me.

For the first time in weeks she felt like she could breathe again.

* * *

Dorian would never understand these humans. “There, there,” he said, rolling his eyes and patting her head as she sobbed into his chest. Again. What silly, silly creatures.

* * *

After breakfast Io took her into the city. She stared at everything. The buildings towered up on either side of the street like the walls of a gorge. Everywhere she looked she was blasted with colors, some she’d never seen before. As they passed through a veil of steam—the fetid expulsions of another click-clacking machine, this one belching heat out the side of a building—Kaya wondered if it was possible to take in too much splendor, all at once. Maybe it was like stuffing yourself full of meat after a big Hunt. Maybe she’d throw it all up. It was all very dizzying. She was worried she might keel over. Soon, the images blurred into one another, one incomprehensible thing after the next, slipping through the cracks in her mind and leaving not a smudge of meaning behind.

They stopped at last before a hulking steel chunk of a building with a dome which looked like the shiny, enlarged head of a very bald man.

Io took her up the steps. She felt a little flutter as she stood before it. This place was doing a good job making her feel small as a leaping scorpion.

The guards at the entrance crossed their arms as she and Io neared, but they didn’t seem as cross as nearly everyone else was to see them. Maybe it was the robes he’d had her wear, which were baggy and clean and sagged all over her. Maybe it was that perfume Io had brought—it’d made her smell like nothing, which she guessed was one way to rid her of a stench. Still it bothered her. Nothing smelt like nothing. She shifted uncomfortably, grabbing at herself to make sure all of her bits were still there. All this fluffery made her feel like a stranger in her own body.

“Good day, gentlemen! May I enter? I’m a Tier-1 artificer,” said Io, flashing his token. Back straight, head up, mouth in a polite grin—unlike her, he looked like he belonged. She would’ve bought that he’d lived here a decade!

“We know. We’ve heard of you,” said one of the guards, a torn look on his face. “You may enter, sir. But she—” The guard pointed a stern finger at her. “Has to stay outside. The guild doesn’t allow guests.”

She drooped. I figured as much.

Io frowned, but she piped up before he could speak. “That’s fine!” she said hurriedly. “I’m happy out here. I like being in the sun, anyway!”

Io shot her a sorry grimace. “I’ll be back within the hour. Promise. Wait here, all right?”

“M-hm!”

He went in. Gone. And she was alone again.

She shambled into the shadow of the great building, still near enough to the guards. She fidgeted, shuffled her feet, didn’t know where best to rest her eyes. She grew acutely aware that every single passerby was a Vigor-Realm fighter. Every one. She stood there a minute, and she saw two Profound realm fighters amble by in that great mess of limbs.

Most every one of them can beat me down. To her left, a little old beggar in tattered robes was working his way down the street—even he could probably lick her. And there ain’t a thing I could do about it.

She shook the thought out of her head with a “humph!”. These days it was like her mind was tipped at an odd angle. If she was left alone, her thoughts always slid down to dark, dank places. She knew it was dumb. Didn’t stop it from making her feel like rotted offal anyway.

At least the shops lining the street served as good distractions. She let her eye wander.

Ooh! A stone-carver’s shop? Two big stone statues flanked a squat, small building. The statues’s eyes twinkled with qi-light, their trunks twisting, hands swiveling between cool poses. Kaya used to adore stone-carving. In the before-times it’d been a nice way to take her mind off things. That stone was her and hers alone to mold. It could be whatever she wished. She spend hours happily carving up little scimitars and baby Endspiders, keeping them in an old cloth sack in a storage trunk.

Carving had gotten away from her this past year, but it’d be nice to take it up again. There was a special joy in having so much say in the fate of a thing, even a thing as small as a stone. Plus, she liked how solid it felt under her fingers.

In the Tribes it was an idle hobby. But in the Oasis, people could make professions of it—and they’d rigged it up so the blocks moved like they were alive! She supposed this place wasn’t all bad. And there, in those glass window-display, were big, sharp, weirdly formed tools which shone with vessels of qi. Were those supposed to be carving tools? She took a step forward, suddenly eager to poke further.

Then she wilted. She had no Lira on her. Besides, the shopkeep was more likely to spit on her than smile at her. She went back to standing and staring.

An artificer’s shop, a blacksmith’s, an elixir store, bootmakers…it was all a wall of color and noise. How long had it been since Io went in? The sun was getting awful hot on her skin. She could feel sweat dripping down her nose. This horrid drape of a robe didn’t help any. There was a nasty itch going up the small of her back to boot.

“Greetings, miss!”

The voice came from close behind her. Kaya whipped around to see a wizened, white-haired little old man. His body was a clump of loose, splotchy, wrinkled skin. She could hardly see his eyes under the folds on his face. It was the old beggar she’d seen down the street earlier.

She tensed instantly, stumbling back. “What do you want?”

“Whoa!” Laughed the old man. He held up his hands. “Please, be calm! I mean no harm.”

“I’ve got no Lira,” she said, uneasy.

“And I ask for none,” said the old man easily. He bowed his head, and she noticed a strange symbol stitched on his worn robes—two golden hoops side-by-side. “My name is Father Zacharius. Are you ready on this fine morning to receive the exalted words of our savior, the Great and Benevolent Jez?”

FIFTEEN

BORROWED POWER (III)

Kaya frowned. “What are you meant to be, a shaman?”

“I am a Priest. A Priest of the Order of Jez, at your service.” The old man bowed again. Kaya wasn’t sure what this weird old coot and his pointy hat were up to. “You don’t want me in your—whatever it is, old man. I’m not the kinda gal that likes playing dress-up. You’d better go yammer at someone else.”

“On the contrary,” said the old man “You, miss, are perfect for a follower of Jez! Jez is a patron to all the downtrodden. His first oath is kindness—kindness unto all his followers. He delivers them from the shadows of tyrants!” he was huffing and puffing a storm. “Power to the weak! That is the promise of Jez.”

‘Downtrodden? Weak?’ Kaya bristled. Was that really how she seemed? “I’m doing fine, actually. Just fine,” she snapped, folding her arms. “I damn sure don’t need your help or anyone else’s!”

“Forgiveness,” said the old man, bowing and smoothing back his few wispy straggles of hair. “I mean my words out of kindness. I see that your soul is the furthest thing from weak. It is a pity, though, how the body often lags behind the soul…”

With his knobby left hand he drew up his other sleeve, and Kaya sucked in a breath. There was no right hand—only a withered black stump, lined with ashy veins like dead roots.

“Before I found Jez, I was called Zhu Rong. I was the butcher’s son in the Outskirts,” he said softly. “But what good’s a butcher’s son with only one hand? Can’t hold a wriggling sandwolf with one hand. Can’t catch or skin a Spirit fish.” He sighed. “I was burdened with another curse too. As a boy I was soft, thin, with a good face. I caught all sorts of the wrong kind of attention.” He licked his cracked lips. “Bad men had their way with me. Often. As the saying goes—it is the right of the strong to do as they wish. It is the burden of the weak to bear it.”

Was this the custom around here, to blather upsetting stories to strangers on the street? Kaya had half a mind to tell him to shove off. She wasn’t sure what to say.

“I was so very mad, all the time,” he said, giving her a wan smile. “I joined the Sand-Devils. That made me strong, after a fashion. I hunted my tormentors to the last man. I tormented them in turn. Curious thing, fingernails. With acid-tipped needles and the right use of force, screams extracted through them can rival those of dismemberment. Curious, too, how hurting these men didn’t make me whole, as I’d hoped.”

Now that Kaya got a good look at him, she saw thick bands of muscle resting beneath those loose robes. Short the man might’ve been, but he was built like a brick wall. She edged a step away from him, eyeing his hands. “Er…”

“Then I heard of a new temple,” he whispered. “The Order of Jez, arrived from the lands of the deep south. And I thought, ‘here’s some fresh fools to trample.’”

Chuckling, he lifted his good arm. Clasped in his hand was a metallic card. Etched onto it was the same gold infinity stitched on his robes. Where had she seen it before? She bit her lip. Wasn’t this the mark on the forehead of that weird Pearl boy?

The old man kept yammering. He cast out his arm, sweeping the crowds on the street. “Ah, look at them! Pressed in such a hurry, shoving each other aside as they go. This city is a great joust for power. The weak are booted out and trampled. The strong are vicious, fearful of losing their positions. The struggle is no less savage on the Outside. Haven’t you felt, deep in here—” He touched his chest—”that there must be more to life?”

He was expecting an answer, she realized. “I…guess?”

The old man nodded. “As I walked into the temple that day, I thought I sought violence. I’d never admit it, but in truth I sought what all men and women want most of all: to love, and be loved!”

Was that what Kaya wanted? Kaya frowned. She knew she wanted more yummy blue fruit and maybe a big fluffy hounds from one of those kennels she saw earlier, but she wasn’t sure of much else. And who gave this old coot the right to tell me what I want?

Still, his voice had a hypnotic cadence, rising to shining highs and falling to arresting lows. Kaya felt it sinking its hooks into her. It was disturbing.

“Jez spoke to me, and I was reborn. He showed me that man is capable of kindness. Jez’s realm is a realm of Love. Jez sees the senseless violence and greed which plagues all realms, and knows there is a better way! It is Jez who lifted me from my despair. Jez is the Finder of all lost souls. He will help you too, if you let him.”

Before Kaya could react, he’d pressed the card to her palm. “Those who open their hearts to Jez gain a share of his powers,” he said, eyes glimmering. “I understand. To you, I seem a cracked old fool blathering in the streets. I don’t dare hope you’ll convert on the spot, miss. I only ask that you listen. If Jez calls out to you, it may behoove you to answer.”

“Uh-huh.”

“May you have a blessed day.” With one last bow, the old man tottered off.

That was strange. Kaya wasn’t sure what to make of it. He’d told a decent tale, she supposed, if peppered with a few too many feel-good scraps. Another Kaya—a younger, dumber, Kaya—might’ve been taken in by it. But now-Kaya knew that these Oasis folk weren’t like normal people. With these Oasis dwellers, you never knew what was going on behind their faces. Even one as nice seeming as this old man’s. She wouldn’t be surprised if it was all gears and click-clacking under his skin.

She slid the card into her robes, feeling dumb. It couldn’t hurt to take it and poke at it, right? Still, she had a hunch no one around here gave anything away for free.

“Who was that?”

She flinched and spun on her heel. There was Io, looking amused.

“Some old beggar,” she muttered. “no one worth thinking about.”

He stared at her, frowning, and she squirmed. “What?”

“I see,” he said. Then he broke into a grin. “Say, how about we visit the snack street? They’ve got all sorts of neat Spirit-Ice flavors! I’ll treat you.”

As they ambled down the busy street, she thumbed the metal card. There was something nice and cool about it. It fit well in the palm of her hand. Almost too well.

* * *

By the afternoon they were back at camp, sweets eaten. When Io heard of her liking stone-carving, he bought her a small kit to play with and her own Interspatial Ring. She returned floating on warm, happy clouds.

Then he had to go. “There’s still some daylight yet. I’d better go check out the alchemists—I’m sure I’ve got a few concoctions they’ll fancy.” He paused. “Will you be all right on your own?”

She nodded, feeling suddenly tender. He really cares… “‘Course! Y’know, I’m getting used to being my own company. It’s growing on me,” she lied, trying for a grin.

He gave her a skeptical look but didn’t press. He simply smiled and left. Then it was like all the light had gone out of the room.

She gave thought to practicing her forms again, but the idea of going outside, kicking up a fuss, drawing eyes to herself under all that glaring sunlight made her skin crawl.

* * *

She stayed in, swallowed a handful of the pills Io had given her, and meditated, polishing up on her [Peerless Yang Sutra]. Lately it felt maddeningly slow, even with the pills’ boosts. Qi flowed through her in the barest of trickles. It’d be ages yet before she reached peak Vigor, where Io was. But the tournament was mere days away.

She tried not to think on the odds. Her thoughts drifted there anyway. Sometimes she felt like a wounded Vordor, spasming on the sands as Hunters loomed over her. What would become of her if she was knocked out of the tournament? What if she never caught up to Io? What if she was stuck out in this hell-shrine, blistering hot in the day and freezing at night, stranded in this rot, this awful smell, swamped by perverts and crones and brutes with hate in their eyes, weak, helpless, all the while battered by that damned all-consuming clanking, ringing in her ears forever and ever? What then?

The old man’s card was in her hands. She hadn’t even realized she’d grabbed it. It felt reassuringly solid. She squeezed it till her palm ached. A low hum of panic was settling into her.

Then came that quieter worry, one she often chewed on late at night as she felt the darkness seeping through her skin. She was worried she might be lonely forever.

Everyone she met in the Oasis rubbed her wrong. She had Io—wasn’t that enough? But then she thought all her old friends from Rust Tribe, and how she missed them with all her torn-up heart, even the ones who’d hurt her, and how empty the nights felt without friends to share them with. The days were even worse.

Her feelings were like a poorly healed wound. A prick at the scab, and they all leaked out of her. She felt it happening. She felt herself unraveling. Suddenly, the smallness of the tent struck her, looming around her, its dark drakeskin folds smothering her from all sides. The ground was unsteady beneath her feet.

Swallowing in a rush and with trembling fingers, she drew out her new stone-carving kit, fumbled with the chisel and the hammer. She had to get away. She tried whittling away at a big slab of stone, tried to stop thinking. Tap-tap-tap went the hammer. Tap-tap-tap. The rhythm of chisel on stone filled the tent. At first her hands were shaking, slipping on the chisel, but the more she tapped, the steadier they got. There was a soothing tone to the repetition. She lost herself in it. Tap-tap-tap. She didn’t know what she was carving. But bit by it, it started to take shape. Breath by breath that tightness in her chest started to unwind. The ground slowly settled down. The shadows receded. The air was breathable again.

At first the shapes she carved were mysteries. She thought they might’ve been senseless. But soon she knew what she was carving. It choked her up all over again.

It was the old tent she used to live in, a big lump of rough canvas thick with braided cords. She was nine. Io was six. They were playing in the sands outside. There was mother and father, little mounds of essence, and they were alive. Father was clad in his Hunter’s garb, mother was back after a long day’s gathering. Kaya carved happy little smiles on all their faces.

She was carving home.

Even as her eyes wet with tears she swore to herself she wouldn’t cry. Not on her new stone-carving kit, not after she’d just gotten it!

She wished more than anything else to go home. But home wasn’t a place. It wasn’t a people, either. Maybe it was an idea, or a feeling she could never return to.

She wondered how long it’d take her to feel at home in this awful place. She swallowed, forcing down the lump in her throat. She wondered if she’d ever feel at home again.

Tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap.

She wiped the wetness off her chisel as she carved.

* * *

Hours later, she heard a new, high-pitched sound trickling in from outside. It was weirdly familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it. She donned her full-body cloak and stepped out with a frown.

The sun quivered a deep orange, half-sunk over the horizon. The temperature was dipping down. Where had the hours gone? She followed the noise till she came across a peculiar sight.

Before the sunset, huddled around a fire, was a big horde of Tribesmen. She blinked. This wasn’t any one Tribe. This was all of them, mingled. A girl in Zhaopai silks held hands with a burly Yalta boy. A circle of Narong played cards with a few Misfits. There was that strange sound. Laughter. Unrestrained, tinkling laughter. The fire crackled, big and warm and lively atop a bed of dry kelp.

She was dumbfounded. Weren’t these Tribes in fierce rivalries? Weren’t they at each other’s throats mere weeks ago? She’d seen Young Master Narong threaten to cut Young Master Yalta’s eyes out. Now, they shared a sitting-stone, warming their hands by the fire side-by-side.

Narong beckoned to her as she approached.

“Come, Miss Rust,” he said, a tired smile on his coldly handsome face. “Join us.”

She blinked again. This boy had been too proud to so much as shoot her a look at the festival! She vaguely recalled coming onto him—when she was drunk she had a bad habit of throwing herself at anything pretty—only for him to shove her away with a sneer. It was all very hazy in her mind. Most of what she remembered was the sharp spike of embarrassment.

“Why?” She croaked.

“Why not?” The rumble came from Yalta. He looked cross. Then again, it was hard not to with his thick brutish features.

Try as she might, Kaya couldn’t come up with an answer.

“Sit,” said Narong. Gentleness looked strange on a face made of harsh angles. Feeling awkward, she did. One of his hands was bound up in bandages soaked through with blood. He offered her a strip of a dark-yellow something with his good hand. “Would you like one? It is fried dough. A wonderful Azcan invention, I think.”

“Thank you,” she said. She nibbled at it and watched them both warily out of the corners of her eyes.

Yalta looked at ease. She got the sense he could’ve sat there the rest of his life and felt perfectly fine. He could’ve ben a stone. He was in no rush to speak. Narong chewed slowly on his strip, his eyes flickering this way and that. Kaya didn’t know what to say. The fire cackled softly between them.

At last, just as the awkwardness grew unbearable, Narong broke the silence. “How have you and your brother found the Oasis?”

“Fine enough, I guess,” she said, looking at the ground. She kept nibbling.

“Lie.” It came from Yalta. “You hate it here. We all do.” Yalta grabbed a stick of fried dough and started tearing chunks off with thick wedge-teeth. “The smell sucks. The noise sucks. The weather sucks. Most of all—the people here fucking suck.”

“I’m inclined to agree,” said Narong dryly. “It’s not to my taste.”

“‘It’s not to my taste’? That’s it?” Yalta tore off the last of the dough-strip as he snorted. “I could force Vordor droppings down your throat and all you’d say is ‘It’s not to my taste.’”

“You couldn’t do that,” said Narong amiably. “But in an alternate reality in which you’re capable of overpowering me, perhaps you have a point.”

“I was not the one doing the screaming last night. In this ‘alternate reality,’ do you have two working hands?”

Silence.

Yalta looked down. “Sorry.”

“It’s all right,” sighed Narong. He turned to Kaya. “Our quibbling aside, Master Yalta made good sense last night. All of our realities have changed. There is little point to our divisions any longer. We of the Tribes ought to stick together. We ought to support one another. We only have each other left, when all is done. If you and your brother are sympathetic…we should like to have you too.”

Then he paused. She saw his jaw tighten. His face twitched. She saw him force a smile. One syllable slipped out between unmoving lips. “Please.”

He looked so weary. Defeated. Yalta, too, had the hunched posture of a beaten soldier. She felt a new note in this gathering tonight—it wasn’t a celebration. It felt more like a final supper of doomed men. Mixed in with the joys were haggard looks, haunted eyes, fidgeting hands. There was a strong feeling of melancholy.

It was nice, sitting around the fire, being with people like her—even if they weren’t her friends. She felt kind-of warm. Sort-of not-alone. She liked it. She liked it a lot. It was a feeling she could lose herself in. It certainly beat crying out the hours by herself.

But one thought still gnawed at her.

Is this all there is? Clinging onto one another in this awful muck till the end? She could see it in Narong’s eyes, in Yalta’s. None of them really thought they could win—at the tournament or at anything else in the Oasis. This was a bid for survival.

If they all lost in the tournament—when they all lost—Kaya could imagine all the Tribesmen bunching together into their own gang here. Maybe then they’d eke out a mean existence under the shadow of the Mischief and the Sand-Devils and the city itself. Maybe they’d be swallowed whole. Maybe they’d trudge back out and wander the Desert once more.

It would be so easy to fall into this shadow-life. She could see herself devoting herself to the Tribes, scraping together a living here. In time she’d make new friends. She might even find herself a new lover. A vision flashed before her eyes—her tangled up with Narong, bearing his children, acting out the good, devoted wife around sputtering fires.

A small, mean life.

Is this all there is?

Is this really home?

A sharp twinge went through her.

She wasn’t the happy, posed girl who’d charged headfirst into the festival anymore. She wasn’t sure what she was, but she knew one thing for damn sure. She was tired of being small.

Deep within her, buried under a fog of fear and hurt, a little girl bared her teeth.

No.

Absently she twirled Jez’s card between her fingers. It warmed her hands. Slicked by firelight, twirling and catching it at odd angles, the infinity almost seemed to glow.

SIXTEEN

BORROWED POWER (IV)

The Alchemist’s Guild was unlike anywhere else in the Oasis.

For one, it was as remote from Dorian’s camp as it got—on the other end of the Oasis, with a winding maze of streets between them. Dorian couldn’t fly. Only city officials in their sweeping purplish robes were allowed to do that. He was forced to pick the streets by foot, dodging hounds-pulled carts and the rest of the dolled-up hordes as he went.

So he was already a tad irritated when he arrived half an hour later at a looming wooden gate. It was composed of two blackened trunks, between which stood two polished red-iron doors studded with golden rings. A great steel placard at the top read in curly, imperious font, Sage Mountain. Subtitled, Home of the Right Honorable Alchemist’s Guild.

Behind it was a small mountain flushed with greenery. It didn’t belong in the slightest among its dry yellow surroundings. It was as though a chunk of a differing biome—some tropical forest a few hundred miles south, maybe—had been plucked up and plopped here. Light- and dark- greens weaved to a lush canopy. Dorian saw streams of multicolored smoke rising from points up the mountain, no doubt billowing out of stirring cauldrons.

More intriguing yet, Dorian felt his bloodline stirring as he approached. He couldn’t pinpoint a precise spot, but something in this mountain called out to him. Resonance. It was the same feeling he’d gotten at the sinkhole. Was there an artifact within that might help bolster his blood?

Dorian licked his lips. Time to find out.

Four serious-looking guards in tight dark-green robes stood at the entrance. One of them jerked up when he saw Dorian. A shock of recognition ran through him. Then he spun around and darted through the gate.

Dorian was speechless. Oh, come on. I haven’t even done anything yet! Usually they only got this scared of him after they’d gotten to know him!

The other guards drew out thick batons, each of which crackled with qi.

Spirit weapons. How fun. The cost and the difficulty of mastery meant they hadn’t circulated to the Desert Tribes—they were an Oasis specialty. By the way these men gripped them, Dorian would wager they’d had ample practice with them.

“Halt!” Yelled a guard. “Stay where you are!”

“…”

“Halt, I said!” he yelled, red in the face.

“I’ve halted,” said Dorian dryly, putting up his hands. “What’s the meaning of this?”

“The Alchemist’s Guild has heard of you. We know who you are, Io Rust,” sneered another guard. I’m infamous. Joy. “Our orders were to send for a Grand Elder if you dared show your face here.”

Admittedly this isn’t quite the welcome I was expecting. Oh, well. I suppose I’ll work with what I’m given…

They stood there, looking at each other awkwardly for an uncomfortably long stretch. Then a tall, flabby man forced his way through the entrance. He was dressed in flowy leaf-green robes embossed with a silver cauldron seal. A gray beard adorned his face. Not a wild, unruly tangle as some men’s were, but a flat, straight, brushed-up affair.

“Greetings, Outsider,” he said flatly. “My name is Grand Elder Tong Ouyang.”

‘Ouyang’? Isn’t that the name of…shit.

Out popped Leo Ouyang behind him, smarting red.

Dorian was speechless. You’ve got to be kidding me.

“It is you, you rotten savage!” Leo sniveled. “How dare you show your face here!”

“Greetings, artificer Leo,” he said with a paper-thin smile. “What a happy coincidence.”

“I’m no mere artificer, fool!” Yelped Leo. “Maybe you should’ve learned who I was before you picked a fight with me!”

The boy was a smidge confused on who did the fight-picking, but that hardly mattered now. It seemed the multiverse was intent on playing a cosmic joke on Dorian. Dorian sighed. He supposed he’d better oblige.

“Well, why don’t you enlighten me? Who are you?”

“I am Leo Ouyang, fifth son of Duke Sen Ouyang and a pupil of Sphinx Academy!” he yelped. Dorian could see his chest puffing up with hot air in real-time as he spoke. “I hail from the mighty Ouyang Clan, the venerable founders of the Honorable Alchemist’s Guild! My father is the guild’s vice-president!”

Dorian sighed again. Of course he is.

“Let me guess,” said Leo, bristling. “You’re here to apply for an alchemist’s license.”

“Indeed I am.”

“Ha! Ha!” His laugh came out one burst at a time, like the boy was hiccupping. He seemed equal parts angry and frightened. “You’ve got some nerve, coming here after brutally assaulting me!”

“‘Brutally assaulting you’?” said Dorian, quirking a brow. “My recollection is a touch different…” I recall holding back a confused, horny boy who tried his very best to whack my head off.

“I have famously sensitive skin!” cried Leo. Leo thrust an arm out of his sleeve, his eyes glistening. “I must be treated with care and tenderness, and you m-manhandled me, fiend!”

“Oops?”

“‘Oops’? Is that all you have to say? Hmph! Very good, jolly good!” Leo’s hands bunched to fist. “You wish to apply to my guild, do you? I’ll allow it—but I have a few small conditions.” He grinned nastily. “Would you like to hear them?”

Leo jabbed a finger at the ground.

Dorian groaned. Here we go. He knew how this went. He could see the ludicrous demands percolating in that silly little blond head. Leo would state some insane ultimatum, Dorian would naturally be forced to concede, and he’d have a good laugh at Dorian’s expense.

It seemed the multiverse’s joke on him was fast arriving at its punch-line. Who was Dorian to halt it?

Dorian rolled his eyes. “How do I know you’ll honor your end of the bargain?”

Leo looked scandalized. “I’m a noble! The word of a noble is sacred.”

“Hmm.” That was as good a guarantee as he’d get out of the boy. Whatever. At worst Dorian would say refuse, they’d shut the doors on him, and it’d be a waste of a morning. “All right. List ‘em.”

Leo raised a finger. “Give me a formal apology!” he raised another. “Kowtow to me thrice!” he raised a third, treating Dorian to a gloating grin as he did. “Slap yourself five times in the face!” A fourth finger came up. His grin was one thin, evil line. “And kiss. My. Toes!” he smirked as he said it.

Dorian blinked. “Wait. That’s it? Really?”

Leo frowned. “What do you mean, ‘that’s it—”

“I, Io Rust, am a heathen, a fool, a clown, an unlettered halfwit! To think I insulted a man as honorable, handsome, and stunningly forgiving as the great Leo Ouyang! Truly, this one has eyes but cannot see the depths of the sinkhole!” he wailed.

Dopping to his knees, he kowtowed three times in three loud thumps. His forehead made dents on the sun-baked ground.

Then he wound a hand all the way back and gave himself a loud, crackling smack, right on the cheek. Then another. Then another. And another. Leo’s mouth hung open, utterly slack. He looked at Dorian as though Dorian had sprouted three heads. He was stunned. The guards were stunned. Elder Tong was stunned.

Then Leo’s face paled. Dorian saw the thoughts plain on the boy’s face—he ran through the demands one by one. He saw the precise moment the boy arrived at his last demand. He saw the look of unmitigated horror. It went, ‘Surely he wouldn’t actually—’

Dorian lunged for Leo’s feet, grabbed him by the ankle, and planted a big fat kiss on his big toe.

“EEEEEE!” Shrieked the boy, yanking out his foot. Dorian followed like a hunting dog, tackling him to the ground and grabbing at the heels. Down he went again, this time aiming for the second toe. He planted sloppy smooches all over it. He made sure not to use teeth. We must take special care of his famously sensitive skin, after all…

“EWWW! EWWWWWW!! AHH!” Leo thrashed and shoved at him, but Dorian wouldn’t let up. “STOP IT! STOP! I CONCEDE! I GIVE, I GIVE!! AHHH!!!” Dorian’s tongue was doing a wet circle around the boy’s third toe. He gave it good ol’ suck for good measure, bobbing his head as he did. He could tell the boy bathed regularly. There was even a pleasing hint of watermelon to the taste—a scented soap, maybe? Mostly it was smothered by all the sweat and skin and so forth, but it was there. Leo looked like his soul was leaving his body. “UNCLE TONG!! DO SOMETHING!!”

A blast of force sent Dorian sprawling off Leo and into the street. He made a show of licking his lips as he glanced back at Leo’s feet. The boy shrieked again and dropped to his knees, struggling to cover himself. “D-d-don’t look at me like that!” he cried.

“What?” he said, feigning disappointment. “Isn’t this what you asked for, mister Leo?”

“Y-you BEAST!” By the look in his eyes, in those thirty seconds Dorian had managed to implant traumas that would take a lifetime of therapy to root out. Hehe. Nice.

Dorian stood, put a sheepish slant on his smile, and bowed. “Well then. I hope this settles our feud for good.”

“Ah?” Leo blubbered. “B-but—”

“Onward!” Dorian closed the distance between him and the gate in three quick strides, gave the Leo a wink, and made to step through the door.

But a hand caught the back of his robe as he tried to slip past.

It was the Elder. His stern face was a stringent mix of disgusted and unamused. His cheek still twitched uncontrollably. It seemed he hadn’t quite recovered from that display either. “My idiot nephew may have given you his—ah—his permission—but I have not, Outsider.”

Drat. After all that, you’re screwing me here? He could still taste the toe-sweat on his tongue! “What happened to ‘the word of a noble is sacred’?”

“I have not given my word, scoundrel!”

Ugh. Dorian could see where this was going. Still, Dorian shot the man his most charming smile. “Then what, pray tell, would you have me do?”

“Nothing!” Spat Elder Tong. The Elder dragged him out and helped him back into the street with a not-so-friendly shove. “There is nothing you can do. This is the Honorable Guild of Alchemists. Whatever insanity compelled the artificers to admit you has no hold here!”

Dorian could tell this Elder would prove considerably harder to crack. Already the man had slid his composure back on. He spoke every sentence like a somber decree. Like there was some scribe hiding around a corner at all times, recording every word for the history-books. “Begone at once! We will not pollute our ranks with your kind.” A corner of Tong’s lips curled. “And that—vulgar display—certainly does not help your cause!”

I did as the boy asked! Why am I the bad guy? Leo, meanwhile, was busy whimpering in a curled-up ball. Dorian tried not to show his exasperation. “Sir, the artificers let me in because they deemed me valuable. Who knows? I may be an asset to the alchemists, too.” He spread his hands, smiling tightly. “I only ask for a chance to prove myself.”

He tapped his Interspatial ring. “I’ve brought along a few sample elixirs with great commercial potential. These may be of interest to you—”

“We have heard of your new-fangled elixirs,” snapped the Elder. “Our Officials brought back samples of all the elixirs that you sold at the festival, Outsider. We have examined them for weeks. You have nothing to offer us.”

Isn’t this fellow full of unhappy surprises. “Well, I have the recipes for them. I think you’ll find that useful if you wish to mass-produce any of my elixirs.”

“We have assigned our finest alchemists to the task of deducing their recipes. Soon we shall be in possession of all of them.”

“You’ll find my elixirs fairly inscrutable without my help, I’m afraid…”

Elder Tong’s lip was curling into a full-on sneer. “If you truly believe the highest alchemists in the land cannot extricate a formula concocted in the muddled mind of a dust-spawned savage, you are sorely mistaken!”

Dorian cocked his head. “Really? How much progress have they made, might I ask?”

Tong’s face took on a slight crimson shade. “Insolent!”

Then he breathed in deeply, breathed out. The angry lines on his face softened. “No. This conversation is over. My time is too valuable to be wasted scolding a degenerate in the street.” He shot Dorian a stinky look. “I dearly hope we never cross paths again.”

“Wait.” Dorian tapped at his Interspatial Ring. Out came his tournament qualifier’s token. “One more thing. I hoped I wouldn’t need to resort to this, but if I must…I’m also a tournament qualifier. Doesn’t this grant me access to all the Oasis’ resources?”

Elder Tong froze. He squinted. He gnashed his teeth. A few slow seconds dragged by. Then his eyes glinted, and Dorian knew the man had spotted a loophole. He could tell the curmudgeon’s mind was set against him. Dorian had a suspicion that nothing he did or said was getting him through those gates.

“So, it does,” Elder Tong bit out. “But a tournament Token is no license to do whatever the holder wishes. Access can still be revoked if the holder violates the guild’s rules. I deem that you have.”

“Which rules?”

“I’m under no obligation to explain myself to the likes of you!” Elder Tong crossed his arms. These people are more shameless than even the artificers.

“Th-th-that’s right!” cried Leo. He’d recovered enough to glare at Dorian with red-rimmed eyes. “Crawl back to your filthy— Oww!!”

The elder had grabbed Leo by the ear. “And you, fool boy, must learn when to keep your blathering mouth shut!”

He dragged the cringing boy back through the gate, which promptly swung closed.

…

Did I suck all those toes for nothing?

* * *

Okay, maybe that was partly my fault. Part of it was his skin tone and Outsider status—nothing to be done there—but maybe going a little too far with that Leo boy yesterday didn’t help matters. And maybe he could’ve been a little less enthusiastic with the toes, too…

He didn’t blame himself too much for it. There was an unwritten rule in all of his runs—to have fun! Wasn’t the point of all of this to amuse himself, after all? If it meant a few short years tacked on at the end of things, so be it. All of his runs had a few fun-wasted years tacked on. They made little difference. Real screw-ups on the journey to Godking usually happened on the order of decades. Sometimes centuries. Most of them were from imperfectly built foundations leading to stagnant growth, or screwing-up one of the Godly bottlenecks, or failing a Heavenly Tribulation. On occasion, pissing off the wrong gods cost him badly too, but the higher-up he went, the more careful he got. Messing with these ants would hardly cost him a run.

If he efficiently extracted resources, sussed out the best techniques, claimed good bloodlines and treasures, and got it all done in a speedy enough manner, he’d allow himself some amusement.

Even if it meant he was now trudging back empty-handed and ticked off.

Every street he passed had a shop emblazoned with the Alchemist Guild’s logo. He strolled by a glass outdoor stand set up under a flapping overhang. Every flask there was stamped with that cauldron emblem. He supposed the guild had reason to be haughty. They had a chokehold on Alchemy across all of the Oasis, it seemed.

Dorian wasn’t too upset over the whole affair. Alchemy was a side-project—useful, but not the main focus of his attention here. He was hoping to use the guild’s vast infrastructure to sell all his new concoctions, but if his Alchemy efforts flopped—oh, well. It wasn’t crippling. He’d still fare fine.

A few options now lay before him.

One. He could press the issue with the relevant authorities. He gathered the tournament was a fairly big deal around here. They’d need to take him seriously. He might cause the Alchemist’s Guild some minor headaches. Perhaps they might even be forced to concede to him—though the suspected whichever city official took the case would side with the massive guild over some unknown urchin.

Two.

If the Alchemist’s Guild wouldn’t admit him, fine. He’d set up his own shop and run that crusty fossil of a guild into the ground.

Hmm. It seemed like a lot of work for a mere side-project. He had no intention of spending most of his day brewing for mass consumption, like he used to. Nowadays, he had enough Lira to spare and not enough incentive. At most he’d brew a few specialized cauldrons for his own advancement.

Then he got an idea. An idea which halted him in his tracks.

Setting up his own shop would be a lot of effort on his end—

Unless…

Unless he could take advantage of an as-of-yet untapped workforce and outsource the bulk of the work. A workforce composed of an underclass which demanded little pay.

But Alchemy couldn’t simply be handed off to just anyone. It required a deep understanding of qi-flows. It was much like casting a technique. It needed the presence of a human mind to guide it along, delicately and continuously. The higher level the Elixir, the more qi, fortitude, and mental strength it required. Tasking, say, an Outskirter to brew an Elixir was preposterous.

Unless he had a device which could cast the brewing techniques for them. Oh, wait…

Alchemical qi was based on the [Imbue] technique. It was different from most Martial techniques, but Dorian doubted it’d take more than a half-day to suss out the rune for it. Then it was simply a matter of tweaking each [Imbue] rune to suit different Elixir recipes. It might take him another half-day to perfect a raft of working staffs—or rather, Wizard’s Sticks—to simulate the work of a factory’s worth of trained alchemists.

All the human worker would need to supply was qi, a few stirs, and the right ingredients put in at the right time. They’d be little more than batteries with arms. Rote, replicable maneuvers to produce Elixirs could be done by any street rat or Outskirter. The elixirs they’d make would cost ten times more when brewed by a guild-certified alchemist.

A plot brewed in his mind.

It seems I have a new topic to discuss when I meet the Rat-King.

SEVENTEEN

AN OLD NEMESIS

Dorian was at the open market, a smattering of stalls in a marble-floored plaza which seemed to stretch endlessly, its loose rows wrapping around itself like the lively intestines of some massive beast. Its stalls were all strung with white-cloth tarps more specialized than any Dorian had seen in the festival’s market. He passed a rolling food-stall hawking twenty flavors of custard, with more cooking in a tiny artifact oven bolted on its side. He passed an ornate-looking stall selling only nose-rings—big green knobby diamonds, small dewdrops of aquamarine. Nothing like in the Outskirts, where the streets resembled a clogged latrine and the markets were bare, lean places, with hired guards at each stall.

They’ve set up a clever social construct here—retaining all the strongest, most useful members of society to themselves. Even if there was simmering popular dissent in the Outskirts, there’s no one of worth to lead an uprising.

No doubt any Outskirter with promise was swiftly gobbled up by Oasis-folk. The powerful always had an array of tricks to neuter the weak. One trick, Dorian suspected, was the gangs themselves—he wouldn’t have been surprised of the Rat-King was paid off by the Oasis brass. The gangs sure seemed like useful tools to suppress dissent. They did a great job intimidating the populace as it was.

Turn them against each other, keep them split, weak, easily moved…Dorian approved.

Enough dallying. He was here for Alchemy ingredients. He stumbled on the relevant section: a row crowded with what produce stalls. He stopped at the first stall, which was scarcely more than a bundle of carts laden with multicolored fruit, put up near a sign. ‘Old Pu’s Rare Fruits &amp. Plants’ was scrawled on the wood placard.

“‘Morning!” An old man whose eyes were hidden beneath a bushy unibrow tottered up to him “Might I interest you in any of our fresh sinkhole herbs, good sir? Our salted seaweeds are most popular among the youths—”

“Give me all of your ginsengs aged past a hundred and fifty years, all the spirit Bamboo-leaf you have in stock, and three stones’s worth of Spirit gingers.”

He plopped down cloth bag full of Lira of the counter which was so full it vomited golden Lira. The old man looked at it, swallowed once. “Right away, good sir!” he waddled off to a back shelf.

Ahh…This was Dorian’s sort of society, all right—where strength and influence spoke loudest and the weak were given a judicious boot. Every so often Dorian was reborn in a bummer society, his least favorite kind of society: filled with kill-joys cropping up, bandying about plans to sink their grubby hands into his wealth and spread it out to the poor.

“Here you are!” The old grocer soon returned, one low-grade Interspatial Ring in hand. “Thirty ginsengs, five stones’ worth of spirit Bamboo-leaf, and three stones of Spirit gingers. The Ring is free—a gift from this humble store. Please come again, dear sir! Old Pu’s the name. The P’s engraved on the Ring to help your remembering—”

“Yes, yes,” said Dorian, waving a dismissive hand. “Hand it over, if you please?”

“One moment!” The grocer rummaged beneath the counter and pulled out a strange engraved stone. “Kindly press your IT Token here, good sir,” he said with a wrinkly smile.

Dorian frowned. “What for?”

The grocer waved a hand. “Nonsense rules, nothing to concern your honorable self with! I am of course affiliated with the Merchant’s Guild, the Farmer’s Guild, and the Alchemist’s Guild. They require that I vet each customer.”

“Vet me? For what?” Dorian had a sinking feeling he knew where this was going. Nevertheless, he fished out his IT token—his tournament identifier.

The grocer licked his gums. “I’m not privy to that, good sir! They never tell us shop-owners anything.” He pressed the token onto the stone. “Between you and me, I think they’ve got heads full of dullwater—”

He stopped.

The stone was flared up crimson.

Shit.

“Ah,” said the grocer, paling. He swallowed, retracting the Ring of herbs. “Well. I’m afraid I can’t sell to you. I’m afraid—I’m afraid I must ask you to leave.”

What, no ‘good sir’?

“I see…”

Frowning, Dorian took his coin-bag and stalked over to the next stall.

Same vetting stone. Same crimson light. Same refusal.

At the next store, history, horrid bitch that she was, repeated herself.

I’ve been put on some kind of blacklist. Dorian was unamused. The alchemists must’ve done it. They sure work quickly.

In my defense, this was a very low-probability event. Who could’ve guessed that kid had such deep connections? He was grumbling all the way back down the street. A totally wasted morning. Well, shit on it.

He was both annoyed and amused. This was his sort of society, all right: but it was he who’d been made into the weakling given a judicious boot. After that cosmic joke it seemed the multiverse was back for an encore.

Once he pal’d up with the Rat-King, he had little doubt the gang-boss could smuggle him the ingredients he needed. If the man kept a leash on a creature like Pebble, it was well in his powers to snag a few herbs for Dorian.

But this was yet another reminder that unnecessarily pissing people off could bite him in the ass.

The consequences of my own actions, come to foil me yet again…

He’d really have to make sure that didn’t become a recurring theme this run. Next time he had the sudden impulse to lick toes, he’d have to restrain himself. Or at least make a good effort to.

I seem to have a bad habit of making more enemies than friends. Maybe I should try reversing that trend. He could do with some friends in high places.

* * *

Eudora Azcan admired herself in a body-length, ruby-studded mirror as her handmaid Yi brushed at her hair. It was a gift from her father for her eighteenth birthday. It threw back her reflection as though she stared into a rippleless pool of quicksilver.

Soft, auburn tresses framed a strikingly pretty face—heart-shaped and angular, full lips, large, blue-gray eyes the color of a thundercloud, always half-lidded by default. It gave her a look of aloof disinterest. It was the only flaw she could find, if it was a flaw at all. It made her seem like she was looking down at everyone she met. Which, to be fair, was most often the case.

A warm satisfaction curled up in her. She tilted her head, loving the way the noonday sun drifted down her face. As much as she loathed her father, she had to admit the man knew exactly what to give her. He had a knack for knowing just what people wanted. It was what got him rulership of all Azcan.

Then she felt a tug on her head, pin-pricks of pain.

“Ow! Be careful, klutz!” she snapped. “A lock of that hair could sell for half your salary!”

Most everyone else in the Oasis would’ve been groveling at their knees if Eudora had taken that tone with them. Not Yi. She only flushed a little, nodding. They’d been raised together half their lives. That tended to take the fear and the mystique out of things.

“Yes, mistress,” said Yi. Then, as she pulled the comb back for another brush, “If I may, mistress—you ought not to speak like that today. It lacks a certain…humility. It’s unbecoming of a lady.”

Eudora laughed, a low, breathy, throaty laugh—a laugh without restraint, a most unladylike laugh. In a few short hours she’d need to shed it and put on that fake high-pitched tinkly giggle. It was of the utmost importance that she keep up appearances today, apparently.

“There are hours yet before I must be ‘ladylike,” she mused.

Yi cringed, hurrying around and dabbing at her her hair, just as she’d done all of the past half-hour. They were in Eudora’s dressing-room, high-up in the Governor’s Palace. A crystal chandelier rose up over them, gold-plated wardrobes full of dresses stretched behind her, and to both sides were wide full-length windows which offered dizzying views of the city below.

“Mistress, if I may—you ought to take this more seriously,” Yi said with a frown. “Lord Zhang’s Midsummer Ball happens only once per year. It’s your chance to mingle with the other ladies and lords, deepen your connections to the Ruling Council. You may even find one of your suitors palatable—”

“Always the suitors with you,” sighed Eudora. “Let it lie, will you? I’m starting to think you have a vested interest in knocking me up.”

“Misstress!” said Yi, red-faced. “I only meant to suggest that yours is a ripe age to explore—instead you insist on your attitude! You worry your mother sick. When she was at your age she was already happily married, starting her own family…”

“She was married to my father. One can hardly be ‘happy’ next to that—ow! Stop that!”

Yi had moved onto tightening her corset. She was pulling on the drawstrings with fervor. “I can hardly breathe!”

That, apparently, was too much for even the demure Yi to take. Eudora caught her shaking her head in disbelief. “Please, mistress—you’re a top 3 seed in the tournament. Pardon me if I doubt this corset is too much a so-called ‘Young Dragon of Azcan’ to take.”

Eudora preened at the praise. “Why, I am a Top 3 seed, and a Young Dragon too—so kind of you to notice. Keep going?”

“Mistress…” Yi pinched the bridge of her nose. “Heavens knows you’re the last person who needs her ego fluffed…”

Eudora pouted. She was bored already and they’d hardly gotten half an hour into the make-up. In the next hour Yi would cover her in all kinds of perfumes and glosses, bind her this devilishly tight dress, harp onto her about all the things she ought and ought not to do, the suffocating mass of customs which hung over the Ball like a thick evening mist. Four knives for desert, three spoons for each course, which dances were in vogue, and on and on…then—after a dreadful afternoon with her etiquette tutors—she’d need to go to the damned thing, smile at the most uninteresting people, put on that her fake tinkly laugh for hours on end.

Or. Or…

She could simply not do any of it.

She was Eudora Azcan, for hells’ sake. Who was anyone to tell her what to do?

She stood abruptly.

“Mistress?” Yi looked on in horror as Eudora plucked out the pins in her hair in three quick strokes. She shook her hair out, letting it fall in waves over her shoulders. Letting it breathe. Ah. Much better. “Mistress!” Yi looked heartbroken. “Th-that took me half an hour to pin in…”

“You can re-do it when I return,” she sighed, grabbing at drawstrings of her corset, loosing them all at once.

“What do you mean, when you—kyaaa!” Yi covered her eyes. Her face was redder than an apple. “MISTRESS!”

It was always so funny how Yi reacted when she saw Eudora naked. Eudora could almost believe the girl had a flame for her.

I wouldn’t blame her…She smirked, glancing at her reflection in the adjoining mirror, bathed in the light. Tall, proud, lithe, poised. I never did meet a mirror I didn’t like.

When they made a statue of her, she wanted it to look like this. Not like that crone Jane Zhang’s statue—done in old age, capturing only her decrepit feebleness. No. The world deserved to see Eudora Azcan in all her glory. The plush shape of her lips, the sharp line of her jaw, her shapely curves down from her chest to her hips down to her long, supple legs…she frowned. It wasn’t quite perfect. There was the slightest start of a paunch around her midriff. She had been putting on a little weight lately—it was truly unfair how delicious those sauced oysters were. She pinched at it, feeling irked. All her weight always went straight to her hips.

Two weeks on a seaweed-only diet, she mused. Then they can call over the sculptors.

She snorted. Yi just had to put the Zhang name in her mind. She did a long, catlike, full-body stretch. What kind of blind fool would think that tiny pixie Lin Zhang could compare to this?

“PUT ON YOUR CLOTHES!” Yi shrieked.

Sighing, Eudora obliged the poor girl, sliding on her leather trousers a sleeveless silk blouse. Light and cute.

Yi was now peeking at her between her fingers, eyes popping. “Not again,” she whispered. “Not today of all days, mistress!”

“Too bad,” said Eudora, strutting over to the window. She pried it open. The wind was crisp and invigorating on her neck.

“MISS, YOU CAN’T JUST—” Yi was stumbling after her. She wouldn’t make it in time.

“I’ll return before sundown,” she said, giving Yi a wink. “A lady must have her fun too.” Then she jumped.

EIGHTEEN

THE PARTS OF A HEART (II)

Eudora flipped off the ledge, planted her feet on the side of the granite tower, and dashed toward the bustling street below, dodging windowsills and flagpoles, kicking off sandstone cornices. The wind howled in her ears, tearing at her fluttering blouse, running its wild fingers through her hair. In seconds the hard ground swelled up to greet her, magnifying at terrifying speed. When she was down to five stories high she kicked off the wall. For a few glorious seconds she was airborne, diving over the street in an elegant arc. Then she somersaulted, blunting the impact as she landed on the flat roof of the Merchant’s Guild headquarters—a squat, ugly building opposite the Gorvernor’s Palace. For years it’d been her landing pad. She rolled, rolled, rolled to her feet and landed in a crouch. The rows of red-baked shingles were peppered with dents and craters, relics of past landings before she’d learned how to fall properly.

Dusting herself off, she laughed breathlessly and stretched her shoulders. For a few seconds she let herself soak in the soft sunlight. Then she set off along the rooftops, hopping nimbly and sure-footed across sloped roofs and steep drops.

Soon she’d leapt to the building she was looking for. Planting a hand over a rooftop balcony, she dropped to the alley below. She landed in a crouch.

It was an alley like any other in the city’s less glamorous districts, riddled with damp, lined with litter and black mold—not an aboveground sewer, like some alleys in the Outskirts, but it was as unseemly a sight as any in the Oasis proper. A sickly rotting stench drifted over to her. Tiny insects buzzed to and fro in small clouds.

She strutted over to a section of wall with an unassuming iron plate bolted to the side and knocked ten times. Some longs were strong, some soft, and they were spaced unevenly—in a specific pattern. She waited.

“Who is it?” Came a high-pitched voice from within.

“You know who I am,” she said, licking her lips. She tucked a few stray strands of hair behind an ear, patted at her outfit to make sure it was all settled down. All of a sudden she regretted not letting Yi apply a dusting of rouge. And what if her hair was a bird’s nest? She patted at it, suddenly self-conscious. She should’ve brought a pocket-mirror…

A section of the wall slid open, offering a sliver of the room beyond. Dark, damp. The only light was a single cone of sunlight streaking down through the dusty air, through some window in the roof. A long row of cabinets shoved up against the walls and mounds of crates landscaped the room. Laughter leaked out from within.

A greasy-haired boy squinted out at her. “It is you,” he muttered.

“Good day, Slicknail,” she said, smiling. Her heart fluttered in her chest. “Is Fei-Fei in?”

Nervously the boy nodded. The door swung fully open.

“Sir Rat-King!” he called. “You have a visitor…”

A circle of boys sat lazily around a round stone table, cards and green-glowing bottles scattered on the table’s surface. There was a strong whiff of wine. The room was musty, dusty, as though it’d sat for decades unused before its current occupants found it. It looked like a repurposed warehouse.

Eudora only had eyes for the man at the head of the table. He was big as a half-giant, burly, built out of cords of steel-like muscle. Two long scars split his face in an X-shape, but he still managed to look devastatingly handsome. His features were proud and regal, exactly the sort one might imagine on a fairy-tale prince. A sharp, chiseled jaw, lightly dappled by a stubble. Brown eyes flecked with gold. A manly nose straight as an arrow. He was half-naked, lounging against a wide leather seat, letting the sunlight drench his olive skin, accentuating his broad, sculpted chest, flowing down to the hard cuts of his abdomen. She was salivating just looking at him.

The two women at his side were practically drooling onto the table, drinking him in with their eyes. When Eudora entered he was laughing and slapping his thigh. But he froze as soon as he saw her.

She smiled, waving at him. “Fei-fei!” His gaze locked onto hers. An electric thrill ran up her back. Then he stood, knocking over his chair, and crossed the room in three long strides.

“‘Dora,” he breathed in a low growl. One powerful arm seized her by her lower back. The other enveloped her shoulders. He dragged her into a kiss. He kissed her like a drowning man gasping for air, like a beast intent on devouring her whole. He was fierce, insistent, his skin hot against hers. Then his teeth nipped her lips, sucked gently at her bottom lip, and they pulled away from each other, panting heavily.

She had half a mind to tear off that kilt, spring free that monster between his legs, and fuck him silly on the spot.

“I missed you,” he murmured, and she could tell by his eyes that he meant it. He didn’t mean her body—that much was obvious enough—he missed her. He was hurt she hadn’t come to visit last week. So cute. “What kept you so long?” He seized her by the shoulders, frowning. His tone grew urgent. “Have you been well? Is your father treating you right?”

“I’m well as can be,” she said airily. “Father’s been a nuisance, but that’s how he is. He’s got me up to my tits in tournament training—whoa!”

He’d leaned in for another kiss. It took all her self-restraint to fend him off. She put a finger to his lips. “Easy, boy,” she tutted. He blinked, looking like a kicked puppy. Then she leaned in, whispering in his ears. “I’ll visit your quarters tonight. You’ll have me all to yourself then…”

She felt him stiffen. She saw his face light up.

The Unruly Bastard of Azcan, Feiyang Shen, the #1 seed in the tournament—and the most feared gang boss in all the Oasis—was putty at her fingertips.

To everyone else he was sharp, aloof, angry. Abrasive. But she held the key which broke him open. It exhilarated her much more than it frightened her. His big, strong hands were still clamped around her. She was a smidge worried he might never let her go.

Gently she pried a hand off her shoulder. “So? How did that spice heist go?”

Feiyang grinned savagely and jerked his head at a big wooden crate to his side. The room was stuffed full of them. “Perfectly. We robbed the guild of Mercers blind. Twenty shipments. They’ll pin it on the Sand-Devils, I fancy.” Then he bit a corner of his lip. He brushed at her hair, twirling it around his fingertips as though it were made of priceless silk.

“Don’t change the subject. You ought to visit more often,” he said, pressing her head to his chest. His stubble tickled at her cheek as he nuzzled her. “You can’t know how much I think about you. When you didn’t come last week, I—” He swallowed. So cute! “Please, at least send a messenger. I…-I worry about you. If anyone hurts you, you must tell me.”

She preened. There was something in this boy’s gaze she adored—like he saw her precisely as she was meant to be seen. He worshipped her, appreciated every curve of her, even those nasty grains of weight she’d put on at her hips. Behind him, the two sluts who’d been at his side looked murderous.

“Silly Fei-Fei. Don’t you know who I am?” She tsk-ed, pulling away. “I take care of myself just fine, thank you.” Gingerly, she pried off the hand on her lower back. It’d been slipping lower and lower. Naughty boy. “I’ve actually come about another matter.”

Feiyang frowned. “What is it?”

“I understand you’ve been tracking an Outsider boy. Talented artificer, a little shorter than me, unruly dark locks, dashing smile, boyish good looks…”

“Io Rust.” Annoyance flashed across his face. “The man is a degenerate. An unserious fool. What could you possibly want with him?”

“I want to know where he is. You’ve put a Rat on him, yes?”

He paused. His frown deepened. “Maybe I have. Why? And why describe him so—’unruly locks’? ‘Good looks’? ‘dashing smile’?”

She laughed, slapping at his chest. “Jealous, Fei-Fei? Don’t be so sensitive. Aren’t you meant to be a king?” She took a page out of YI’s book. “Sentimentality is unbecoming of you.”

“Dora. Stop it.” His eyes were fierce and hot. “You’re trying to anger me. I know your tricks. Don’t play with me. “ He softened, swallowing. “I wish you wouldn’t tug at my feelings…I wish you respected me enough for that. Do you?”

Eudora grinned. It’s working, isn’t it? His breath was coming in short, tight spurts. It didn’t take much to set off her Fei-Fei. He was a tightly wound ball of emotion. But he didn’t showed it. He just got quieter, more abrupt, more tight under that cool exterior. Until it all blew up at once.

“Don’t flatter yourself, darling,” she drawled. “I’m simply giving you an apt description. The boy made quite a ruckus at the guild. He’ll be in the tournament, too. Can’t I scout an intriguing competitor without you crawling all over me?”

She put her hands on her hips. “Don’t be childish. Where is he?”

His jaw worked, tightening. His whole upper body was tensed, stiff. Then he sighed. He turned his head away from her. So damned cute! “On twelfth street, near the cathedral. They think he’s headed to Chef Gao’s House of Oysters.”

“Thank you,” she purred, pressing up against him. “Was that so hard?”

She found it unspeakably endearing how such this supposedly cold, hard man couldn’t help but wear his heart on his sleeve around her. She could see the hurt written on his face.

“Oh! There is another reason I’m seeking him out…”

He turned even stiffer, if that was possible.

“Sometimes, I’m in the mood for a big, juicy, manly steak,” she whispered in his hear, planting both hands on his chest. She could feel his heartbeat quicken.

“But other times…I want to sample the menu. See what I’m missing. Try some oysters, perhaps…”

She licked her lips.

He was so mad he could hardly contain himself. She felt his arms quivering uncontrollably, saw the veins sticking out against his neck, saw his eyes turn bloodshot. “DORA!!” His voice came in a predator’s snarl. An choking gray aura vast and thick as the night sky started to leak out of him.

She giggled. “I’m only teasing, darling!”

Then she hopped nimbly away from him and strutted off, swaying her hips as she did, giving him a good view as she went.

In the meantime…Io Rust. Let’s see if you’re worth my time.

NINETEEN

FRIENDS! (I)

As Dorian trudged through bustling Oasis streets, he realized he needed a friend.

Hmm. He frowned. No. That didn’t sound right. no one in this plane qualified for anything nearing friendship. In all his lives Dorian had had two friends total. Three, if he was generous. Two of them had later tried to murder him (three, if he was generous), which, naturally, had led to a bit of a falling-out.

Not a friend. Dorian needed an ally. He played with the thought in his mind and found that it sat with him better. The Rat-King was one candidate, but he only had power in the Outskirts. Lin Zhang was another, but there was something off about that girl. Dorian had the unsettling inkling that going down that path meant in the best-case he’d spend a lot of time being forced into frilly dresses. Or worst-case, I might wake up to find myself stuffed and mounted on her bedroom wall…

He shuddered. He’d likely meet the girl again soon. He needed to collect his Tier-2 artificer’s badge at the guild before he left today. With luck, he’d also make progress with Martial Elder Kal on the mass-producing Wizard’s Sticks front. Maybe he’d screw around and get himself another few artificer Tiers—who knew?

Before all that, though, it was time for a quick stop at the most well-regarded Oyster restaurant in the city. It was a low-cost detour en-route to the Artificer’s Guild. This stop served a few purposes.

The first was that Kaya was awfully sad these days. He’d buy her some fresh oysters—she’d love that. He smiled at the thought. Eating always cheered her up. She was a stress-eater, which Dorian found adorable at first. He found it much less adorable when he saw the meat he’d prepped for the month vanish in just two weeks. Just last night he’d stared, incredulous, as she wolfed down an arm-length slab of Vordor wing in eight big bites. “What?” She’d snapped at him, looking very cranky through a mouthful of half-chewed meat. It was then that he realized he was in the amusing (if slightly depressing) position of needing to re-stock premium rations to feed the bottomless pit that was her tummy. How that much meat fit in one girl he had no idea.

He winced. He’d stumbled on the unpleasant realization that he likely wasn’t the first guy from Rust Tribe who’d thought that about her…

Aaaanyway. He was also here because sinkhole oysters were great boons to cultivation. It’d be a nice boost before he made his final assault on the Profound Realm bottleneck tonight.

Plus, it was lunch-time, and he was hungry. It’d be nice to eat something with texture after two weeks of dried Vordor jerky.

Then Dorian halted, frowning. At some point after he’d stepped onto 12th street, he’d picked up a tail.

He figured it out from the little things. A wraith darting into an alley out of the corner of his eye, shadows flitting over rooftops, the prickly, hair-raising feeling he was being watched.

After a few minutes he caught a brief glimpse of her as she leapt between roofs—tall, dirt-smudged, a woman, it seemed, swaddled in the mud-brown cowl of a servant.

This was nothing new. He’d been tailed half his time in the Oasis. There were always heads subtly turning to him, eyes tracking him, bodies trailing him in crowds. But they’d all been subtle about it.

Instead, she was blundering after him with all the finesse of a hollering hunter crashing through bushes. He’d caught onto her almost instantly. Now, he felt her slinking along after him, a few steps behind him. Abruptly he whirled around, and she flinched like a spooked cat.

The girl’s robes showed little of her body, but her face was visible. Her cheeks were grime-streaked. Her hair was in disarray. A set of thick goggles covered her eyes. None of this strange disguise hid the fact that she might’ve been the prettiest girl Dorian had seen in this Realm.

She was neck-and-neck with Lin in looks, if not in stature. But Lin’s beauty was pixie-like, youthful, almost girlish. This was a woman. She was very comfortable in her own skin.

At his turning around she had a frozen, panicked moment where she realized she might be caught staring, and suddenly found the ground very interesting. She started shuffling her feet, looking nowhere in particular, hands behind her back, acting all nonchalant.

Dorian snorted. Goodness me she’s awful at this…

This couldn’t be an agent of one of the gangs. No. She had all the hallmarks of a novice, a dilettante of stalking who hadn’t put in the effort to master the art. She didn’t look like an Outskirter, either. An agent of an Oasis clan, perhaps, come to scout him?

Speaking of potential friends—could she an agent of Nijo, come to contact him at last? He was wondering when the Ugoc Prince would show his face. The tournament was a mere two days away. Hmm. Doubt it.

He scratched his head. What was he doing all this speculating for, when she was right there? Shrugging, he walked up to her.

“Hello,” said Dorian with a smile. “Why are you following me?”

She flinched, had a moment of wide-eyed crisis, turned on her heel, still not looking at him, and suddenly found a nearby lamp post very fascinating.

“…Excuse me? Miss?” He snapped his fingers at her. No response. “Miss.”

“…”

“Listen, I’ll keep standing here and staring at you until you answer me,” said Dorian, crossing his arms. “I’m a patient man.”

Her cheeks were two splotches of red. But mortified as she was, she seemed stubbornly determined not to acknowledge him. She stared at the lamp post like an art critic studying a once-in-a-generation masterpiece. She’d found her alibi, and she was sticking to it. “Hmm…yes…” she murmured to herself. “Lamp post…indeed…yes…very…big…” Dorian noticed thin beads of sweat start to form on her brow as he stared at her.

Sighing, Dorian knocked on her forehead like it was a front door. “Hello? Anyone there?”

“Gah!” She jerked up, flushing. “How dare—” Her voice was deep and breathy.

Then it was like a switch had flicked in her head mid-word. She was suddenly full of wide-eyed bewilderment.

“Err—I—I mean—ouch!” Tears welled up in her eyes as she cringed. Her voice had suddenly shot up an octave to a high, tinkling pitch. “Why have you struck me, sir?”

“Nope,” said Dorian, wagging a finger. “Me first. Why are you stalking me?”

“What?” she said, wide-eyed. “Stalking? You? I’m doing no such thing!”

“Then what are you doing?”

For a second she spluttered at him. Then— “I am…a lamp post enthusiast!” she proclaimed, puffing out her chest. “I am simply out and about, observing my lamp-posts. How dare you accost me, sir! Some nerve you’ve got!”

Dorian was speechless. “Really.” He was almost impressed. It was a rare skill to be able to blather nonsense with utter confidence.

“That’s right. I love…lamp post!” she said, chin held high.

“Whatever.” Rolling his eyes, he turned and left. He’d be out of the city soon anyway. A city filled with strange, strange people.

He stopped at last in front of a two-story pagoda painted bright red, with jade tiles for the roof: Chef Gao’s House of Oysters, at last. Dorian tapped his Interspatial Ring and threw on a thick direwolf fur coat, lined with gold. He made sure to stuff a few extra coins into his pockets so each step was accented by a soft, pleasing jingle. It was important to dress for the occasion. Then he pushed his way through the thick double doors which made the entrance.

The interior was a picture of quiet ostentation. The floors were all deep-brown, rich wooden paneling, a statement in a land where wood was scarcer than silver. Blue bamboo walls leafed up, hemming in a vast dining room and giving it a touch of nature, as though they were sitting in the glades of some lush mountain rather than a roasting desert. The temperature was kept to a perfect chill. It must’ve been the work of artifacts. And it was packed: a huge chattering crowd was spread out among a grid of stone tables. Diners decked out in lavish robes lifted steaming prawns with chopsticks from thick, boiling cauldrons. Steam twined together from a hundred hot pots, blending to a mouthwatering seafood scent which drifted over the place like an early morning mist.

“Greetings,” said the elderly server with a practiced smile. Then he caught sight of Dorian’s swarthy face, and his smile shriveled. But a quick glance at Dorian’s swanky clothes had him looking uncertain. Dorian smirked. Ah, the power of dressing well.

“Table for one, please,” said Dorian.

The server looked torn. “Humblest apologies, sir, but we don’t serve those without the appropriate IT.”

“Will this do?” Dorian flashed his tournament token with a smile. “I’m a traveler—I run my own merchant company, in fact. I had the good fortune of qualifying for your tournament. It’s given me a splendid excuse travel here and sample all the Oasis’s best offerings. Gao’s, I hear, is the best Oyster house in all of Azcan. Why, I said to myself, I simply can’t leave without sampling all your most sumptuous dishes!”

Sumptuous, of course, was code for expensive.

“If you like,” said Dorian, sliding a stack of glimmering Lira across the table. “Have a show of my goodwill.”

The server blinked. Then a wide smile of his own broke out across his face. It seems not everyone in the city’s a bigot—at least, not when you dangle some gold in front of them.

“A guest of the Oasis! What a pleasant surprise,” he said, deftly pocketing the coins. “I do hope you’ve found our city comely. Right this way.”

He led Dorian through tufts of steam to a row of tiny tables, bunched together against a wall. “You’ll be pleased to know, sir, that you’ve arrived at a most apt time. This is one of only two tables remaining.”

“Is it, now?” said Dorian with a grin. “Lucky me.”

“Please, peruse our menu at your leisure. I’ll return shortly.” Bowing, the man left.

Dorian settled into the seat, lounging against its plush back, and let out a happy sigh. He picked up the menu—a little leaflet, hand-written, and started to browse. These were some of his favorite moments in these runs. These lulls in-between the major action points, when he had an excuse to take a breath. To rest and unwind by his lonesome.

Not two minutes later, his server came back.

But not to take his order. A corner of Dorian’s lips twitched. You’re kidding.

It was spy-girl, hunched-in and making a show of looking small and helpless. Un-threatening.

“Oh, my!” she said in a fake, high, sing-songy voice. Her whole face was one bright-red blush. “It’s you again. What a…pleasant coincidence.”

The server had an air of reluctance to him as he gestured to the table beside Dorian’s. “Miss, it must be said that Chef Gao’s does not normally serve mere servants…”

“I serve the Tao clan, sir—we manufacture all the ear-rings and nose-rings in the Oasis, sir!” she protested. She looked at him with doe-eyes. “Please, sir. Will you show our clan some face?”

Still he looked uncertain, but at that moment there was a thud, a crash of stone on wood, and a piercing squeal. He cursed. One of the diners had managed to up-end a whole boiling pot all over himself. It scalded his white suit yellow. “Very well. This once. Do not make a scene!” he scurried off.

Dorian stared at the girl as she sidled into her seat. She stared at the floor.

“…”

“…”

“So,” said Dorian. “I see you’re an oyster enthusiast too.”

“Oh, shut up,” she hissed. Her face snapped up, still red. Her voice had gone breathy and deep again—her natural voice, he guessed. “Fine. You’ve caught me. I’m actually…” She paused. “A serving-girl. I’ve been sent to scout you.”

“Mm. I gathered that. A servant of the Tao clan, or so you say.”

“Yes. That’s right.” Somehow I doubt it. She had a master’s bearing, not a servant’s. Her clothes might’ve been a servant’s, bearing a two-ringed crest (earrings and nose-rings, maybe?), but he wasn’t fooled.

He had a hunch he was speaking to Young Mistress Tao. He’d barely heard the Tao name over the few days he’d been eavesdropping—it was, as far as he could tell, a mildly prosperous mid-sized clan.

So why scout him? He was no threat to them. He supposed he might as well figure it out. It wasn’t like he had anything better to do, sitting and waiting.

“So, Miss Scout,” said Dorian with a lazy grin. “What are your observations?”

“One moment…” She let down her cowl. Out flowed a luscious mane of auburn hair. It was as though the most gorgeous colors of the sunset had been woven together in shimmering locks, drifting around her in a saintly corona. Dorian’s mind went blank.

Not Dorian’s mind. Io’s mind. Saints, was this embarrassing. First Lin, now this? He wrestled back control in an instant, but the damage was done. There was a smug grin on her face, her full, pretty lips curved up just so. Only then did he realize his mouth still hung slightly open. He snapped it shut. This blasted body!

“Ah…That’s better.” She smirked, leaning across the table, and spoke in a low purr.

“I think you, Io Rust, are most impressive. I think you may be just the man my clan needs. Just the man I need.”

Dorian blinked. Then a sardonic grin slid across his face. Imagine that. “Miss, are you asking to be my friend?”

TWENTY

FRIENDS! (II)

“I wish to be more than mere friends, Io Rust,” she purred. “I find you very promising. I saw your work in the guild. I wish to sponsor you in the tournament. I want you as a vassal of my clan—I want you to bear my crest.” She leaned in, her blue-gray eyes gleaming like deep-sea gems. “I want my mark on you,” she said in a coy whisper.

Dorian cocked a brow.

“I see. What can you offer me?”

She smirked. Two dainty hands reached for the thick goggles on her face and wrenched them off in one smooth motion.

Her hair was the lively red-brown of a wildfire, drifting around storm-gray eyes, around a heart-shaped face, around cheeks tinged with a faint blush. When the bards told of nymphs, those proud, gorgeous spirits of nature, they must’ve thought of a creature like her. She ran a finger through her locks as she treated him to a coquettish grin.

But this time, Dorian was ready for it. Her beauty struck him like a wave crashing on stalwart rocks. Saints, that face is a weapon.

“Me,” she breathed, low and sultry. Her head tilted, bathing her face in warm light. “You can have…all of me.”

Dorian blinked, waiting for the rest, but nothing else seemed forthcoming. She settled back, smug against her seat. “That’s it?” Well, she certainly has a very healthy ego.

“…”

“…”

“Excuse me? What do you mean, ‘that’s it’?” said the girl, a perfect little frown on her perfect little mouth.

She seems a bit confused on my priorities. Dorian had an awkward look on his face. She must think I’m a typical lusty young man. A fair assumption, to be sure, but by now base urges simply weren’t very interesting to him.

Admittedly, her offer was most certainly interesting to his body. His heart-rate had ratcheted up instantly. Heat rose to his crotch. A flurry of fantasies pressed in on him—mostly of his sweaty body atop hers in various stages of undress—but Dorian had braced himself for these too. He grimaced, shunting away the thoughts. The whims of this adolescent body had made a fool of him before. Not again.

“The Tao clan, is, as I understand, a small, obscure clan,” said Dorian with a grin. If you want to rope me in you’ll need to cough up more than that. “Pardon me, but your clan barely has enough influence to make an Oyster restaurant give one of its servants face. I’m a Tier-2 artificer and a tournament qualifier to boot!”

He tapped the butt of his chopsticks against the table, grinning. “counteroffer. Twenty thousand Lira and access to all the technique tomes in your vaults.”

It was her turn to stare at him. Then her mouth snapped shut. The tinge of red turned to a full-on indignant flush. “I don’t think you understand, Io Rust,” she said, her voice soft and lilting. “I’m offering you my body.”

She leaned over the table. Her robes sagged down, exposing Dorian to a heart-quickening view down the front of her robes. She leaned close, so close their lips almost touched, then farther, until her lips graced the tips of his ears. An involuntary shiver went down his spine as she spoke in a breathy whisper. “Join me, and I will serve your heart’s desires. You can touch me however you like. You can do whatever you wish to me. My body is yours to take.”

Dorian swallowed. He could see the appeal. She was jaw-droppingly attractive for this plane. As her hand felt up his, as her lips met his ear, his nerve endings felt as though they were on fire. It was dizzying to look at her as she pulled away, a teasing smile playing on her lips. He’d seen her figure down the front of her robes—a tight silk wrap struggled to hold back the ample swells of her chest, all above a trim waist and long, supple legs. Her skin was soft, milky pale, without blemish. One glance at her face was apt to reduce men to helpless blubbering. The original Io would’ve certainly been drooling on his knees by now. He would’ve become her dog then and there.

It was pity, really, that she was dealing with Dorian.

A blast of heat surging up his body, spreading a red-hot vigor all over him, but he was all-too-ready for it. He iced the simmering arousal by sheer force of will.

He nearly snorted. Please, girl. These tricks might work on these desert bumpkins, but you’re leagues out of your depth with me. She’d caught him off-guard with that little hair-flip—but he was braced for her now, and he was cooler than the morning frost. She could’ve stripped naked and started grinding on the table for all he cared. I’ve not only seen women far prettier than you, I’ve been women far prettier than you! When I was Empress Caecilia of the Nilüe plane, bards wrote epic poems about my looks. With two winks and a kiss I’ve made kingdoms go to war! Sorry, girl—on a multiversal scale you’re simply not ‘epic-poem’ material. You’re a stanza at best.

It was amusing to see her face. Still so smug, so poised.

“You’re coming onto me rather strong, Miss Tao,” he laughed.

“And what if I am?” she said. She licked her lips. “Mm. I’ve wanted to taste you the moment I laid eyes on you…”

Dorian had no idea what to make of that little tidbit.

Was this body really that attractive? It was news to him. He seemed to attract more suspicious stares than admiring ones on the street. Maybe it was the exoticism factor for her? Whatever the case, this made for two Azcan ladies of high birth throwing themselves at him in two days—which wasn’t a lot, to be sure, but it was still weird that it happened twice.

How would he handle this? She seemed determined to take a bite out of him. But he wouldn’t let himself be entangled in any sort of relationship. no one would get their hooks in him. It’d be far too much hassle for him—and Heavens knew he had no time for that nonsense.

“Very well,” he said slowly. “I propose a fair compromise. A middle-ground between our offers.”

A flicker of incredulity came across her face. “Huh?”

“Fifteen thousand Lira, and daily hand-holding. Best I can do.”

“…Excuse me?!” She gawked at him.

She was staring at him as though everything in her world fit together like pieces in a puzzle, and he was the only piece out of place. She had the look of a girl who was used to getting everything she ever wanted. Like she only had to bat her eyes and the world would fall at her feet.

She’d batted her eyes at him, and he hadn’t been reduced to a slobbering puddle, and now she seemed very confused.

Then her lip curled up. Her teeth gnashed together. Her demeanor shifted in an instant. Uh-oh. I’ve managed to offend her.

“What the hells is wrong with you?! Am I not enough?” She snapped, jabbing a finger at him. “Do you like men? Is that it, you little ingrate?!”

“Look, miss,” Dorian said gently. “It’s no slight on you. All I mean is that your clan will need to offer me more for my allegiance! My allegiance isn’t sold for cheap.”

She went very, very still, and Dorian instantly realized his mistake. “Did you just call my body cheap?!”

Well. Clearly I won’t be getting anything out of this little chat, he thought glumly. Making friends had never been his strong suit, but even still things had managed to go south faster than usual.

“Ah, I see the misunderstanding—that was not quite my intention—” was all he got out before she started to lay into him in earnest.

“Never in my life have I been met with such—such blatant discourtesy! Who the hells do you think you are, you half-cooked turd, speaking to me like this? Who are you to spurn me? You’re no one!” She’d worked herself into a deep, angry flush. “You’re not even that good-looking! You—you pompous little no-good savage brat! Men a thousand times sexier than you would grovel to kiss my hand!”

He had half a mind to try to salvage this conversation by claiming that he did, in fact, like men—that might assuage her pride. Hells, he had good evidence! Just this morning he’d been sucking away on a sweaty man’s toes.

The other half of him had ceased caring. He hadn’t lied, in any case. He’d stated his terms, but this girl was more interested in her little ego-trip, and things didn’t work out. It happened that way sometimes. Oh, well. At least he hadn’t missed out on any great gains or offended anyone important. Let the Young Mistress from the little no-name clan throw her tantrum. He tuned her out. Watching her teeth gnash and her face grow progressively redder was great entertainment on its own.

Her little outburst was starting to attract some attention. A few heads were swiveling to glance over at them. She quickly flipped her cowl back up and slapped on those thick-rimmed goggles, making sure to glare balefully at him all the while. “Oh, you’ll regret this, Io Rust,” she growled. “You’ll regret this!”

Dorian rolled his eyes.

“Is everything all right?” The old waiter had returned. Young Mistress Tao shot one last glare at him, swaddled herself in her robes, and turned away from them both.

“Splendid,” said Dorian with a wry smile. “I’m ready to order, actually! The Three-King oyster soup, please, with seaweed dressing. Oh, and ten of your largest giant mollusks, please—” At his raised eyebrow, “yes, ten, you heard me right—it’s for my sister…”

* * *

Twenty minutes later, the room was steaming, Dorian’s newly arrived oyster soup was steaming, and Young Mistress Tao was also still steaming. She hadn’t ordered anything. Instead, she was content to simply glower at him, muttering under her breath.

For his part, Dorian was quite happy to ignore her. The soup was a lovely mix of tangy and salty. The silky meat melted on his tongue, too. And the rumors were right. As he ate, he did feel a gush of qi curling into his veins. It would serve him well for his breakthrough tonight.

Halfway through the meal, Dorian felt he should say something. “Miss Tao. We couldn’t come to a deal, but there’s no reason for any animosity between us. I was careless with my wording. For that I apologize. You are a stunning young lady, and I mean no disrespect. No harsh feelings?”

“Hmph. Took you long enough.” She’d leaned back in her chair, arms crossed, chin up, looking down at him over the bridge of her nose. “But I do not accept your piss-poor try at an apology. I have a feeling we’ll meet again very soon, Io Rust, in very different circumstances. You may see me in an entirely different light, shall we say. And you’ll be very sorry then, I promise you!”

Dorian sighed. He supposed he should at least try not to cultivate another enemy.

“Is there nothing I can do to make it up to you?”

“None!” …Well, I tried.

He shot her an amused glance. “Miss, are you going to stew at me silently for the rest of my meal?”

“Yes. And there is not a thing you can do about it!”

“Well, there is a thing the waiter can do about it…” he muttered under his breath. Indeed the man had been walking by, shooting irked glances at her each time she refused to order. He looked a hair’s breadth of patience away from booting her out. Or maybe he figured it wasn’t worth the hassle.

Just then, the door slammed open. Slammed. Two wooden slaps cracked flat against the bamboo walls.

In strolled two huge, beefy men in black-and-silver robes—not a servant’s, but not a noble’s either. Bodyguards, perhaps? Between them came a thin, pale, weak-looking waif of a boy with his hair tied back in a ponytail. His robes had a fine silver sheen, embroidered with gold emblems and lined with white fur. He reminded Dorian a bit of Hento, but even Hento had had some muscle. This fellow was even slighter of frame. Still, he carried himself as though he had the stature of a giant.

Heads turned at his arrival. The crowd was enveloped in whispers.

“It’s Young Master Heilong!”

“No way…”

“That boy? Truly?”

“Surely not. How could a dragon father beget a wyrm son?”

“It’s him, it’s really him!”

Heilong, heilong…ah, yes. It was a name Dorian had heard while eavesdropping on the street. General Heilong, leader of the Azcan army in its campaigns against the Ugoc in the north. The Heilong family had long been the bulwark of the Oasis’s defenses, producing its finest tacticians, fighters, and war heroes. From what Dorian could glean, General Heilong was still out in the field, doing battle against the advancing Ugoc hordes. This family must be one of the pillars of the Oasis. Interesting.

Dorian strained his ears, focusing in on the old waiter. The man had a constipated look on his face as he swept his eyes across the restaurant. Then he turned back to Young Master Heilong with a most apologetic hunch of his shoulders. “My deepest apologies, sir,” Dorian heard him say. The man was trembling. “Unfortunately, the restaurant is full—I must ask that you wait a scant few minutes—”

“Wait? You’re asking me, Tan Heilong, to wait?! How dare you!” The young master’s shrill screech was audible over the din. “Do you know who my father is?!”

The old waiter folded on the spot. “Of course, sir! Of course! I was wrong! This—this old Shen has eyes but cannot see the depths of the sinkhole!” he wailed. “Right this way, sir, right this way! I am certain one of our guests can be convinced to cede their spot…”

“That’s more like it,” harrumphed the young master. His bodyguards remained by the doors, hands clasped, and frowning menacingly, as the waiter led Young Master Heilong through the grid of tables.

Dorian paused, a ladle of soup halfway to his mouth.

…He’s coming over here, isn’t he.

He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I’ve been in this restaurant not half an hour and I’ve made one new arch-nemesis, with another on the way! Can’t I enjoy some gods-damned oyster soup in peace?

TWENTY-ONE

FRIENDS! (III)

Sure enough, the old waiter stopped right between Dorian’s and Young Mistress Tao’s tables. He frowned as he jerked a thumb at Mistress Tao.

“Up, girl!” Snapped the waiter. “Young Master Heilong demands your seat.”

Tao, for her part, hunched in, making herself seem small. She draped the cowl so far over her head it shaded her eyes. “P-please don’t kick me out, mister,” she softly. Her voice had gone up an octave again. She sounded like a little girl on the verge of tears. “I’m sorry! I’m ready to order now…”

“Erm…” Young Master Heilong suddenly seemed self-conscious. He scratched at his thin neck, shuffling his feet. Murmurs of disapproval bubbled up around them.

The waiter yanked at her robe, and she let out a soft, pained cry. “Up, I said!”

“Ahm—perhaps there’s no need for that, waiter…” Young Master Heilong said awkwardly. It looked bad to drag off a girl, no matter who he was—especially if said girl was doing her very best to seem all cute and aggrieved.

“Cease your dallying, girl! Come! Up, up!” Yelled the waiter, giving her another hard yank, and she squealed like a hurt baby bird. A most awkward, strange air had filled the room. no one knew quite what to do.

The discontented murmurs were spreading. Diners shook their heads, scowling at him.

“What an ass!”

“You don’t treat a lady like that…”

“Let her enjoy her meal, like the rest of us!”

“What villainous behavior—from a so-called defender of Azcan, no less!”

Young Master Heilong could feel it, too. He grabbed at arms and stared at the floor, reddening.

“If you must remove the girl, hurry it up!” he hissed to his waiter under his breath.

“Please don’t do this, sir,” whispered Young Mistress Tao to the waiter, dewy-eyed.

“You ought to know your place, girl!” Snapped the waiter, hard-faced and jerking at her arm. “Move!”

Dorian was struck by a sudden inspiration. He brightened. The tides were all shifting in one direction. The diners were against it. The waiter seemed reluctant. Even the young master looked torn, especially under the weight of all those disapproving eyes. Mistress Tao had made herself a perfect damsel in distress, in need of a savior.

And here’s where I come in. Here’s my chance to salvage something out of this disastrous situation I’ve put myself in! He grinned. Time to turn a potential enemy to a friend.

As though on cue, Young Mistress Tao, turned two watery, beseeching eyes on Dorian. “Please, Io Rust…you’ll help me, won’t you?” she said, her lips trembling, and Dorian knew exactly what to do.

Young Master Heilong took him with narrowed, suspicious eyes as Dorian stood up, a frown of righteous indignation on his face. Dorian opened his mouth.

“Didn’t you hear the man?” he snapped. Then he walked over to Mistress Tao and wrapped her in a bear-hug. She hardly had time to yelp before he yanked her unceremoniously out of her seat. “Out you go, serving-girl!”

The crowd looked on in horror as he whirled around, took three steps, deposited her, and gave her a hearty punt in the back for good measure. “Good-bye!”

Then Dorian turned back to a befuddled Young Master Heilong. “I’m so sorry for that little kerfuffle. Please, sit,” he said, smiling and gesturing to the now-vacant seat. “Might I have the pleasure of making your acquaintance?”

“Ah—yes!” said the young mMaster, blinking at him. “Indeed you may! “ He sidled into the seat. “My, ah, sincere thanks for the assistance there,” he whispered.

Dorian winked. “Of course. You know how these women get.”

“Indeed I do,” chuckled the young master. “This one hails from the great Heilong Family. My good name is Tan Heilong. What is yours?”

“A most auspicious name,” Dorian grinned. “Call me Io Rust. We’ll be good friends, I can sense it already.”

Young Mistress Tao, meanwhile, was staring at both of them with her jaw wide open. Her reddish hair swirled around her as she trembled. She looked on the verge of eruption.

“IO RUST!!” she cried, trembling, her hands bunched to fists. She was flushed bright-red. “Y-Y-YOU SHAMELESS BRAT! YOU—YOU INCORRIGIBLE VILLAIN!! BULLY! FIEND! This isn’t over, mark my damned words!” Then she shook her fist at him, turned on her heel, and stomped off.

That little outburst didn’t earn him any favor from the crowd. If looks were daggers he would’ve been stabbed a hundred times over. But those glares, which had once been fixed on Heilong, had shifted to Dorian. Dorian had been extra-rough with the girl for this very reason. I’ll be your scapegoat of public opinion, my tiny soon-to-be friend. The young master looked grateful for it, if a little sheepish.

“Well, nothing to be done for it, old chap, nothing! They can rabble-rouse at you all they like, but you did well in my estimation! That is simply how it is with these low-born folk! They must be handled with a stern hand,” drawled Heilong, sniffing. It hadn’t seemed to register to him that Dorian, too, was low-born. Dorian smiled anyway.

“My father always used to say—’the strong do what they please, the weak bear what they must.’”

“Ha! I like that.”

“Mm. Say, is that Sphinx-wool on your coat I see?”

“You’ve got a keen eye—most keen! It is indeed. And is that direwolf-fur on yours?”

Dorian nodded, laughing “Indeed it is. I should be the one complimenting your eye, sir.”

“Heh!” heilong preened. “I am an aficionado of fine clothes, it must be said…”

So fashion is his hobby? Let’s set some bait.

Dorian cleared his throat. “That is plainly obvious. Might I say, sir, Sphinx is a fine choice for a garment! I should know. Before I came here, I was one of the most prosperous textile traders in the Izod Desert. I’ve sampled garments from Nazli to the Yutan Plateau. That coating style is very much in vogue among the Nazli aristocracy…”

“Ooh! Truly?” Heilong perked up. “Do tell…”

As it turned out, Young Master Heilong wasn’t domineering at all, as he’d seemed at first—that was a front, like a peacock puffing out its feathers. With his small stature, he needed such displays for folk to take him seriously. The man who had a lively talk with Dorian was condescending, and pompous, and most certainly an ass, but he was by and large tolerable. He was fun-loving, liked to laugh, and talked with breezy ease. He was little more than an airhead with a high-pitched trilling giggle who had a penchant for pretty clothes.

Soon Dorian had the young master slapping his knees in laughter as they each sipped at their soups. “Ha! The Queen truly said that about the blouse? My, you’re full of the most intriguing tales!”

“What can I say?” Dorian shrugged. “I’m very well-traveled, sir. And her Royal Highness’s wardrobe isn’t the only one I’ve had the pleasure of seeing. You should see the the splendors of the Gaosu Oasis. There, even the servants are draped in the finest silver scarves.”

Heilong stared, transfixed. “In faith?”

I’ve got him on the line, it seems. Time to reel him in…Dorian wrinkled his nose. “Of course. Between you and I, these Azcan folks—most of them simply can’t compare. They’re uncultured swine! Their wardrobes are wastebaskets by comparison.”

“Really, now?” said Heilong smugly as he tossed back his wispy ponytail. “That sounds like a challenge.”

“Not in the slightest, sir,” laughed Dorian.

“Hum. Io, Io…” Heilong leaned in conspiratorially. “How would you like to pay a visit to the Heilong Family Manor on the morrow? I’d be delighted to have you.” His eyes twinkled. “Perhaps you can take a gander at my wardrobe. You’ll tell me then if it’s up to snuff.”

“Oh!” Dorian affected a look of shock. “I fear I’m not worthy of such an honor, sir—”

“Nonsense!” heilong bristled. “I will personally receive you and vouch for you. Oh, and do bring a few of your favorite exotic drapes with you! We’ll have a grand old time.”

Still Dorian feigned uncertainty. Over-eagerness arouses suspicion, but one can never seem to under-eager.

“I don’t know, sir. If you insist…”

“Stop your willying about! Of course I insist.”

Dorian broke into a smile. “Then I’ll be delighted to join you.”

“Hurrah!”

The waiter chose an apt time to arrive with the wine-bottles. Soon he and Heilong were toasting each other. “To good taste!”

The pretense is that we’re there to assess his wardrobe—but I’ll see if I can’t gain access to their technique library while I’m there.

The Heilong family was the strongest Martial Family in all the Oasis. Their technique libraries were bound to be the most robust there was. If Dorian could break through to Profound tonight, then upgrade his Yama’s Chains by adding aspects of the Oasis’ finest grappling techniques tomorrow…He licked his lips. The future was looking bright.

At the end of his lunch, Dorian held out a hand. “It’s been a pleasure, Young Master Heilong.”

“Please, my savage friend!” Laughed the young master, shaking it with a silly grin. “Call me Tan.”

Maybe this lunch was worth it after all.

It was nice to have a friend.

* * *

Eudora Azcan fumed all the way back to the Governor’s Palace. She’d snuck out to play with Lin’s new toy. He was supposed to go goggle-eyed at her. He was supposed to be infatuated with her. He was certainly supposed to stand up for her when that pint-sized moron Heilong tried bullying her! By now she’d expected to be smothering the boy in kisses in some back-alley—instead he’d kicked her out, shoved her away, no less! Eudora had never been so embarrassed in her entire life. She could scarcely remember when last she’d been this furious.

What the hells was that?!

She more she thought about it, the redder she got.

There were storm clouds gathering about her head by the time she stomped back to the Palace gates.

“CURSE YOU, IO RUST! A THOUSAND CURSES ON YOUR FAMILY NAME!”

The guards looked at each other knowingly, then made sure to give her a wide berth as she barreled on through.

Already, a plan was cooking in her pretty head.

Io Rust was a tournament qualifier, wasn’t he? She snarled. As it happened, so was she. And one of her father’s closest aides was in charge of matchmaking for the tournament.

It wouldn’t be too out-of-place for one of the top seeds to be matched with some random Outskirts nobody in the first few rounds, would it? Nobody would suspect a thing.

Oh, the tournament can’t come fast enough! She was so pent-up she was quivering all over. She was going to do unspeakable things to that boy…

TWENTY-TWO

MISTER POPULAR (I)

Dorian felt eyes on him the moment he arrived at the guild.

It was subtle. A prickling in the back of his mind, easily overlooked if you didn’t know any better. Dorian recognized it as the work of a scrying-glass. This was qi residue. I’m being watched. But by whom?

It was very likely one of the guild’s higher-ups—perhaps a Grand Elder or a Vice-President. Scrying-glasses were rarities, most often used by Oasis authorities to monitor their territories. Eh. I’ll do what I’ve planned regardless. If the chance arises, maybe I’ll even show off a little. Do some tricks for them. The surveillance didn’t bother him. By now, he was used to prying eyes trailing him wherever he went in this city.

He was stopped at the entrance by a surly-looking guard. “Halt! This guild does not admit Outsiders!”

“I’m an artificer, actually,” said Dorian, putting on his most reassuring smile. He pulled out his Tier-2 badge. The guard didn’t so much as glance at it.

“Ha! Right. And I’m the Oasis Lady.”

Then the other guard pulled him aside, muttering something.

Dorian caught a few flecks of the conversation. “—you sure? Really?”

Some more back-and-forth. The two men exchanged glances.

“—Martial Elder Kal—”

“—can’t be—”

“Must we let him in?”

Finally the surly guard returned, looking even surlier. “You may enter. But I don’t want any trouble from you, you hear?”

Dorian rolled his eyes. “Wouldn’t dream of it.” I have a godsdamned artificer’s badge, and I’m still being brow-beaten by the door guards? Goodness me.

Lin wasn’t at the guild, as it turned out. Neither was Kal. All the guild bigwigs had gone off to some Zhang family ball—so said receptionist Tao, looking none-too-happy that Dorian had showed up again. The guild was mostly deserted. A handful of artificers and servants shuffled to and fro, but that was that. A few eyes trailed him—bitter, narrowed eyes. He caught an artificer glaring at him, but the man quickly scurried off. Angry mutters sputtered up around the lobby.

Dorian was amused by it all. My reputation precedes me, apparently.

Martial Elder Kal had given his project priority status, a fact receptionist Tao also looked none-too-happy about. The receptionist gave him a beady-eyed squint. “The Vordor which flies highest falls farthest, as they say…” he muttered under his breath.

Then Tao took him to a workshop, where Dorian spent a lovely half an hour sweeping through each of the artificer volumes on the shelf—Volumes 5 through 8, in order—imbibing, memorizing, and recycling the contents in his mind. It feels like cheating, applying my comprehension to such trivialities. All the knowledge he’d browsed today amounted to a drop of water in his sea of knowledge. Still, by the time he closed the last Volume, he had a higher mastery over Artificing than all but a handful in the guild. He breathed out, smiling, feeling the weight of his new skills in his mind.

Maybe the next time I visit, I’ll clear a few more artificer Tiers. Today was set aside for another task—finalizing the designs of his big moneymaker, the Wizard’s Sticks. His futures in Artificing and Alchemy were hinged on this. It was imperative he got it right.

All the while he still felt that scrying-glass gaze on him. Someone’s very interested in me, clearly…

He devoted the next few splendid hours to tinkering with the blueprints to the Stick. It was a nicely productive afternoon. He carved out a few sample Wizard’s Sticks before he settled on a good design, then clanged out a dozen-odd runes.

No angry uncles or jealous young masters or clingy heirs to deal with. He operated in quiet efficiency, getting his work done with little fuss. There was only that scrying-glass gaze watching over him, but he didn’t mind it a whit. All in all, it was a relaxing, pleasant time. Ahh…I could get used to this.

By the end of his session, he’d finished carving a sizable stock of his newfangled Wizard’s Sticks, as well as an assortment of spell-runes. He’d fitted them to sticks and had a pleasant time testing them out. Have a little showcase, mysterious overseer! He made spells which sent gusts of jagged wind scything through the air, spells which bloomed bonfires at a command, spells which gushed freshwater from the tip of the staff, spells which lightened the body, spells which made the whole of the Wizard’s Stick glow like a pillar of sunlight…He licked his lips. The intensity of the qi-residue heightened in the back of his mind. Now, he’d really gotten their attention, it seemed.

The use-cases for these spells were legion. Which meant his potential customer-base was nearly everyone in the Oasis. He was salivating just thinking about it.

Dorian had even gotten a basic bombardment spell to work. He’d set up an impromptu firing range of stone chairs and blasted them to scorched slabs. He suspected the Azcan military would be one of his most trusty clients. Again he felt the Scrying-glass trained on him intensely, and he grinned.

Once all was tested, done, and dandy, he strolled back to the receptionist. Dorian thought about giving a little good-bye wave to the air—a farewell to his scrying-glass observer. I’m off. Show’s done, my mysterious friend. Shoo!

As it turned out, he was wrong. The show was very much just starting.

The first indication of the coming trouble was the spurts of bitter muttering which trailed him as he strode down the hall. As he passed by, a servant squinted at him. An artificer wrinkled his nose at him. Another artificer, a runt of a man with long wisps of gray hair, pointed a trembling finger at the pin on Dorian’s chest.

“Stop there!” Squealed the man. “That is our badge, savage! Earned through years of grueling work! It’s not for the likes of you!”

He hobbled up to Dorian, trying to affect a menacing look, but his head only went up to Dorian’s chest. It was rather hard to take the man seriously. “How dare you bear it on your chest! You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Take it off, take it off! Off, I said!”

The wizened man made a feeble, flailing grab for it. Dorian laughed aloud at the attempt. It took Dorian the barest effort to shove the man off. The man fell on his ass with a strangled cry.

“Where are your manners, old man?” Tutted Dorian as strolled by. “Next time ask nicely, and I might consider it.”

It seemed wherever he went in these halls, he was embroiled in simmering resentment. He took it all in stride. He was abrasive. He broke things. He offended others. It was all the necessary byproduct of a rapid rise in status. He didn’t read too much into it.

What he didn’t expect was the restless crowd which awaited him in the lobby. A few servants stood at the crowd’s edge, but the main body was composed of men and women in artificer’s robes. Most had Tier-1 badges pinned to their chests, but a few had the embossed silver badges of the Tier-2 artificers. They numbered a little over two dozen. Oh, my.

As soon as Dorian stepped into the lobby, there was a rush of sharp voices.

“There he is!”

“The savage the Martial Elder let in? Where?”

“What was the Elder thinking, sullying the guild’s good name like this?!”

“It’s true, it’s true—that dirty creature wears our Tier-2 badge!”

“Urk! What a disgrace…”

Soon all of them were frowning at him with everything from mild disgust to righteous indignation. Folded arms and scowls a-plenty. A few radiated naked hostility.

Really, now? You’ve all come out just for me? Dorian’s lips twitched. Aww. You shouldn’t have.

At their head was receptionist Tao. His arms were crossed, his face bent in an ugly sneer. It seems my peaceful afternoon is coming to a sordid end…

Ignoring this strange little reception, Dorian he addressed Tao with an easy smile. “The blueprints for the runes and Wizard-sticks are ready and tested. Inform Martial Elder Kal of the matter. Tell him I’ll return shortly. I’d like to begin production as soon as possible.”

Dark murmurs from the crowd. A wave of sneers rippled through them.

“I will relay your message,” drawled receptionist Tao in his shrill squawk. He pushed up on his glasses. “I wish you the best of luck. It must be said—I fear your little fancy may not be taken on by this guild. Many an upstart artificer has an idea, but very few make it into production. Even fewer into mass-production. The guild’s resources are limited and in great demand. They are not given to any old project.”

Mutterings of approval from behind him.

“I appreciate your concern,” said Dorian, “But you’ll soon realize I’m not any old artificer. I suspect the guild will be quite pleased with my offering.”

At his words, a chorus of heated voices rang out.

“Impudent!”

“How brazen!”

A tall, wrinkly artificer piped up, a contemptuous frown on his blocky face. “You may not be wise to our ways, savage, but you’ll soon learn! I’ve been a Tier-2 artificer for three years, and I’ve not had one design approved for production. And you expect the guild to heed your whims?”

“If you think you’re hot steel now, you’ve got a nasty quenching coming!” Crowed an artificer by his side.

“The brat’s been here one day, and he thinks he’s the reincarnation of Jani Zhang!”

“Makes me want to smash him down a few godsdamned notches…” That last one came from a one-eyed artificer with gritted teeth and two very beefy forearms.

Admittedly, this sort of reception was two orders of magnitude more intense than what Dorian had expected. He’d thought some side-eye and catty comments would be the end of it. A whole crowd, just for little ol’ him? Really?

This one’s on me. It’s my own silly fault, underestimating the power of human bigotry. The hoity-toity Artificer’s Guild letting in an Outsider for the first time in its history was bound to cause a bit of a kerfuffle.

It seemed Dorian’s existence in the guild was not only an insult but also a threat to them. He could guess the anxieties rippling through the crowd. They were laid out plainly on the artificers’ faces. There was a fidgety restlessness to all of them. ‘What if he steals our resources? What if he tarnishes our honor? What if he’s the first of many—what if the guild is flooded with savages?! Oh, the horror!’ That sort of thing. Very banal stuff. The crowd seemed halfway to descending into a lynch mob. A few of these men were nearly frothing at the mouth.

They wouldn’t actually attack me, would they? Dorian stilled. It would be a most opportune time, with the Martial Elder gone and most of the guild’s brass missing. And there were more than twenty of them, nearly all of higher cultivation than him. They did seem fairly riled up. A few were Peak Profound…um. Hmm. This…could be an issue.

A vein stood out on Receptionist Tao’s temple. A slight sneer formed on his wizened nose. “The hypothetical value of your ‘Stick’ aside, as you can see, your presence is not exactly cherished by most of our guild. Especially not the Elders. Grand Elder Lu spent the evening berating the Martial Elder for letting a savage pass the artificer test.”

“Well, I’m sorry to hear that.”

Fat drops of spittle flew from Tao’s mouth as he prattled on. “Do you truly believe a creature of your bearing belongs in a guild of this caliber? Is the Honorable Guild of artificers a joke to you?”

A bushy-bearded Tier-2 artificer snarled at him. “If you were sorry, boy, you’d renounce that badge on the spot! It took me twelve long years to earn it, I’ll have you know! You dare lay claim to it after a mere afternoon?!”

Dorian sighed. Must I keep enduring these banal idiots? He supposed fighting wasn’t a serious option. Twenty-on-one was pretty long odds, even for him. Plus, whether I like it or not, I miiiiiight need these people to not despise me. And not just so they don’t beat me up. They are, after all, the ones who will be producing my Sticks for me…

“Is there truly a need for this animosity?” Dorian asked dryly. “I hold no ill will toward any of you. I’m a guild member, just as you are.”

Tao laughed, which sounded like the squeak of a poorly oiled hinge. “Please. I’ve served this guild faithfully for a decade, boy!” With all these disgruntled artificers behind him, he had the confidence to bluster twice as loud. “You’ve blundered in here for less than a day. You think you’re better than me simply because you’ve tricked the Martial Elder into passing you? Comedy! Comedy, I say!”

He pointed a severe finger at Dorian.

“You may dress like one of us. You may wear the guild’s badge. But you will never be one of us!”

“Hear, hear!”

“Exactly right!”

“Fuck off! Renounce that badge! Crawl back to whichever wyrm-hive spawned you!”

Yes, yes. Dorian snorted. ‘Go back to where you came from!’ It’s always the same five lines spewed over and over.

A burly Tier-1 artificer pounded his fists together as he glared. “You’ll leave this guild and never return, if you know what’s good for you.”

Yet another tried-and-true line. Though I suppose it’s hard to be original when you’re mad and frightened.

“Go roll in the mud, you dirt-skinned wyrm!”

Oh, my. That one was particularly sad.

It was plain that Dorian was dealing with not only an angry mob, but also a very uncreative angry mob, which was his least favorite sort of angry mob. Dorian wasn’t all that opposed to being beaten up. Heavens knew he’d taken his share of lickings before, sometimes to the death. But the most irritating beatings came from these trite types. All they’d do was punch punch punch splatter dead. Very boring. The creative bigots, on the other hand, broke out the tar and feathers or found imaginative ways to shove very hot objects into very small holes. That, at least, was an interesting way to go out.

So Dorian knew then he couldn’t allow himself to be taken—not when the prospect of such a dull demise loomed before him. He doubted he could run very far, either—not when he was nearly surrounded already.

He supposed he’d have to talk his way out of this mess.

Dorian cocked his head. Curiously, the qi-residue had also gotten to its most intense. He suspected there was now more than one gaze trained on him through the scrying-glass.

Oh, look. It’s the adult supervision again. Somehow he doubted this was the cavalry arriving, so to speak. There was no Grand Elder coming to burst through the double doors, screaming, “Unhand him, you fiends!” he got the feeling whoever was watching him was content to leave him to his fate. He was alone.

What he did next would not only determine whether he left here with all his limbs intact. It’d also determine the impression he made on this mysterious guild higher-up.

Handle this well, and it might go a long way to allaying his apparent unpopularity with the guild—both its members and its leaders. If whoever was monitoring him was sufficiently impressed, who knew? His Wizard-Sticks might be fast-tracked to production.

Handle this poorly, and his body and reputation would both take quite the beating.

My task is the small matter of convincing a crowd of frothing bigots on the verge of assaulting me to not only not do that, but also to reverse course entirely, accept me, and support my cause…

When he first arrived today, Dorian figured he’d do some tricks to impress this mysterious guild higher-up.

As he surveyed the sea of angry, snarling faces, he realized this would need to be quite the trick indeed.

TWENTY-THREE

MISTER POPULAR (II)

“So?” Receptionist Tao sniffed. “What will it be?”

Dorian took a shallow breath. This little stunt might be risky…

His first move had to be off-balancing the mob. They were so hardened-up in rage no words had a hope of getting across to them. He had to jerk them out of it. Phase 1: sow a seed—just a teensy little seed—of uncertainty.

So he thrust out his chest, held up his chin, and curved his lips into a severe frown. His demeanor shifted in an instant, as though his vast reserves of patience had finally worn thin. One of his eyes twitched, as though he was offended—offended!—that these fools dared accost him.

“Firstly, Receptionist, remember who it is you are speaking to,” Dorian snapped. He stepped forward, unleashing his aura to its fullest.

His blood sang a primordial melody in his veins, coming suddenly and ferociously alive. Shadows snaked down the room, radiating off him like rays off a black sun. His bloodline loomed like a mountain of gloom, crushing in on the crowd. The men suddenly found it hard to breathe. More than a few faces paled. It was an instinctual thing, a heart-skipping, dry-mouthed feeling. A feeling of smallness, like they stood in the palm of some unfathomably vast, ancient creature.

“Urk!” The receptionist took a step back, swallowing. A dozen mouths gasped at once.

Dorian smirked. It was a nice quick-and-dirty way to gut-check blabbermouths, but in the end it was still a cheap tactic—reliant on the element of surprise. It was merely momentary. Already he could see the resolve of the crowd re-forming, could see the shock of the bloodline wearing off. Soon they’d remember that spooky bloodline or not, they still had the numbers to beat the shit out of him.

Dorian had to seize momentum before they could reclaim it.

“What’s the meaning of this, savage?!” The burly Tier-1 artificer said, gritting his teeth. His face was still pallid. “This is a threat!”

“Not at all. I’m simply reminding you who I am.”

He turned to each man, looking them square in the eye.

“I am Io Rust, tournament competitor, a guest of this Oasis,” said Dorian slowly. “I am also a Tier-2 artificer of this guild, approved by the Martial Elder Kal himself. I do not need your approval. It is not your place to give me your approval. I wish for us to get along, true. But if you think this gives you license to tread over me, you are sorely mistaken.”

First I must set a base-line. I must prove I’m no pushover. I must force them to take me seriously.

There was always the solid chance they’d be so spooked they charged at him—in which case he was royally screwed—but no such attack seemed forthcoming. Phew!

The crowd was still reeling. He’d put them on the backfoot. He’d shocked them out of their mindless anger and given them pause for just a moment. Hopefully, that moment gave him just enough wiggle room to squeeze through their glut of rage and fear.

Time for phase two. Time to wiggle for all I’m worth.

“I must admit, though, some of your concerns ring true.” Dorian relaxed his frown into a wan smile and spread his hands spread his hands, shrugging. The pressure vanished. A plethora of mouths gulped for air.

“I’m an upstart who’s accomplished nothing—I’ve had no experience, no accolades, no training, no lineage. I’m a nobody! In one afternoon, I’ve vaulted over hundreds of would-be artificers of high breeding with long years of grueling training. How’s that fair? In your position, I’d be furious too!”

Just as the crowd was getting its fire back, he hit them with this little discombobulation. Frowning faces dotted their ranks. artificers glanced at each other. ‘Is he…agreeing with us?’ Their faces read, perplexed. ‘What’s his game?’

Excellent. Dorian grinned. They’re confused! Confusion I can work with much better than rage. He kept going.

“And I’m an Outsider, too. The collective knowledge of my people wouldn’t fill a page of the Compendium of Artificing! How could such a primitive people spawn any artificer of worth? Why should I deserve this badge? It’s madness!”

“That’s p-precisely right,” gulped Tao, still pale. He looked like all his bones had softened to mush. Some men fold under pressure…

…but others harden. “So you do know your place, savage!” Roared a bearded Tier-2 Aritificer. “Your bloodline doesn’t scare me. Your words don’t either. I don’t care what the Martial Elders says—you’re no true artificer!”

A smattering of voices echoed him, but with much less verve than a minute prior. It seemed most of them weren’t sure what to make of him. Progress!

“I respect your feeling. It’s only natural,” said Dorian, nodding smoothly. “My entrance into the guild was very unusual, after all. But why?” He paused.

“For the simple reason that I am a once-in-a-generation genius. Your standards of an artificer’s qualifications simply don’t apply to me.”

A flurry of cries rose at that. He raised a hand to forestall the crowd’s outbursts. “I know, I know—what an extraordinary claim! What arrogance! Why should you believe me? An extraordinary claim demands extraordinary evidence, and as of yet, none of you have seen any.”

He felt the qi-residue drift over him again. Well, everyone except Kal and you, my mystery observer.

“So, here. Let me give you some. These are fresh off the anvil—I’ve forged them earlier this afternoon…”

Dorian tapped his Interspatial Ring, and out clattered more than two dozen of his Wizard Stick prototypes—one for each of the small crowd—and a scattering of rune-stones. Each Stick was as a lovely staff, a sinewy pole of sleek, pearly silver etched with esoteric runes. Half of the battle in designing the artifact was in its aesthetics. Who’d wish to use a Stick which looked like misshapen debris?

Gasps rang out among the crowd as they took in the Sticks. They were gorgeous objects, gleaming ember-orange in the afternoon light, arresting the eye. These Sticks made up two-thirds of his stock, but Dorian didn’t mind. If this went as he thought, this might be a most lucrative investment in my reputation.

Dorian gingerly picked one up and treated the crowd to a showman’s smile. “You, my friends, are the first to see new-and-improved Wizard’s Sticks! I finalized the blueprints today, in fact. Here’s the third Rune—flamethrower.”

Flame roared out from the tip of the Stick in a seething inferno, licking the air in a furious white-red, blasting the crowd in gusts of heat. He saw its fervent, scalding red light reflected the crowd’s wide eyes.

Then he picked up another rune and fitted it to the Stick. “Rune four—thunderstorm.”

Black clouds rushed out from the tip of the Stick. There came the deep-throated gurgle of Thunder. White, shivering trees of blinding lightning carved the air, cascading the room in sparks which tingled as they brushed against the skin.

Two dozen slack faces stared up at him.

“Each rune stores a different spell,” explained Dorian. He spread his arms, still smiling.

“My gift to each of you, gentlemen! Try them. Keep them, if you like. They’re yours. Spread them around for others in the guild who need proof, if you wish—it’s up to you. You be the judge of their worth. You judge whether I deserve my badge or not.”

“Heavens…” whispered the bearded artificer. He looked like a caveman witnessing the invention of fire.

“D-do my eyes deceive me?”

“Lightning! That—that stick spat lightning!”

“Impossible!”

“Trickery!” cried a little old Tier-1 artificer. “Demon-work!”

Dorian cleared his throat. “I’m sure you can throw a hundred such accusations at me. For instance, I could’ve hid men in the rafters to perform these techniques. Perhaps I employed some slight-of-hand, and they haven’t come from the Sticks at all. These would be valid critiques—but remember, I am leaving these Sticks to you. You can study them all you wish. I need no tricks. My work speaks for itself. Tell any in the guild who doubt my work that they only need to come to me. I am more than happy to provide them a sample.”

Stunned silence.

Dorian paused, a finger on his lip. “Am I a fraud? A peddler of nonsense? The Martial Elder vouched for me because he saw me invent and forge the Wizard’s Stick with his own eyes. Does the infamously no-nonsense Martial Elder Kal sound like a man who stomachs wyrmshit? Or rather…am I just that good?”

They all seemed to be at a loss for words. Dorian shrugged. “You decide. Please, enjoy my offerings! Dissect them. Test them at your leisure. If any of you still have doubts, I should be more than happy to expound on my insights during my next visit to the guild. As it is, the dusk is fast arriving. I must be gone. Good day, my fellow artificers!”

Then Dorian bowed to the gobsmacked crowd and strolled out the door.

There was a few terse seconds of silence. Then the lobby exploded in shouts and cries.

Chuckling, Dorian went on his merry way. A few things could happen from here.

It was possible this crowd chucked out the Sticks on sight.

It was much more likely that they tried them out and saw the wonders they brought. Dorian might as well have brought a steam engine to a society which had just discovered the wheel. It was an innovation which was impossible to deny, no matter their antipathies toward him.

With this, I’m not simply distributing a few Sticks to a small crowd. I’m circulating my inventions for the rest of the guild to see. And these fine folk will help me spread the good news.

If he was lucky, a few might even convert to ardent supporters, evangelists, even. It was strange how easy hate could turn to love in some men. The effect this little unveiling had on the guild remained to be seen, but Dorian was optimistic. The power of word of mouth could not be underestimated.

Reputation-building was a tricky business, but this was a good first step. He had no illusions that this little display would solve his unpopularity issue for good. He’d still need some grand demonstrations to really prove himself. Perhaps the next time he came, he’d give a public lecture on Artificing to prove his knowledge further—and advance this plane’s shitty Artificing a few centuries in the process. Or maybe he could challenge and outdo one of the guild’s top artificers to cement his credibility. He’d figure it out later.

For now, nobody chased after him as he left. no one was calling for his scalp. Plus, he got some free publicity for his Wizard’s Sticks! All in all, he counted today as an unequivocal win. He was humming as he traipsed his way home.

The eye of the scrying-glass vanished at last.

* * *

Somewhere miles away, the view from a scrying-glass faded. The glass was reflective again, and in its dark surface there was a middle-aged lady in a billowing dark-gray dress. She was plain-faced, with stern, sharp features, but none were sharper than her eyes. Her gaze plucked out things from that glass which no one else saw. It was as though she could discern its history, its makings, its inner workings all from one glance. Hers was a gaze which always seemed to know too much.

Guild President Zhang regarded its surface coolly. She could see why Kal had made such a fuss about him. Such big plans for such a young man.

She’d seen enough to convince her. This matter deserved the Council’s attention.

“See?” Her daughter grinned at her, bristling with joy. “I told you!” Lin Zhang was a vision in her white silk dress tonight, stunning beyond compare, but she’d been steadfastly rebuffing her stream of suitors all evening. Now, President Zhang knew why.

“Calm yourself, dear,” the President said. “Nothing is decided as of yet.”

If anything, the girl only grew more feverish. Lin would’ve jumped up and down if not for her high heels. “He’s perfect, isn’t he?” She swooned. Then she put her hands on her hips. “Mother, you must support him in the Council! You simply must!”

“I shall bring the matter to their attention. That is all I can promise.” Then the President gestured at the door to her study. She gave her daughter a strained smile and ruffled the girl’s hair. “That is enough for you. Go mingle with your friends at the Ball. Go be among the young. Leave guild matters to me, all right?”

Lin pouted at her, but the girl knew better than to argue. It was a waste of time. Against her mother, she never won. Spinning on her heel, she strutted out the door. President Zhang’s smile faded in an instant. She was left to ponder, alone.

Something about the boy bothered her.

President Zhang prided herself on being a student of the human condition. In most every conversation she could pick out her interlocutor’s thoughts by the slightest expressions of their face. She could physically feel their emotions of anyone she met, as though in that brief window of connection they shared the same beating heart.

Which was why it was particularly strange that when she looked at Io Rust, she felt nothing.

There was something strange to the way he smiled, like he knew exactly which muscles made up a smile and executed them with mechanical precision. There was an artifice to him. It was in the way he laughed, or spoke. It was as though he didn’t mean any of what he said. Like he was a puppet, not a man.

Perhaps she was reading too much into things. It was a double-edged habit of hers, but it’d also steered her right more times than she could count. By now she’d learned to trust her instincts.

Then she thought of her daughter’s starry eyes, and she sighed. “Oh, lass. What have you gotten yourself into?”

The boy was clearly gifted, and slick of tongue too. His Stick had great promise—and after today, it’d undoubtedly achieve a measure of fame too. It would serve the guild well, and whatever was good for the guild was good for her.

Still, she resolved to keep an eye on him. There was something ever-so-slightly off about him…

* * *

As Kaya sat down to cultivate that night, she was more amped up than ever. She pumped her fists, grinning. This was her night. She clutched her Jez’s pendant tight in her hand. It felt nice and comforting. Maybe it would be her lucky charm.

Mid-Vigor, here I come!

TWENTY-FOUR

NEW HORIZONS (I)

Kaya felt weirdly good tonight, considering she’d been bawling just hours before. But now she couldn’t stop grinning. The world seemed twice as bright, chock-full of life. She thrummed with spirit. She was so light she could’ve been floating.

She wasn’t sure what it was. Maybe she felt pumped-up after her chat with the Tribesmen. Or maybe it was the two doses of boosting formula she’d taken. As she sat down to meditate that day, the energies of Heaven and Earth treated her like a favored daughter. Before, they’d cycled in a trickle. Now, a steady stream gushed into her, warming her meridians.

For the first time in a very long time, life was treating her right. About time, too! Heavens knew she’d had her fair share of garbage the past few weeks…

Then her palm spiked with white-hot pain, like she’d been stung by a fat-tailed scorpion.

“Ack!”

Hissing, she flung out her hand and a golden blur whipped into the sands. It was the Jez token! Had it bit her? It glowered like molten metal, half-sunk.

Frowning at it, she went up to it and sent her big toe to investigate. Poke poke. She half-expected to get shocked again, but nope. The thing was warm to the touch, but that was all. Huh.

She bent down and picked it back up, nibbling nervously at her lip.

She squinted at it, turning it all the way around. She squeezed it. She gave it a lick for good measure. Nope. Nothing weird here.

Maybe she’d just imagined it. Or maybe a little bug had bit her, then darted away when she wasn’t looking. Whatever. She wasn’t about to let one little thing ruin her first good evening in forever!

Huffing, she stomped back, sat back down, and started meditating again. She’d break through mid-Vigor today if it was the last thing she did!

* * *

Aww. Kaya was so deep in meditation by the time Dorian returned that qi was rising off her body like steam. Her eyes were scrunched shut, her lips pressed tight together. It seemed she was nearing a breakthrough. Good for her.

She’d make for some good entertainment for the rest of his stint at the Oasis, but this was likely the end of the road for her, to his chagrin. She was still useful as a trusted lackey, but there was a point at which the power differential became too vast to bridge. He could hardly carry her in his pocket as he went up the planes. Nor could he waste resources dragging her along with him.

I hope to make our last few months together a delight, dear sister. He tapped his lips, smiling.

For now, he’d leave her to her struggles. He had his own breakthrough to make. He went around the room, thumbing a few extra Interspatial Rings, snatching out all the elixirs he’d brewed in the past month, all the rare herbs and cores he’d stockpiled. Three Hearts’ Pill, Draught of the Sun God, Ten Thousand Year Old Ginseng…

He would devote tonight and tomorrow to breaking through to the Profound Realm and stabilizing his Spirit Sea.

This was a delicate stage. While Origin and Vigor were the two foundational Realms, Profound was a bridge between mortals and gods. There was a reason this stage was known in the Higher Planes as the true starting point of cultivation. It was the point at which a cultivator ceased borrowing power from the Multiverse. The Origin realm opened the veins. The Vigor realm built the body. Now, it was time to harness the boundless qi of the Multiverse and make it his own. To create his own Spirit Sea.

The difference between a technique done with borrowed qi and a technique done with one’s Spirit Sea was heaven-and-earth. And the grade of the Spirit Sea was immutable once it was established. He had one chance to get this right.

If he had to guess, nearly every Profound cultivator in the Oasis had only a Mortal-Grade Spirit Sea. Only those with the highest-grade techniques or exceptional bloodlines had a chance at Heaven-Grade. He licked his lips, eyes glowing red in the dim firelight. If I do manage it, I should be nearly invincible in this Oasis. Only those who’ve touched a Dao would be able to threaten me.

It was time to begin.

* * *

Kaya woke up high off the night before. She hadn’t recalled falling asleep. How had she managed to sleep, with all this feel-good rush burning up her skin? She leapt out from under her blanket, stretched, yawned out the last of her drowsiness, and pumped her fist. She grinned wildly. Yes! This was her day. Again. No more wallowing! From now on, every day was a Kaya day! She was so hyped-up she felt like she could run from here all the way to the southern forests in one breath.

She glanced over to Io’s sheets, which were empty. He’d left a note on the squat little table, alongside a plate of cut fruit and—were those oysters?!

Fifteen minutes later, she finished licking the oyster bowl clean, then licked its last juices off her fingertips. It might’ve been the best thing she’d ever eaten. She nearly cried as she tasted it, which was a little mortifying, but it was really darned good, all right?

Fingers properly cleaned, she read Io’s note.

I’ve left to break through to the Profound Realm. I’ll be back by dusk.

In the meantime, we’re running low on Spirit Wood and Lingzhi mushrooms. I’ll need these to brew a medicinal broth to solidify my foundation. Kindly fetch them from the market for me.

Make sure to wear the heavy robes and a mask! Do not engage in any confrontations. Don’t make trouble. Be safe!

That last phrase was circled three times.

“You got it, dear brother!” Kaya would get those things better than any things had ever been gotten before! She was buzzing with life. Joy soaked her from head-to-toe. The world was hers to conquer. For a few scary weeks there, she’d been so sad she felt like she could scarcely breathe. Was she rebounding to how she used to feel? Was this what normal felt like?

Hmm. Somehow, this felt a stretch beyond normal. In that moment she could’ve stared down a Frost Dragon. Maybe her mood was like rubber, snapping back beyond its original shape. Whatever! She was too happy to question it.

She threw on her robes, tightened the drawstrings and the belt, then tied a mask around her head. Only her eyes peered out from this weird, suffocating contraption, but it didn’t get her down in the slightest. She scooped up Jez’s token and stuffed it into an inner pocket. Keeping it with her somehow made her feel safe, like she was being watched over, which was silly, but it made her feel good, so who cares! She practically danced out the tent flaps.

* * *

Not even the stink of the Outskirts could quench her joy. But as she drew closer to the market proper, she had to admit that stench did dampen things. She kept herself hunched over, one faceless Outskirter among many. Here, she was no one. The street was a rectum which spat out deformed humans. It made her skin crawl. I’ll be quick. In-and-out. No fuss!

She was tensed, primed to give a hard pummeling to anyone who tried her. But it seemed her disguise held up. No unwanted hands grabbed at her. No eyes lingered. She felt strangely safe in her thick outfit.

no one accosted her as she went up to the woodsman’s stall and asked for three blocks of Spirit Wood. no one slapped her as she procured Lingzhi mushrooms from an oily-skinned herbalist. There were the occasional gang members—she spotted two scarred men in Mischief garb on patrol—but all-in-all, things went surprisingly smoothly.

Maybe today followed yesterday’s trend? Maybe the world decided it was time to be nicer to Kaya Rust. She was hopeful.

It smelled awful here, and looked awful too, but maybe she didn’t need to be so mean about it. Everywhere she looked she saw poor souls shuffling about in those thick black robes, carrying on. The shopkeeps, huddled behind tattered stalls and guardsmen, even the gang members, were making do as best they could. A fog of hopelessness hung over it all.

She was struck by a bittersweet pang. Maybe everyone deserved a little kindness. Maybe everyone had their own unique flavor of hurt. Under those wrinkled, dirt-stained faces, she saw fear, and weariness, and pain. Maybe these weren’t deformed after all. Maybe they were simply beat-up folks trying their best, despite it all. Wasn’t she the same way?

She felt herself relax. What a weird mood I’m in…maybe this place wasn’t so awful after all. And she felt a rush of kind warmth toward these folk, a feeling like hope.

Then—”What’s a girlie as pretty as you doing out here on your lonesome?” said a man’s voice in a mocking growl. She froze.

It felt like she’d been drenched in ice-cold water. Her mouth went dry. Suddenly, she didn’t feel so good anymore. Not at all. Every hair on her body seemed to stand up at once. She recognized that voice. She couldn’t forget it if she tried.

She turned around slowly, her whole body tensed.

It’s him! That fat greasy face, sagging with a double-chin, those blackened teeth, those beady dark eyes. His huge body and his his hairy, wrinkled claws for hands. They called him Longfoot. She remembered those hands crushing over hers, forcing her to her knees. Her heart was clenched like a fist in her chest.

What the hells? Is he always hanging around the markets, looking for girls to prey on?!

Then Kaya realized the man wasn’t looking at her. Guilty relief washed over her.

Until she saw who the man’s true target.

She gasped. No…you horrible wyrm!

He was eyeing a girl. Not a woman. A bewildered little girl in Zhaopai Tribe silks. A dainty, pretty little thing. Her hair was bound up in two buns and her eyes were wide and watery. She couldn’t be more than ten years old.

She must’ve wandered here on accident. She was sniveling, backing slowly away from the man, and Kaya saw in her face an awfully familiar feeling.

Kaya had felt that same naked fear not two days ago. It had her waking up in night-sweats, gasping. It still hadn’t left her. Now, she felt it slithering down her bones, rooting her to the spot. Two men in Mischief leathers were circling in behind the girl, cutting off her exit. Both had lewd grins on their faces.

Her blood pulsed, molten in her veins. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears.

“Please, mister,” the girl squeaked. “Do y-you know where m-my daddy is? Sir?”

“I’m afraid not,” laughed Longboat, rounding on her. “Don’t worry, girlie. I’ll be your daddy. How does that sound?”

“No!” cried the girl, whirling around wildly. “I want my real daddy…” She clung to herself, and Kaya felt her heart breaking.

Kaya’s nails bit into the palms of her hands, drawing blood. She took a step forward—

—and those old memories rose up like vomit, locking her where she stood, drowning her.

The rat’s fingers like steel bands against her neck. Her hands and arms failing, an overwhelming, choking force blasting her, twisting her, wrenching her to the ground…her heart was stammering so fast she felt ever red-hot pulse of blood. She was trembling, choking on the air. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t do it! She screamed at her limbs to move, to rise, to do something, but her whole body was shaking so hard she might collapse.

Dimly, she knew this was a fight she couldn’t win. She might even make it worse by trying. If Io were hear he’d be yanking her back, telling her to pick her battles. Maybe that was the smart thing to do.

No. She shook her head. She wouldn’t believe it. She strained against herself with all her dumb heart. It’s not fair…

She saw Longfoot put a hand on the girl. She saw the girl scream, and it was shards of broken glass to Kaya’s ears.

Then something peculiar happened. A familiar sting lanced through her.

There was a trickle of warmth, up from her ribs, thawing her. Then it widened, flushing into a stream, coursing through her, a torrent, a tide, heart-pumping, blood-boiling flood. It crashed straight through her fear, breaking its hold on her. She felt good, full of sudden vigor. What the hells was she thinking?! So what if these goons had gotten the best of her once? She had to try again—she had to, damn the consequences! What the hells was she anymore, if she was too scared to do what’s right? She snarled, baring her teeth. She wasn’t some cringing waif. She was Kaya godsdamned Rust!

She’d whirled around before she knew what she was doing. She ate up the distance in four leaping strides, and it felt like sunlight, not blood, ran through her veins.

Longfoot hardly had time to face her before she drove four hard knuckles through his fat, ugly, smooshed-up double-chinned face.

TWENTY-FIVE

NEW HORIZONS (II)

Longfoot flailed back, crying out in pain.

“RUN!! I’ll hold them off!” she yelled. The little girl nodded, wide-eyed, and scampered off. Then Kaya put up her fists. She could do it! She could see it clearly in her mind. She’d beat them up, and help the poor girl find her daddy, and they’d all hug and go off to a bonfire dinner—

“Oh.” He snarled, rubbing at his cheek, turning his lightless eyes on her. “It’s you.”

He hit her so hard it felt like the world was ending.

Her eyes went blinding white. Her head snapped back. There was a rush of shrill air. She was vaguely aware her body had gone slack. She was falling, faster and faster. Her eyes rolled back. She didn’t even hear her limp body thump against the ground. She blacked out.

Then her head hit the sands, jolting her back awake.

For a few seconds she heard only a high-pitched whine. Her head throbbed something awful. She whimpered. Then spurts of conversation broke through.

“—can’t, boss! Pebble said not to mess with—”

“The bitch slapped me!” Longfoot screamed. “Fuck what Pebble said!”

She tried to prop herself up on her elbows. Why wouldn’t the world stop spinning? “Euuuurgh,” she gurgled. Then her stomach blossomed in pain.

She was lifted off the ground, crashed back down, rolled over herself thrice before she lay splayed out on the sands. Dimly she knew she’d been kicked. It almost hurt too much to think. She dragged in a few harsh breaths, shuddering.

In all her nightmares of her nasty first encounter with Longfoot, this was her deepest fear—being hit so hard she couldn’t get back up.

“Stupid godsdamned bitch,” growled Longfoot. Through blurry eyes she saw his boots stalking closer and closer.

She built up to all fours with a trembling, all-out effort. She was going to puke.

Then his boot stomped on her back, and she collapsed again, crushed flat to the ground. The world swam before her eyes, blurring. Black splotches dotted her vision.

Silks in the far distance. A small figure sprinting down the street, fading into a tiny silhouette. It was the Zhaopai girl! She’d made it—she’d ran off! Kaya was flooded with relief. She groaned softly, but her heart was swelling with warmth. Her eyes were wet with happy tears. Whatever happens, it was worth it after all…

At least she’d gone down fighting, she thought glumly. She’d gotten one good hit on the big bastard.

“AHH!” She was suddenly jerked up by her hair. She stumbled to unsteady feet. Tears trickled down, unbidden.

“Let’s finish what we started, eh?” Longfoot’s breath was awfully close, and she gagged at a whiff of it. He smelled of shit and rotten fish. One big hand groped at her waist. The spasm of revulsion that went through her was so strong she almost blacked out again.

“Nab the girlie, Threetails. She can’t have gone far.” Kaya’s heart stopped. What?! No. No!

“Aye, brother!”

A rush of fresh terror animated her. Kaya threw herself at Longfoot, screaming, but she bounced off like she’d struck a sandstone wall. Fuzzy stars floated before her eyes. Her legs could barely hold her up.

She had to stop him. She had to! Her fingers weren’t strong enough to curl into a fist. They made a misshapen claw. She thrust it at him, saw the contempt in his eyes as it glanced off his chest.

That Zhaopai girl stood out like a beacon in this crowd. How could Kaya have been so dumb, running in like that? Now her tears were flowing in earnest as she sniveled. Had she given herself for nothing?

Then Longfoot’s hand reached for her neck.

She couldn’t go out like this! She bit at his wrist and earned herself a hiss of pain. She flailed, kicked, clawed, punched. Despair crashed over her but still she kept fighting, tears dripping down her cheeks. She wasn’t about to sputter out. He’d have to stamp out ever last damned bit of her!

Longfoot’s voice warbled over to her. “Don’t you worry, wench. I’ll take my sweet time with you…”

Pitch-black, burning away at her edges, swarming all over her, stifling her. She felt herself growing more and more distant from her body. The hand’s iron grip tightened against her neck, and she felt her arms float away from her. Her punches got softer and softer. Her vision dimmed.

It’s not fair…

She was choking up. I screwed up, Io. I let you down…I’m sorry…

Then she stilled, and all was black. A yawning, gaping void. She sank into it. It tore at her, unspooling her, dissolving her. Soon Kaya Rust would be nothing.

* * *

A spark of gold, a tiny pinprick at the center of a universe of blackness. An accident of light.

Then it flared brighter. The pinprick swelled, like liquid gold pouring through a hole in the world. Soon it was a star, shining proudly in the inky firmament.

It grew. Its tendrils of light raced out, flooding into the blackness, swallowing it whole. It gushed faster and faster. Pinprick, to dot, to blot, until it was an unstoppable force, a conquering tide of gold which swept across the whole of the world. All Kaya saw was that wonderful gold.

Kaya’s eyes snapped open, breathing deeply in and out. There was a startling absence of pain. Her head was more clear than it’d ever been. She was alive! She was fucking alive!

Longfoot’s hands were still clasped over her neck. Tiny sausages, so weak, so small! How dare this awful shithead touch her? She snatched at the wrist and yanked him off her, frowning at him, her blood singing in her ears.

“ARGH!” Longfoot’s face was flushed red. Every muscle in his neck was tensed with effort. His eyes bulged at her as she twisted his wrist back. He cried out, falling to his knees. She licked her lips. Yes, yes, yes! She jerked it all the way back and was delighted by the crunch of snapping bone. She soaked in his ear-piercing scream. Oh, this feels GOOD!

What’s happened to me? She hadn’t a clue, but she felt so good! Her skin was burning up all over. Her heart was beating so fast it was bouncing off the walls of her chest.

“Boss?!”

She frowned. The two cronies had returned, gaping at her, the Zhaopai girl in tow. The girl hung limp in their arms, a fresh bruise on her temple.

Rage surged through Kaya. “Bastards!” she screamed, and leapt at them. They reacted instantly. Their eyes went wide. They dropped the girl and put up their fists, techniques flashing to life, but they were so slow! She ducked a swipe of black qi and struck him once to the chin. His head whipped back, spittle and teeth cascading from his mouth, and in that frozen moment, seeing those flecks of blood-stained bone arching away from his face filled her with an incredible pleasure. She moaned. Then he crumpled to the sands, tongue lolling out.

His partner tried thrusting a fist technique straight at her. Snarling, she shot back a [Flash Palm]. It was a blinding euphoria of light. The man was sent spiraling through the air, landing in a twisted-up, smoking heap. The sight was mouth-watering.

Kaya laughed, exhilarated. She was invincible. She was a godsdamned goddess!

Longfoot had scrambled up. She saw naked fear in his eyes and felt a thrill of sick joy.

“What the hells are you?!” he screeched.

She blinked. Oh. Every inch of her was glowing with golden light. She was steaming gold. When had that happened?

Then she remembered who just spoke. “YOU!” She stomped up to him. The fat man scrambled back, the jowls under his chin trembling. There was a time when Kaya thought it was impossible for her to hate anyone—to truly wish to see them dead, to want them roasted over hot coals for the rest of their miserable lives. But now she knew with smoldering certainty that she could hate. She hated this fucking Longfoot bastard. She wanted more than anything in the world to tear out his heart and stuff it down his throat.

“Stay back!” he screeched,

“FUCK YOU!” she screamed at the top of her voice. “FUUUUCK YOUUU!!” She was laughing hysterically as she advanced on him.

She felt like ten thousand pounds had been lifted off her in an instant. The air was delicious to breathe.

“You’ve g-gone mad!” Longfoot was pissing himself. His lips blubbered against each other as he pointed a shaky finger at her. How had she possibly been scared of this soft, feckless man? “Y-you’ve consorted with devils! Witch! WITCH!”

He threw a punch at her, his fist coated in turgid red qi. She slipped it with ease. Then she cracked him to the liver. No technique, just simply, pure, brutal force, and she felt something soft give way under her knuckles. He hunched over, collapsing, and made a sound like a dying wyrm. She giggled as she saw the spittle spray from his mouth.

She was the happiest she’d ever been as she descended on him. He was whimpering, curled upon himself, utterly unable to move. Having several internal organs rupture at once would do that to you. He was at her mercy. She relished the feeling. She was not inclined to be very merciful at all.

What to do, what to do? She looked him in the eyes. Ooh, good idea! He wouldn’t lie still as she did it. He thrashed. He screamed his throat hoarse. It was so annoying that she slid her knee up, crushing his vocal cords so all he could do was writhe. One hand held down his face. The other did the extracting. As she yanked those squishy orbs out of the socket, she was struck by a vicious spikes of pleasure which had her weak at the knees. She was laughing uncontrollably all the while. His face looked much better with those two bloody voids staring up at her.

What else, what else? She frowned. It wasn’t enough. She wasn’t sated. There was still so much energy coursing through her! It had to go somewhere.

What else did she hate about this man? Then it hit her. The hand—of course, the hand!

She put one foot on the man’s elbow, pinning it down. Then she thought of Pebble. Would she twist? No, that didn’t seem right. She didn’t want the hand damaged. Damaged goods made for poor souvenirs.

So she grabbed hold of the hand and pulled. Longfoot’s eyes were turning white. A strange white foam started leaking out of his mouth.

A few seconds in, she realized this wasn’t efficient. There were so many tendons there, and the wrist was so stretchy! The skin was stretching, tearing at the seams, she could feel the muscles rip-rip-ripping, but the whole hand was stubbornly stuck on. But it did do a splendid job exhausting that flood of buzzing energy crackling through her. She put all of herself into it, thrusting with her whole body. “ARGH!”

The limb stretched, and stretched, and stretched, and she felt the tension building within her—

Then that chubby hand came off the wrist. Blood poured out like a fountain. She shuddered, overcome with pleasure. For a second she went blind in one eye. Then, panting, she cut off the dangling strings of flesh with her nails.

She knelt there, cackling madly, soaked to the neck in blood. She was almighty, immortal, the most powerful creature to ever prowl the Izod Desert—

—…and very, very sleepy. All of her thoughts were drifting through mud. It was like a thick gauze had been wrapped around her brain. She stood upright, her body suddenly weighing as much as a dragon’s. Her eyelids were drooping shut of their own accords. The rush had passed, and all of a sudden she jerked into a sudden clarity. She looked down at her bloodied arms, horrified. Was—was that really me?!

Her heart sank. Her breaths were labored. Something was wrong with her. Really wrong. She had to get out of here. The sounds of the outside world were leaking through to her at last. She heard screams, shouts. The crowd of robed-up people staring at her all blurred into a faceless black mass. Everything tilted on its axis.

She took a step and her whole body shut off all at once. She collapsed facefirst into the sands.

* * *

“Sir, I bring good news.”

“Do tell.”

“The girl’s taken to Jez’s Blessing very well. Shocking well, in fact—almost too well…” Father Zacharius paused. “Do you think this may be a mistake?”

Through the scrying-glass, he heard Nijo’s soft laughter. “I think our friend Io will be delighted. It shall mark the start of a wonderful partnership.”

“Very good, sir,” said the Father. “I only mean that she seems to be a deviant. It’s awakened a…peculiar side to her. A side our lord would surely disapprove of. Jez is a kind deity, yet she revels in pain.”

“Whose pain?”

“Certain…depraved folk of the Oasis Outskirts. She has wrecked them quite savagely.”

Nijo hummed. “It is true that Jez is a kind Godking. But Jez is also wise. Jez knows there is no kindness in letting savage beasts run wild. It is far kinder to put them down, and to forgive them once their dusts have scattered on the wind.”

Father Zacharius swallowed. “As you say, sir. Speaking of—what of the war situation?”

Nijo chuckled softly. “I daresay a major development will soon reach your ears. Stay alert.”

The Father frowned. “General Blackflame has been making great gains. His string of victories against your wyrmrider corps have morale in the Oasis at a peak. You must be careful, sire. These Oasis folk are entertaining the possibility that they might win this war.”

“Yes, the great Blackflame, the stalwart shield of Azcan—so they say,” said Nijo with a wan smile. “He has been quite impressive. A skilled tactician with a preternatural sense of timing, a worthy foe. But his victories have been against our lesser armies. It is I who will meet him on the battlefield next.”

“Ah.” Zacharius smacked his lips.. “And what of Io? Shall I contact him?”

“Not yet. Let us first make certain our grasp on his sister is firm. We are in no hurry.”

Zacharius bowed his head. “I shall do as you say.”

“Oh—one more thing…” Nijo paused. “Please do keep her on a tight leash, Zacharius. Jez does not distribute his Blessings cheaply. Kaya Rust is now an investment of both the Ugoc Tribe and the Church of Jez. Make sure she sees Jez’s light.”

TWENTY-SIX

NEW HORIZONS (III)

Dorian was catching odd looks left and right as he waddled down Main Street. He sighed.

Yes, I know! I look like a clown.

He was wearing a bestiary’s worth of body parts. King Vordor feathers crowned his black cap, which had as its centerpiece a gaudy Phoenix tail-feather. His scarf was plated with drake-scales, his coat lined with the lush furs of bearskin and sandwolves alike, and a soot-gray sash wrapped around his waist.

This ridiculous getup had cost him nearly half—half!—the spending money he had left. It’d hurt to cough up the coins, but it was necessary to meet Tan Heilong’s high standards. Today he was a guest at the Heilong Family estate. He’d come under the guise of touring the young master’s wardrobe.

In fact, he also hoped to ‘borrow’ the Heilong family’s cultivation chambers to make his breakthrough to Profound. Oh, and nab a few treasures while I’m at it. He licked his lips. The Heilongs were known as the Defenders of Azcan, the chief power behind the Azcan military. There was no better place for weaponry and technique manuals. If Dorian guessed right, this family sat on a minor treasure trove of resources.

And you, Young Master Heilong, will be my backdoor in.

But first Dorian had to get through the front door. He arrived at the estate: a compound hemmed in by black-iron fencing. Within, two towers rose out of the earth like the halves of a monstrous clamshell—Dorian supposed they were supposed to resemble two shields stuck together. It was a brutal and ugly structure, casting a stern, slanting shadow across its neighboring high-rises.

Then it was all blotted out by a rush of fire. A geyser of qi scorched the sky, rising higher than even the tips of the nearby buildings in a roaring triumph of heat. Must be peak-Profound, at the least. It smoked out—but not before a swarm of sand-aspect qi rushed to take its place, cascading in a dust-storm before wallowing back to the ground.

Is that fighting I see? Is the Heilong family under attack?

But the two guards at the gate hardly seemed to think so. They seemed placid enough as Dorian strolled up to them.

“Greetings! I’m here by invitation of the young master,” said Dorian.

A guard frowned at him, squinting at Dorian’s flamboyant hat. “You’re here for the training session?”

“What training?” Dorian blinked. “I’m here to assess the young master’s wardrobe.”

They gave him a blank stare.

“Young Master Tan Heilong? He does live here, right?”

“Oh. The second young master. That makes more sense.” One guard gave the other a knowing look. “You must be one of his nutjob friends,” the man grunted. Nutjob? Dorian raised a brow. …To be fair, he’s not wrong.

“Show me your IT,” said the guard. Dorian presented his token. The guard squinted at it, then gave another grunt. He thumbed a button by the gate, which swung slowly open. “All right. Wait in the yard. The second young master will be with you shortly.”

Which was how Dorian found himself the biggest lawn he’d seen since he got to this plane. A well-manicured swathe of thick bluesilver grasses stretched on and on, sidling up to the gates and only disrupted by a small stone path leading up to the doors of the estate proper. There was no real reason for a family to cultivate grass in a desert other than, of course, to show off. This whole place was one big ugly boast.

But it was the people on the lawn who drew Dorian’s attention.

Nine young men and women stood there, all attractive, well-groomed, carrying themselves with the proud statures of noble elites. Each of them was dressed in sleek, skin-tight combat robes emblazoned with differing crests, and each gave off an aura of at least mid-Profound. But these weren’t typical mid-Profound fighters. All of them exuded the auras of high-class bloodlines.

They were arrayed in a semicircle around two duelers. One of them was Lin Zhang.

Dorian cocked his head. Huh.

She made a striking sight, her dark hair trailing her as she twirling in the air, looking every bit a stunning heroine. A sea of sand surged around her, heeding her beck and call, bearing her aloft.

She’d managed to make a nice little shield of sand-qi for herself—it swirled in a vortex, sucking in the fire-attacks and repelling them. And these weren’t little fireballs. These were full-on blasts which might even threaten an Earth Realm practitioner, backed by a mighty bloodline.

Impressive. Even Dorian would have trouble blocking those head-on.

The one throwing them was a dark-haired youth. Tall, broad-shouldered. Dorian pegged him for a young master. Now that Dorian was focused on him, he felt a slight familiarity with the boy. It thrummed from his blood. Almost like a bloodline resonance, but less powerful. Dorian scratched at an itch behind his ear. Intriguing. Is his bloodline a cousin to mine?

This was some tournament training session of elites, clearly. And Tan Heilong was taking his sweet time getting here. Might as well take a gander.

“Your defenses have held up admirably, Lin-lin!” Laughed the youth. “But I’m afraid this is as far as you go.”

Lin laughed. “Bring it!”

“Are you sure?” The youth grinned cockily. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

Lin grinned back. “Oh, I’m sure you’ll try.”

The youth’s smile took on a flirty quirk. “Oh, you’re asking for it. Here I come…”

He made a gesture. One moment there was nothing. The next, an impressive spear materialized fully formed—a shaft of inkwell black which glowed with angry crimson runes, tipped with a massive, jagged tooth.

A tooth that also had Dorian’s bloodline perking up. It radiated a sizzling pressure which jived with Dorian’s own. It had the same bloodline signature as the young master. Threads of qi drifted between them, binding them tight to one another.

A Spirit Weapon!

It was the first Dorian had seen in this Realm. He perked up.

Spirit Weapons were only forged by the highest-Tier artificers. Each cost a fortune, and each had a stringent list of requisites—the Weapons were powered by relics, so the host needed a matching bloodline, often a rarity. Even then the Weapon might reject the host. But if the merge succeeded…

Then the host gets a weapon that’s like an extension of his own limbs. A weapon which grows as he grows. It was a bond made for life. The legendary Godking Houyi, He Who Tore the Suns from the Sky, was a wee lad when he picked up and bonded with his Spirit Bow, the weapon which would later become known as Aurelius. It was now the most feared weapon in all the Multiverse.

Isn’t this is a pleasant surprise? Dorian had seen his fair share of lower planes where this technology hadn’t yet been discovered. A Spirit Weapon was the crux of any God’s offense. The earlier he could bond to a high-quality Weapon, the better.

Even at this level, it gave the wielder a massive advantage.

“Demon Spear, first form!” shouted the youth, cocking the spear. Flames sparked off the shaft. The tip glowed, pulsing like embers. “Dragon Pierces the Heavens!”

Lin gave a shout of her own, clasping her hands in a hand-sign. All her sand-qi hardened, coalescing into a domed shield.

The spear blazed out. A shooting star screeched across the sky, wreathed in white-hot flames. It carved into the shield. There was a deafening bang, a blitz of vivid light, and the sand barrier ruptured. Qi

The backlash knocked Lin straight out the sky. She cried out, pinwheeling out of control.

The youth blurred into action. He blurred across the field, leapt up, and caught Lin in a princess carry, and landed nimbly on his feet. Their eyes met, the youth’s windswept hair fluttering, and a blush tinged Lin’s cheeks. Dorian snorted. It was a scene straight out of a trashy romance novel. The boy leaned in…

Then—”Io Rust?!”

The squeal came from one of the spectators, a girl Dorian was quite certain he’d never seen before. She had straight black hair, close-cropped bangs, and almond eyes which had gone wide at the sight of him.

“Huh?!” Lin leapt straight out of the boy’s arms, twirling past the boy’s puckered-up lips, and whirled around. “Su?! What did you just say?!”

The Su girl pointed a finger at him.

Then Lin caught sight of him in his clown get-up, and lit up. “Io!” she squealed.

She dashed over so fast Dorian hardly had time to brace himself. Then she leapt on him, wrapping herself around him in one big hug, very tight hug. Dorian was struck by a strong scent of lavender.

“Urk!” Dorian paled. She was much stronger than she looked. Those princess arms were crushing the air out of his lungs.

“You look so handsome in your little outfit!” she gushed, looking up at him. “What are you doing here?” Her eyes widened. “Ooh, are you a vassal of the Heilong family?”

She giggled, slapping his chest. “I should’ve known from those big black ropes you’ve got!”

“I’m not a vassal, Miss Lin. Simply a visitor,” he said evenly, trying to wiggle out some breathing space in her death-hug. He succeeded in freeing one arm.

“But it’s a delight to meet you again, miss,” he said with a weak smile. He was still slightly confused at the strength of this reception. Since when did we get this close? “What a pleasant coincidence.”

He noticed that most of the young nobles were frowning at him. A very big man stared at him, brows furrowed. Two blonde twins with pigtails squinted at him with their arms crossed. Then there was the spear-wielding youth striding up to them, looking very unhappy with how tight Lin was wrapped around Dorian.

“Lin-lin?” He called, a deep frown on his face. “Who the hells is this jester?”

Lin frowned back at the youth, her legs still clinging around Dorian’s waist. “Oh, stop it,” she snapped. She wrapped an arm around Dorian’s shoulders. “This is the Io I was telling you about! The boy I met at the guild!”

“Him?” The youth’s brows shot up. He wasn’t the only one. The other nobles looked at Dorian with naked incredulity.

He stalked up to them, so that he towered over Dorian by a good head. He had black, slicked-back hair and a pretty face—handsome, but in a forgettable way. The same strong nose, sharp jawline, sword-like brows. Dorian had seen this sort of young master a thousand times before. It was as though his features had been tweaked slightly of some basic template of handsome Young Nobles. There wasn’t enough here to be distinctive or interesting.

He even had that trademark noble sneer. Then he laughed, a throaty, forced sound. “By the way you described him, why, I’d have thought he was a hero of myth! The boy’s a runt!”

The youth’s eyes narrowed. He wore a fake playful smile, but Dorian could tell there was real fire in those eyes. “I bet I could lick him with one hand.”

Lin rolled her eyes. “This is Yu Heilong, by the way. Don’t mind him. He’s just an ass. We used to date.”

That explains a lot. Especially that glimmer of simmering rage in his eyes as he saw the adoring look Lin was giving Dorian.

“Hey! Are you free?” she said, fluttering her eyes at him. “Let me finish up this little training session—then we can go tavern-hopping! I’ve got so much to show you.”

“I can’t today, I’m sorry to say,” said Dorian, gingerly undoing the vice grip of her legs on his hips. She looked put out as he gently separated them. “I’ve got an appointment, unfortunately…”

With a young master who is very late. Dorian’s cheek twitched. Whose lateness is growing more inconvenient by the second.

“So. Io, is it?” Yu Heilong’s teeth gnashed. “I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced. I am the first young master and rightful heir of the venerable Heilong family.”

I’ve been here not five minutes, and I’ve already somehow managed to offend the young master of the estate! Fancy that. It seems everywhere I go lately I’m stepping on someone’s toes—and half the time it’s not even intentional. Most of it’s simply due to standing out, I suppose…

Oh—and also due to the powerful women with screws loose finding him inexplicably attractive. It still made no sense to Dorian, truth be told.

“It’s a pleasure,” said Dorian dryly.

“Can’t say the same,” said Yu with a grin. Then he barked a dry laugh. “I’m joking, of course!” he clapped Dorian on the back much harder than necessary. If Dorian hadn’t braced for it, he’d have sprawled straight into the grass.

“What did you think of my spear, savage?”

“Very impressive.” Dorian figured it was the quickest route to ending this conversation.

“I’ll say,” snorted Yu, puffing out his chest. “Count yourself lucky, little buddy. You’ve just witnessed an Heilong family heirloom, forged from the bone of a fire-drake! I’ll wager you’ve never seen a weapon like that in whatever shithole you crawled out of, eh?” His grin grew wider. “Heh! I kid, of course, I kid!” Then he slapped Dorian on the back again, harder this time. Dorian nearly hacked.

Lin shot Yu an unimpressed glance. “Show-off.”

“Say, little buddy, have you ever thought about sport fighting?” Yu ruffled Dorian’s hair faux-playfully. His grin was paper-thin. “How about we go a few rounds, like real men? I’ll show you a few tricks. It’ll be fun!”

Lin put her hands on her hips. “Hey. Lay off him!”

“That’s all right, Miss Lin,” laughed Dorian. Then he smiled at Yu. “It’s kind of you to offer, but I’ll have to decline. I’m busy today.” And I frankly have more interesting things to do than to engage in masculine dick-jousting. Sorry for accidentally stealing your girl, ‘buddy’. Trust me, I didn’t mean to. “I was invited here on other business.”

“Oh come on.” Yu’s eyes hardened. “You’re really letting a girl fight your battles for you? I thought you savages were supposed to be brave.”

Lin growled at him. “I said, stop it! I’m warning you…”

Dorian was getting tired of this. It was clear this Yu character wasn’t leaving without a fight. Could Dorian take him? If he was honest, probably not—not with that Spirit Weapon on the boy’s side. What about after Dorian reached Profound? The odds might be close to even then. Even with Dorian’s expertise, Spirit Weapons really were game-changers.

It didn’t really matter to Dorian either way. Worst-case, he got a little roughed up and had to take a few healing elixirs tonight. If it got the boy to shut up…

“Maybe after my business here is done.”

“Splendid!” There was a nasty glint in Yu’s eyes. “Then I’ll hold you to it—ow!”

Lin had smacked his arm hard. She glared at him. “Don’t be a bully!” She punctuated each word with a fresh slap.

“Oww—oww! It’s a friendly match, Lin-lin, I swear! I won’t hurt him too bad…ow!”

Then, thank the Saints, the massive oaken front doors studded with metal hoops finally swung open, and out rushed Tan Heilong in a getup of furs and silks almost as garish as Dorian’s own.

He caught sight of Dorian, then Yu, and gave a high-pitched cry.

“Io! My dear savage friend! Welcome to the Heilong Estate!” he rushed over, tripping over the long trail of his robes twice as he did. He stumbled to a halt in front of him, then treated Yu to a glare.

“I see you’ve met my brother and his legion of brutes!” he sniffed. “I hope they haven’t bothered you much.”

“Not at all,” said Dorian smoothly. He strolled over to Tan’s side. “Shall we get going?”

“Yes!” said Tan with a cheer. “A day of splendor and fashion awaits!” And hopefully plundering and breakthroughs, too…

“Wait!” Lin pattered up to him, blushing. “I’ll find you after I finish practice! Wait for me? Please?”

Before Dorian could answer she leaned in and planted a chaste kiss on his cheek. Dorian was baffled. Seriously—when did we get this close?

She fluttered a way, bouncing happily with each step. Yu Heilong, meanwhile, was practically frothing. He looked like he wanted nothing else than to bash Dorian’s face into dust.

“Oh, you absolute hound, you!” Tan crowed, waggling his brows at Dorian.

“It’s not what you think…” said Dorian helplessly.

“Ah, blast that! I’ll have no false modesty from you. Anywho! Let’s be getting along! That great candle in the sky won’t burn forever, eh?” Then Tan nabbed Dorian’s arms and dragged him into the manor, humming as he went.

TWENTY-SEVEN

NEW HORIZONS (IV)

The front doors led into a foyer the size of a watchtower. Its walls were carved with gold-etched murals. At the room’s center was a flat stone dais which held up a marble pedestal. On it sat the massive, half-crumbled bust of an old man—’Heilong the Valiant,’ read the plaque. To the foyer’s sides, six winding obsidian staircases coiled around each other like a nest of giant, rising serpents. It looks more like an ancient emperor’s tomb than a home. Dorian got a whiff of mystery from this place, as though secrets lay hidden here which needed only a little digging to unearth.

“My ancestor built this place centuries ago,” sniffed Tan. “‘Heilong the Valiant’ he may have been, but his taste left something to be desired…this way!” Tan took Dorian up one of the staircases, through a hallway, to a door made of thick, solid gold inlaid with crescent pink gemstones. “Behold, my chamber!”

The door swung open, and Dorian was blasted by pastel colors. The room was big as a barn, fitted with tall, yawning windows through which natural light gushed in. Gold and pink were the dominant motifs. Gold-furred rugs, pink-jeweled chandeliers, mirrors, and window-frames filled the room. Plush fabrics cropped up everywhere: on couches, on chairs, buffing up the walls.

“Whoa,” Dorian fake-gasped. Time to turn on the charm! “What impeccable decor! The gold-on-rose theme is inspired, I must say.”

“Why, thank you,” said Tan, preening. “But it’s only the appetizer, my savage friend…”

Tan led Dorian down a seemingly endless array of closets, chattering nonstop, while Dorian nodded and smiled. His plan was simple. First I’ll play a good guest, kiss some ass, and let him do his little show-and-tell. After he warms to me, I’ll pivot to what I want.

Hallways opened into more hallways with more doors with more closets. Dorian saw frills of every color. Coats, shirts, tunics, trousers, kits, dresses, cloaks, robes. There were more dead animal parts in Tan’s bedroom than could’ve been produced by an extinction event. Furs and tooth-chained necklaces and jeweled ear-rings galore! Scarves came in sinkhole-blue and sky-blue and berry-blue.

There’s too much stuff here. Too much for a man to keep track off.

Which gave him an idea. Hmm. He nabbed a gold button off a nearby coat, hiding the act behind his body. Tan didn’t notice. Dorian’s eyes glittered. Hmm……

For the next hour, Dorian’s job was easy. Smile at Tan’s blabbering, which went something like—”This little necklace I purchased from the tailor Thimabul for six thousand Lira! It’s got a one-of-a-kind Drakehorn sapphire, you see…”

To which Dorian would say something like—”Ooh, a most refined choice! The Tribes of Paideia consider sapphire the gem of daring men…”

Tan would flush, they’d move to the next vapid article, and on and on.

All the while, Dorian would discreetly nab a few out-of-the-way jewels out of Tan’s closet when the boy wasn’t looking. A pearl off a necklace here, a ruby off a lapel there, and he was sure Tan wouldn’t miss a burnished-gold earring. In the next hour, Dorian managed to snatch about ten thousand Lira’s worth, more than he’d made all festival. Listening to the fop blabber was turning out to be the best return-on-investment he’d gotten in this whole run.

“—so I said to him, ‘I’m not the one wearing wyrmskin boots!” Laughed Tan.

“Wyrmskin boots? Please,” said Dorian, fake-giggling as he slipped a ring the size of a knuckle into his coat pocket. “He may as well go barefoot.”

“Ha! Exactly right!” Tan snorted as they strolled out of yet another massive closet. He shot Dorian a grin. “I must say, you’ve been a delightful guest.”

Really? All I’ve done is listen, nod, and stroke your ego. As amusing as it was to line his pockets, Dorian did have an agenda to get to. He wasn’t about to spend all day trawling through Tan’s clothes—and the closets seemed to stretch on forever…

“You’re very kind, sir. And you’ve been a most generous host!” said Dorian. Much more generous than you know. Then Dorian cleared his throat and put on a sorry grimace. “I apologize, but as much as a pleasure as it’s been, I fear I may have to leave you here…”

“Oh, don’t be like that!” cried Tan. He shook his head vigorously. The silver buttons on his lapel jingled against each other as he did. “We’ve hardly gotten started! You mustn’t leave now. At least stay for dinner?”

“Alas, I should leave to prepare for the tournament,” sighed Dorian. “I’m on the verge of a cultivation breakthrough, you see, and I’d like to complete it before the first round tomorrow. I’ll require the use of a cultivation chamber. I would stay for dinner—oh, I’d love to explore the rest of your lovely wardrobe with you!—but I can’t, I’m afraid. I suppose I’ll have to try to rent a cultivation chamber in the city?” He pouted.

“Blast that!” Tan waved his words away with a careless hand. “I’ll lend you a chamber! We have the best cultivation chambers in the whole of the Oasis, I’ll have you know.”

Well, that was easy. “Really?” said Dorian, eyes wide. “You’d do that for me?”

“Of course! It’s no trouble at all,” The boy grinned at him. Then a mischievous glint sparkled his eyes. “I know just the one. Follow me.”

* * *

Tan led him down two flights of winding stairs, and the halls started to narrow, growing darker, danker, illuminated by pale green lanterns studding the walls. They’d gone underground. They paced down a long, steel-walled tunnel, the clanging of their bootsteps echoing down the endless corridor.

A strange place to put a cultivation room, to be sure. They were heading deep into the heart of the compound, it seemed. Usually, places like these are where clans store what they’d rather keep hidden.

“So? How did you like my humble gemstone collection?” said Tan airily, as though Dorian hadn’t spent the past hour kissing up to it. Dorian ran out of synonyms for “tasteful” and “impressive.”

“A most refined, eclectic set,” said Dorian dryly. Just how long is this corridor?

“Excellent!” Laughed Tan. “But let me assure you you’ve not seen anything yet.”

Tan’s flourescent-white teeth glistened in the dim lamplight. Then he paused, a worried look on his face. “Err—I trust you’ll not speak of this to anybody else? My father is far too touchy about letting outsiders visit our inner sanctums.”

Inner sanctums? “Of course not. My lips are sealed.”

“Good. Good!” Tan’s laugh turned nervous. He clutched at an arm, his eyes drifting to the floor. “It’s not very often I make a friend. All the other young masters prefer my brother. He’s the strong one, the big one, the better one, the one with all the talent, or—or so they say. He’s the one who bonded with the Spirit Weapon. He’s the one all the Elders dote on. Even the Young Mistresses disdain me, would you believe! At parties they dressed me up and threw me around like a doll! It’s intolerable, simply intolerable!”

“Mhm. Horrific, truly.”

Tan blinked. “Where was I?”

Dorian rolled his eyes. Let’s get back on track. “You were about to describe where we were going?”

“No, no, after that…ah, yes. My difficulty making friends! Yes. I am most pleased I’ve found you, my friend! You are my, Young Master Heilong Tan’s, fifth friend ever!” Tan gave him a warm smile. “And any friend of mine is as precious as any gem, to me—and far rarer, I find.”

“Well, I’m honored.”

Tan preened. “Yes, well…there is one other thing I must mention before we venture farther. A warning, perhaps. Let me say again—you must not speak of where I am about to take you to anyone else. We call it the Heilong Chambers. It is where all my family’s closest-guarded secrets remain, from our dens of cultivation, to our weapons-forges, to our technique libraries, to our treasure vaults…” Tan’s eyes swiveled back and forth as he bit his lip. “The room you seek is there! But you must be discreet about it. Much of the Chambers is blood-coded. If those without our bloodline so much as touches it, they’ll perish on the spot! Then there are the booby-traps, the kill-rooms, the tiles which fall out from under you—you must be careful. Go only where I say, no farther!”

Dorian nodded, putting on a serious, solemn face. “I will.”

“Very good! Very good…”

They kept striding for a while in silence, their footsteps echoing down the hall. All the while Tan’s hands ate at one another, fidgeting. He cleared his throat. Little beads of sweat glistened on his brow. “Err. That is all to say, I have so few friends to start with! It would be a damned shame if I lost another due to the Chamber.”

“Oh?” Dorian’s eyes flashed in the dark. “Did this friend wander where he wasn’t supposed to?”

“No, nothing of that sort. He followed my instructions to perfection. Only…he spoke about his visit to his maid. Who told the gardener. And before the day was out half the Oasis knew he’d seen the Heilong Family’s treasures! And then my father crippled him in the middle of the street and forced him to sign a soul-oath never to speak of Heilong family secrets. He hasn’t spoken to me since.”

Tan gulped. No wonder he’s so nervous. “Hmm.”

“But please, don’t be frightened!” he cried, clasping Dorian by the wrists. “You simply must see the Chamber, you must! I’ve brought you here because—why, I feel like a man stranded in a desert among all these uncultured brutes. Only an eye like yours or mine could appreciate the such a marvel as the Heilong Chamber. You ought to see some of the gems—they’re qi-infused, and some were forged from the cores of great Spirit Beasts! They make the rest of the manor look like some wyrmshit Outsider tribe by comparison. My father won’t know a thing. Besides…” His eyes glittered. “I’ve got something to show you I think you’ll quite appreciate.”

“Well…” Dorian pretended to dither. “If they are magnificent as you say, it would be a great shame not to see them. And if the cultivation rooms I need are there, too, that’s all the better! What’s life without a little daring, eh?”

In reality he was growing bored. Enough dallying! This was one of the supposed founding families of the Oasis. It had better not disappoint. If he’d endured this fool for the best part of a half-day and this Chamber ended up being three shoddy technique manuals next to a smattering of shitty gems, he might well murder the long-winded prat.

“Lead the way, my friend!” said Dorian with a smile.

* * *

Not a minute later, Dorian perked up. There was a prickling at the base of his skull.

The prickling strengthened with each step. It tugged on him, calling from deep in the goblin-green murk down the hallway. A bloodline resonance? Much like he’d felt around Tan Heilong’s brother, the older Young Master Heilong—but this was an order of magnitude stronger. Are they keeping an artifact with my bloodline in their vaults? A relic, perhaps?

Dorian licked his lips. Maybe this trip won’t be a disappointment after all. His uses for a bloodline relic were legion—not least of all as a subject of study. He hardly knew the first thing about his own bloodline, only that it had God-level potential, and seemed to have bits and bobs scattered about this plane. Probably the scattered remains of some huge, long-dead Spirit Beast. What was it—the fourth time he’d encountered a bloodline resonance since he’d stepped foot in this Oasis?

If he finally got his hands on a relic, he could make sense of his bloodline. He could fashion new Skills or elixirs, tailored just to himself. But most important of all, a relic could serve as the basis for his own Spirit Weapon.

He was smiling just thinking about it. That got his blood pumping. A Spirit Weapon made a heaven-and-earth difference. It would instantly vault him to the level of a powerhouse of this Oasis.

And all that wasn’t even considering the fact that he’d need far more relic to progress his bloodline once he hit the Profound Realm…

With each step the resonance grew stronger. “We’re getting close!” said Tan, humming as he went.

Dorian blinked. It was still growing stronger—by now it felt like a fish on a hook. It wasn’t simply resonating, now. His body felt hot, his veins sticking out against his arms. He had to force his limbs not to tremble. His eyes narrowed. What the hells is this?

They went closer, and closer still, and with each step the aura down the hall leapt in intensity. Dorian’s whole body was tensing up. His heart throbbed like an open wound in his chest. It feels like the aura of that first bloodline scale. But stronger. Much, much stronger.

A few more steps, and his blood was coursing so fast in his veins he was worried it might seep out of his skin. Something called to this body, this bloodline, something which roused it to a jittering frenzy. His fingers dug deep into his palms, his hands clenched tight, and still he couldn’t stop the trembling. His whole body was thick with it now, jittering, tap-tapping.

He gnashed his chattering teeth. No. This was not on the same level as the scale he’d ingested—nothing close to it. Dorian got the absurd feeling that he was like a pint of blood traveling down this massive vein of a hallway, back to the pulsing heart which made him.

A door resolved out of the darkness, a great thick slab of jade like the door of a bank vault. Pipes snaked across its surface, circling each other in tightening spirals. They all met at a point at the door’s center, where there lay a single indent bearing a family crest.

That aura leaked out from the door’s edges. The bulk of it was sealed behind the jade. An incredible amount.

This can’t be the work of only one relic which shares my bloodline. “You feel it, don’t you?” Whispered Tan, peering at him with wide, mischievous eyes.

The feeling was suffocating now. Each breath felt like breathing at the bottom of a lake. He gasped down air in gulps.

“What,” croaked Dorian, blinking the redness from his bloodshot eyes, “Is behind that door?”

TWENTY-EIGHT

NEW HORIZONS (V)

“Do you know the origin of my name, Heilong?” said Tan, a glint in his eye.

“Tell me,” breathed Dorian.

Tan smirked. “Every year after the solstice, my father braves the dark corners of the Desert to hunt the Dusk Dragon—Heilong. The blood of the Dusk Dragon runs through each member of my family. It is said that these beasts are direct descendants of the Serpent.”

A suffocating aura pulsed out of the edges of the door like rays off a black sun. “What serpent?” snapped Dorian.

Tan shot him a quizzical look. “The Serpent!” he said. “You know. The One Above All. The Rain-Bringer. He Who Split The Sky.”

Evidently this thing was common knowledge here, but the boy forgot Dorian had hardly been here two days.

“Ah, that serpent,” said Dorian, feigning wide-eyed acknowledgment. He still hadn’t the faintest clue what the hells they were talking about, of course, but he could hardly show it and still pretend to be some well-traveled fashionista. He nodded wisely. “I believe they call it the Ack-Thu in the forests of the southern expanse. Say—to be certain we’re speaking of the same serpent—might you tell me a smidge more about this creature?”

“Of course! Its official name here is the Evernight Basilisk.” Tan grinned, and his white teeth were a silvery crescent in the dim light. Was it Dorian’s imagination, or did the torchlight flicker as Tan said the words? “Millennia ago, during the War of the Gods, it, battered and weakened, was slain by the Dweller in the Deep. Its fragments were scattered across the realm. Only a handful remain in the Azcan Oasis…”

Ah. Dorian thought back to the resonance he’d felt at the sinkhole, and again at the alchemist’s laboratory. This must be what he’s referring to. At last, some clues about my bloodline! Evernight Basilisk, is it? The name meant nothing to him, but that was no surprise. There were more godly bloodlines than stars in the night sky.

“It seems we do speak of the same beast,” said Dorian, smiling through gritted teeth. The pressure was still immense. His veins stood out on his forearms like sickly roots. His whole body felt compressed, as though held deep underwater. “What of it?”

“As it happens,” continued Tan, doing a little twirl, “all of my family’s techniques, our manuals…they all come from this great Serpent!”

He giggled. “And you, my friend, will soon be among the few souls lucky enough to see a chunk of it. It just-so-happens…that my Heilong family has three of the Great Beast’s relics!”

Then he pressed his finger to the center of the door, and Dorian was nearly bowled over. He felt in that instant like a very small leaf in a hurricane whose breadth he could not fathom. There was a howling, a tearing, a pulling-yanking from all directions. Then the moment passed, and he was reduced to a small boat on high seas: rocking, nearly toppling, but above the waves. Just barely.

Goodness. He heaved in a shaky breath. If simply being in the presence of this thing was boiling him up like this—how damned powerful must it be?! A heady rush of anticipation was thrumming through him now. A wicked smile played at his lips. His fingers rattled against one another like strummed strings. He didn’t know his body could hold so much energy.

The door had opened a crack—through watery eyes Dorian saw Tan prance on through. How is this little worm so unaffected?! If his bloodline did derive from this basilisk, it must be so diluted the pressure was hardly noticeable. Dorian, meanwhile, felt like he’d been cast in iron.

Swallowing, Dorian forced his limbs to move. His leg was rooted to the ground. He glared at it. There, there. Move. Move, damn you!

And slowly, as his body grew acclimated to the weight, he did. Inch-by-inch, but it was still moving. Soon he was slogging his way along.

Tan poked his head back through, blinking. “Well?”

“Coming!” Gritted Dorian.

At last he thrust his way through the doorway.

Green. Floor-to-ceiling, a splash of deep-ocean green, swirling through a circular foyer, up barefaced walls. In the walls, were inlaid a set of doors so huge they seemed made for giant-kin, each laced with intricate jade snaking up and down the surfaces, shimmering and flowing up like waterfalls in reverse. But the real prize lay in the center of the room, decked out behind a glass case on a massive dias.

A tooth the size of a man, polished to a shine which glowed crescent-white under a beam of glimmering pale light. It was hooked meanly, and there was a crevice where its

That whole tooth was one massive Prime Bone.

Ho—ly. Mother of gods.

Dorian was speechless. He could hardly believe his eyes. He almost leapt for it then and there. It was so big it probably contained the essence of six or seven Prime Bones—enough to last him until the Celestial Realm, even! If he got his hands on that massive thing and—somehow—managed to refine it, he wouldn’t need another drop of bloodline essence until Demigod!

There was so much blood rushing to his head he had to gulp down big, deep breaths like a fish struggling out of water. He literally could not believe it. It was an impossibility, a mirage, a dream-of-the-flesh. The first time he snagged a bloodline relic, he had to snatch out from under a beast two Realms above him, a half-dead Kaya in tow. He nearly died twice over in that little escapade.

Now one sat feet away from him! Defenseless!

Well—not quite. There was that thick layer of glass which he would bet could hold under anything he threw at it. And, now that he had a closer look at the thing, an obscene number of traps, arrays, and formations dedicated to protecting the thing. That was a lock far beyond his capabilities to pick.

The rush was starting to settle a bit now, enough for him to think straight, but he still couldn’t drag his eyes off the thing. Most of his brain was dominated by a squealing little internal goblin screeching MINE! GIVE IT TO ME! I WANT IT NOW! I MUST HAVE IT! He gulped back a bit of drool.

Then he noticed it wasn’t only a bone. The bone was only the blade. It was connected to a dark rope which seemed forged of the night-sky itself, speckled with swirling purples and teardrop-whites.

And at the end of that rope was a scale. It was nothing like the one Dorian swallowed. This one was too big for that. It must’ve been a neck-scale, or something closer to the tail—a scale big as Dorian’s chest, gleaming a wicked, green. The way the light played off it, it almost seemed to wink at Dorian. Beckoning to him. He took a step closer.

“My family’s legendary treasure,” sighed Tan fondly. “The Heilong Javelin. It is a triumph and a tragedy. It is an aesthetic masterpiece—but sadly, a decoration is all it shall remain! For only he who possesses the full-blooded Evernight Basilisk bloodline can wield this weapon. And no faction would waste such a valuable treasure on one man…”

In that moment took every ounce of self-control Dorian had not to let that tiny screeching goblin take control. It was not so much a devil perched on his shoulder—he was the devil, after all. No. It was the purest, most distilled essence of him, his basest urges chomping at the bit which he had to wrangle. And it took a hells of an effort to bring himself to heel.

Patience. Patience!

Tan sighed so over-dramatically it could only be genuine.

“Anyhow!” said Tan, twirling around with a smile. “That’s enough of that. Wanna go see my seashell collection?”

Plans were made and unraveled and made again in Dorian’s head a hundred times a second, smashing into each other in a blustering tornado of thought. He couldn’t contain himself. The scenario was simple. The solution to it was not. The situation: he was in the vaults of one of the most powerful families in the Oasis, feet away from one of their most powerful treasures, together with a dunderhead weakling. It was a galaxy-gallivanting thief’s wet dream. He could not ask for a more optimal stroke of dumb luck.

The problem: How the hells was he supposed to magick something that big, under that many protections, out of the Heilong family vaults?! And even if he got through all those layers of arrays, and locks, and who-knew-what-other alarms the family had installed, how was he supposed to even move the damned thing? Something of such ridiculous mana potency would collapse the fragile little interdimensional spaces in his Interspatial Rings in a second—they weren’t build to handle something with half that strong. What about absorbing it, straight-up? What was he supposed to do—eat that huge thing? With his mouth-hole? No. This thing would need to be prepared for months in a massive cauldron, drained of its essence, then absorbed elixir-by-elixir.

It would not be so simple as thwacking Tan Heilong over the head and zooming off with the thing. He rather suspected someone would notice him dragging a wyrm-sized super-treasure behind him as he made off. To say nothing its aura, which was a signal flare by its own to any hyper-powered Heilong family passersby—of which he was sure there were many crawling about in this place. He was essentially stealing from the police.

Long story short, he was a mouse strategizing on how best to swallow an elephant. He sighed and, with an insane effort of will, tore his gaze from the thing. Next time. Oh, make no mistake—the thing would be his. Just…not at this precise moment. Give him a few months, a little bit of prep. He’d heist the thing before Nijo and his army set so much as a spear within the Oasis.

For now—they were still in the Heilong family vaults, weren’t they? There had to be other goodies to snatch.

Then Dorian’s brain fizzled, and popped, and went stark-white.

“Hold on a second,” he snapped. “You said your family had three of the Great Beast’s relics?”

“Oh, yes,” said Tan, waiving an airy hand. “That one, father likes to use as a bargaining chip. We keep it in some storage room, collecting dust—not nearly as exciting. No glass cases and sky-lighting and pedestals and arrays and so-forth. Come! To more interesting topics. My seashell collection is the third-largest in all Azcan, you know—”

“Wait. Wait. Wait.” A vein in Dorian’s left eye bulged. “Say, why don’t you take me to this third relic?”

TWENTY-NINE

NEW HORIZONS (VI)

“Sure!” Beamed Tan. “This way…” and they were off.

They passed the first great door in the chamber, which was emblazoned with a hulking anvil symbol. “The forges,” said Tan airily. It made sense for a military family. There were always swords to be repaired, speartips to be honed by firelight. Dorian narrowed his eyes. Interesting. A heist plan was already fizzling in his mind—and a forge could play an important role indeed. Forge and forgery were but a slip of the tongue apart, after all.

They went past another giant door, this one with a fireball-wisp emblem. “Our cultivation rooms, of all elements!” Intoned Tan. “This is what I shall lend you, hmm?”

“If it still pleases you,” said Dorian, shrugging. “I won’t be longer than a half-day in them.”

“Bah, take however long you like!” Tan snorted. He stretched like a big cat. “Time is a commodity of which I have, it must be said, all too much.” Dorian blinked. And I have all too little.

They came to a third door inlaid with thick swathes of shimmering gold, as though a solid-golden block had melted over a jade door, and frozen there.

“Here we are!” Tan strolled up to an indent in the door and pressed his thumb in. There was a click, a harsh pulse of qi which rattled down Dorian’s bones, sent his teeth chattering. Then the door groaned open with a clattering of gears and pulleys.

A stray thought struck Dorian like a thunderbolt. “Say,” he said absently. “What triggers the door’s opening?”

“My bloodline, of course!” Laughed Tan, winking. He wagged a finger at Dorian. “I know you won’t try anything naughty, of course, but you couldn’t if you tried! Only those descended from the Great Serpent can open these doors. Hehe.”

Dorian fought to keep his eye from twitching. He grinned, even as his heart did a little flip in his chest. Interesting. Very interesting. Who else do we know has this oh-so-rare bloodline? So, in theory—this means I can open…every door in this chamber?

It was almost too easy.

Outwardly he only said, “Naughty? Me? I wouldn’t dream of it!”

The vault was an concrete hall, wide and long as a thoroughfare, lined on either side with shelves upon shelves of mechanized metal. On each shelf, lined up down the hall, were an uncountable number of crates. Their edges were framed with coal-black steel studded with black nails and inscribed with a maze of gnarled emblems. But the crates’ sides were see-through: they seemed made of the same stuff as the case surrounding the Spirit Weapon—that is to say, nigh-invisible, nigh-impregnable.

Which was a terrible pity, since a mere cursory glance down the hall had Dorian salivating. One box held a cluster of putrid-green elixirs which pulsed with enough qi to skyrocket him to mid-Profound. Another was a diamond-studded crown with such a strong air-aspect that, Dorian guessed, wearing it would let him dash around mid-air like a baby kunpeng. Other crates held stranger trinkets: a once-pristine greatsword cleaved in half, dented chainmail, the ruins of a stone visage—they must be spoils of war.

But Tan was still humming and strolling ahead. Dorian forced himself to follow, swallowing. Next time, he repeated to himself. Next time. There was a grander prize waiting for him still.

And there it was, nestled on a podium at the end of the hall, a wink of mossy light in the near distance. They were coming up on it now, and with each footstep that familiar weight settled in on him. The air seemed to thin. He smiled. There you are.

On the pedestal, hidden behind glass, was a silver ring. And on the ring was a pearl which seemed to hold within it a universe of swirling, glowing gaseous-green. It seemed not of this world.

“This is my favorite of the three,” said Tan, sighing fondly. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

Dorian sucked in a breath. “It surely is.” His eyes glittered.

Now all I need to figure out is how to steal it! Preferably without having the most powerful family in the Oasis hunting me down instantly after.

A hairy conundrum indeed.

* * *

“Well, then!” Sighed Tan with a wan smile. “It’s been fun. I’ll check up on you in five hours, eh, pal?”

If I’m still alive, that is! Those protective arrays look quite gnarly. “Five hours. Certainly. Well met, and well left!” Grinned Dorian, waving.

The chamber door clicked shut behind him, and Dorian was alone.

Tan had left only one of the doors open—the one leading to the cultivation rooms. Tufts of smoke drifted out from the doorway like teasing fingers, and through them qi-lights pulsed soft pastel purples and petal pinks and lazy orange. There were rooms there, past that doorway, decked out in arrays powered by a king’s ransom worth of Spirit Stones. Arrays which would focus the powers of Heaven and Earth upon him, and him alone. A paradise of cultivation.

Dorian could simply walk through that doorway, ascend to Profound, nab himself a high-grade Spirit Sea, and waltz out. Indeed, that’d been his plan when he came in.

Well, things have changed. Dorian’s eyes glittered as he strolled over to that vault room, nestled his gaze on the keyhole indent in that thick gold door, and licked his lips. Can I really just…stick my finger in, and the door’ll open? Bloodlines were fickle things. In as sensitive a place as this, supplying a wrong bloodline meant he’d be identified as an intruder.

If he did that, if he had to guess, he’d be incinerated on the spot. Or perhaps the floor will open up and I’ll fall into a pit of acid. After all, he doubted the door would detect a foreign bloodline in the highly confidential Heilong family chambers and simply say, “Sorry, trespasser. Wrong bloodline! Try again?”

The trouble was—what if his bloodline, the distant ancestor bloodline to the Heilong’s, was too far removed to be a valid key? He hummed, strolling up to the door to the furnaces, scratching at his chin and squinting down the inscriptions on the door.

Then he noticed them, but only because he was looking for them. Lines of qi, thin and gold like strands of blonde hair, snaking through the air in long, bowed-out arcs. They attached at the other end to that hulking, gorgeous machinery of violence: the rope-javelin, fitted nicely with those two huge bloodline relics. His eyes flashed.

So they are keyed to the Serpent’s bloodline. Dorian strode up to the indent, squinted at it again, shrugged, and jerked his thumb in.

For one heart-stopping second, nothing happened. And in that second he fully expected some comically large anvil to drop out of the sky and squash him flat.

But then the door clank-clanked open, slow as all huge things do, and he was in.

The Heilong vaults, all to himself? Sometimes things really are this easy. He rubbed his hands, licked his lips, and strode on in.

* * *

Ten minutes later, he came to the realization that things were not, in fact, that easy.

He growled at the prizes in those steel-wrought cases—so pretty, so mighty, so untouchable. As it turned out, these cases weren’t to be opened via a bloodline. No. Each needed an artifact with a very specific and very untraceable key signature.

Which meant they may as well have been buried a thousand li underground, for all he cared. There would be no nabbing happening here. He groaned. And all of the things had alarm arrays wrapped around them too, so they’d know the instant an object was missing. Even if he got into a case—which, given the time frame and the resources at his disposal, was a fever dream—he still had to contend with six other lines of defense.

He swore under his breath as he strolled. Forget everything else. What about that ring? That oh-so-delectable relic?

Now this, thank Fortune, was in no locked-up case. The Heilongs, in all their hubris, had it smack-dab at the end of the hall, fully, proudly displayed on the pedestal, with only a partition of glass to guard it.

But even as Dorian strolled up to it, he knew it wouldn’t be so simple. That pedestal was crawling with qi-lines winding in a thousand directions, and they converged at its center—right where the ring lay.

Dorian peered over the marble top at it, squinting.

A pressure plate which did who-knew-what if the ring was removed. And the ring itself was tied up in so many qi-lines that to move it was to trigger undoubtedly a half-dozen alarms. If Dorian were designing the vault, he’d also have it spontaneously lock down, trapping the thief within.

A slow, devious grin was sliding onto Dorian’s face. Now, this was a much more tractable challenge indeed. These defenses he could deal with. There were ways of disentangling qi-threads. There were ways of tricking pressure plates. The tricky thing, though, would be sneaking the damned thing out of here. And wouldn’t the Heilongs notice its absence?

They would—unless it was replaced by a very, very convincing fake.

A plan sprung to mind. A shaky plan that might require more than a smidge of luck, perhaps, but a plan.

He could not let a chance at a Prime Bone slide. With another Prime Bone, he could forge himself a Spirit Weapon. But even more crucially, he now had a chance to bond with a Spirit Weapon during his ascension to Profound!

Just thinking about it made his inner goblin cackle with joy.

Dorian took in the ring, letting its grooves, its curves, its etchings, the slope of its girdle and shank all seep into his mind until it was solid, a fully fleshed vision, a blueprint of cognition. Then he squinted at the pearl, that droplet of swampy essence, and did the same. Within a minute he’d memorized its shape.

He tapped his chin. Five hours before Tan returns. Then his mind turned to the forges.

It was time to put his artificing skills to good use!

THIRTY

NEW HORIZONS (VII)

“THE HEILONG FORGES,” read tall, stern block letters inscribed in the wrought-steel door. The thing looked like a shield built for a Godbeast, a hunk of simple, opaque steel overrun with patterns like metal thistles. Dorian went up to it, squinted for a second, licked his lips, and shoved a finger in the indent.

There was again that horrifying silence. And then there was a shriek of steam, a guttering of pistons, and the huge door split up the middle upon some infinitesimal seam like a mountain cracking open. Bright red light gushed from the seam, flickering like a lively fire, and Dorian strolled in with a grin.

He stood in a cavern ringed with stone torches, and under those torches rose in a semicircle of hulking monoliths—a dozen furnaces made of pitch-black metals. They made the furnaces back at the artificery seem like children’s toys. These were twice as wide, sporting impressive, thick gold plates up their sides, and the flames within leapt in startling yellow tongues. Each was equipped with silver anvils, tool-racks, and a store of materials: a board pinned with dozens of neatly labelled Interspatial Rings, each with its own stock of raw metal.

Oho! This is big boy territory. No more of the beginner forges. As Dorian rubbed his hands together, prowling the space and eyeing each forge, he bet these things were state-of-the-art. The stuff the highest-Tier artificers used, no doubt.

My thanks to the Heilong family! Thought Dorian as he picked a furnace. Rest assured, I will put this thing to good use. Namely, to help me steal one of your family’s most valuable treasures—under your noses—without your noticing.

He still wasn’t certain of the last bit. He had the ghost of an idea of how to do it, but such ideas often failed to materialize in the harsh light of day.

Well! He shrugged. May as well give it a shot! What’s the worst that can happen?

At this point it might’ve been his life’s motto.

One perfect replica, coming right up. He slapped a lever and the furnace flared to life, belching a wall of vicious heat which sent his hairs fluttering. Then he yanked out the Interspatial Rings he needed—aquamarine, topaz, silvers to forge a silver-alloy, and just a dash of artificial colorings.

Then there was much clanging, and there was much banging. There were blasts of heat, gouts of fire licking softening metal and the ruthless rhythms of hammer on anvil. And above it all were the fingers of a master: fingers which knew when to be gentle and when to be firm. Fingers which could tease metals as easily as they could flatten them. Silver contoured by firelight, folded in on itself, dripped out in a wide arc, took solid form slowly, surely. It was no challenge for a blacksmith of Dorian’s caliber. Not thirty minutes later, a princely sterling ring sizzled on the anvil, and on it lay a gemstone which, down to the faintest swirls of dark-blue, was indistinguishable from the one in the vault room. Dorian heaved a sigh, dashing a sheen of sweat from his brow. It was nearly perfect.

Nearly. But with a task as sensitive as this, that word was the difference between heaven and earth.

Dorian could forge a shape, and a texture, and a look—but not its substance.

Not its aura.

That primeval mark of the Serpent. To stand in its presence was to be locked in its coils. Every breath was a labor, and the pressure alone could break the wills of lesser Beasts. It was the aura of a king, an original. Oft-imitated, never replicated.

Which meant the only way to affect that Aura was to draw from the source. The bloodline of the Evernight Basilisk. The bloodline running through Dorian’s veins.

He held out an arm, palmed a knife in his other hand—a knife meant for shearing obsidian—and, without a hint of hesitation, slashed.

Blood sprayed out in a crescent. More than enough of it, dropping to a steady, pulsing stream. He let it fall in a stone bowl, let it grow from speck to droplet to pool, and more, but still it was not enough. There was an aura there, but it was a flickering candlelight when he needed a bonfire.

He squinted. The bowl had reached mid-way, and he could feel the loss of the Blood—the qi and vital energy slipping out of him. More. It must be more. But qi was stitching his skin together again. Growling, he slashed again, wider, stronger, and blood flew in a waterfall.

This was the ghost of the idea, brought to light. If he could gather enough of his Blood and condense it into a small enough space, he could affect that domineering aura. Not forever. This was no true self-sustaining relic. He’d have maybe one month before the aura decay became obvious. But if he could gather enough Blood essence, and squeeze it into his replica, he’d have a darn convincing fake.

Which was all very nice in theory, but theory was the prettier step-sibling of practice. When the abstract was brought to the level of the real, things tended to get wonky.

In this case, that wonkiness was turning out to be himself.

He licked his dried lips as a spell of sudden dizziness broke across his brow. How much blood is this going to take? Or perhaps the more relevant question—how much blood did he have to give? Would he be enough?

It was nearing two bowls now—two big bowls, and it was still not enough. Not even halfway there. A torch of aura, perhaps. He felt the it like heat washing against his skin, but he needed a bonfire. He scrabbled for a third bowl and let loose another thick slash in his arm, wrist-to-elbow.

A hiss escaped his lips. The blood was gushing out in rivers now, sloshing against the bowl. Stray splatters spilled on the floor. Warm, viscous blood. His head felt light, stuffed full of clouds.

Not enough!

It had crossed the halfway point. His eyes flashed. He could do it. He had to do it. The ring was made, the bowls were filled, he’d lost a quarter of his blood. No turning back now. No—now was the time for conviction. He had to take the risk.

Up and down the knife went again, and this time he fell to a knee, swallowing, feeling his tongue like a stick of dry wood against his cheek. Black spots dotted his vision, but with a trembling hand he brought up a fifth bowl and poured himself into it. Time passed. There was a kaleidoscope of sensation. The pain lancing up his arm, the wooziness, the rattling of his palms, the sweat on his brow, but he wrapped it all up and shoved it to a dark corner of his mind. This measure was necessary when he was slipping into that liminal space between the conscious and the unconscious. This was the way to walk that tightrope of being.

Instead of all that, he put his focus on a simple action: Breathe in, breathe out. Tick-tick-tick. In, out, in, out. The world became simple: him, the filling bowl, the untold darkness. Simple. Tick, tick—

The aura. Creeping up, torch to cackling flame, and further, hotter, crueler, a tyrannical fist of an aura bearing down on him. His breath caught in his throat. Yes. Yes! It was almost there. Almost! His breaths grew harsher. The world swam before his eyes, warbling, growing indistinct. Just a little more. A little—

The thing about that tightrope of being was the longer you walked it, the harder it was to keep balance. After a while, even a small disturbance was enough to throw you off.

Dorian didn’t even feel his body hit the ground.

* * *

He came to in a daze, and it felt like his whole body was made out of cottonballs and rays of mid-day sunshine. He was floating, lighter than air. He smiled. Thoughts were hard, slipping through his grasp like water through a sieve. Where was he? What was he—

Then he blinked.

Oh shit. Oh SHITTTTTT—

He leapt to his feet. He spun around. Blood on the floor, blood in the cups, everything else untouched, the furnaces boiling calmly at rest. There was no alarm. He was not being led away in chains. They hadn’t discovered him. How much time had passed? Why hadn’t he set an hourglass for when Tan had left? Why hadn’t he brought an hourglass? What was this amateurish idiocy? FUCK!

His blood was cold, like he’d been dunked in ice, and yet his heart was thumping faster than ever. This kind of error could be run-ending. This was a fuck-up of a multiversal scale.

But he was still alive, and things weren’t over, and there was time to beat himself up later, when the job was done. The only thing now was to salvage this mess.

Rough calculations. How long was he out? He looked at his arm. Only the faint pink skin was any indication of a wound. No salve, natural healing, in a qi-deficient state. Must be at least half an hour. Perhaps an hour. Perhaps two. Or three, with the sheer amount of qi he lost? Shit!

No more risks, no more tangents. Originally he thought he’d have time to get cute. Maybe he’d first steal the relic, then come back and forge a Spirit Weapon out of it, then bond with it as he ascended. Not anymore. He had no time.

Cursing, he swept up the bowls one by one and dropped their contents into a vat with one hand. With his other hand he scrubbed away the mess of blood on the floor. His mind was in overdrive, his body thrumming with nervous energy. He leapt to the vat, then turned his mind to it as an alchemist, swirling all that blood and guiding it inward, condensing it, packing it into the space of a pearl.

Two minutes of deep concentration later, one shining sphere of raw Blood lay at the vat’s center, pulsing shockwaves of aura. He’d blacked out at an opportune moment, apparently. He had but a wine glass of blood leftover.

Heaving a deep breath, he clasped the sphere with a tong, then placed it with tender slowness over the surface of his little pearl. There was a hole there—tiny, but enough to allow liquid to slip through. And the pearl began to fill.

It was excruciating. He was a patient man, but here, stranded in enemy territory without a clue of when they’d come for him, watching that thick liquid drip through felt like watching the last seconds of this life slip by before his eyes. Any moment those doors would burst open. Any moment his eardrums would burst with the clangs of alarm-bells.

But none of it happened as the last of his blood dripped through the pearl.

He lifted the tongue, picked up the stopper, and fitted it through the opening. It was seamless against the rest of the swirling blue pearl. Then it was done, at last and with far too much heartache.

He grabbed it, spent a nerve-rattling half-minute dashing about rearranging the room to how he’d found it, grabbed the relic, dashed out the big door to the forges, closed it just as Tan had done, and hightailed it for the vaults. His body was so hot he felt like he was burning alive.

He dashed past the doors, dashed down the long hallway, past the stacks upon stacks of priceless treasures, and skidded to a stop before the most priceless one of them all. One of the three crown jewels of the Heilong family, their ancestor treasure: the pearl of the Evernight Basilisk.

It was shrouded in qi-lines. It sat atop a pressure plate. And it was encased in a glass dome with lined with a detection array. Three layers of defense.

The glass might as well have been cosmetic. It probably was. It certainly wouldn’t keep any halfway decent artificer out. The detection array was child’s play. Dorian glanced over it once, sussed out the weak-points, stabbed at them, and it shrank like a cowed animal. He unscrewed the glass dome and lifted it over the top. No alarms. First defense passed.

The second was much tricker. The ring was encased in qi-threads. To disturb one was to set off an alarm. The thing was immovable.

Unless someone with precise enough qi control could carefully, gently unwrap it, then re-wrap it to a very similar item—all without disturbing any of the other threads. And then do that again for every single thread.

But it would take a true master to do. A master artificer for certain, but also someone with qi-manipulating skills worthy of a master alchemist. A rare creature that would be indeed.

Dorian set to work. He willed his breaths in deeply, slowly, let his muscles relax, let his heart slow. His panic was no longer useful. Here he needed control.

He closed his eyes, and in his mind’s eye he saw the qi-strings: little shards of light in the void. He grasped ever-so-gently for the tip of one, saw it shiver down its length—but not enough to disturb whatever array sat at its end. Then, as though coaxing a baby bird, he guided it out. Three swirls about the inside of the ring, arcing past the rest of the strings. Then three more, attaching to the replica. He breathed out. One down. A dozen more to go. He did the second without issue. Then the third. The fourth was faster, and the sixth and the seventh went easily. Not half an hour later, he’d rerouted every qi-string. Second barrier passed. His heart leapt. Almost there!

The last defense was the pressure-plate. It was keyed near the exact weight of the ring, no doubt, and this would be the most precarious step of all. Dorian had eyeballed the ring’s weight, and he’d eyeballed the alloys he used to mimic it. Those he was fairly confident of. The only thing he was unsure of was the weight of the pearl. He’d spliced together reasonable guesses of density based off other Serpent body parts, but it could throw off the weight by up to 10%. How precise was the pressure plate? How precise was his guess?

He held his breath. Then, in one quick motion, swapped the two out.

And for the third time that day, waited for death.

And for the third time that day, death didn’t come. His heartbeats thundered in his ears. He swallowed, a thick grin splitting his face. He’d done it. He’d fucking done it. In his hand was the essence of a God.

It was time, at last, to take it in—and ascend to the Profound Realm. To the gods, the Profound Realm was the true first step of cultivation. At this Realm you stopped borrowing qi from the Multiverse. You made your own.

How much more powerful would his qi be, nourished with this big ol’ hunk of Godly essence?

He licked his lips. I suppose I’m about to find out.

THIRTY-ONE

NEW HORIZONS (VIII)

Dorian would’ve never dreamed he’d get a bloodline piece this early.

As he sprinted into the chamber proper, heartbeat thundering in his ears, he thought of his original plan: Get to Profound. Establish a base of strength via artificery and Alchemy. Win whatever resources the tournament offered. Then screw off before Nijo and his gang got here—at which point he’d go hunt for bloodline relics to further his powers.

Away with all that chaff! Now it was like he’d skipped straight to the last step.

At Vigor, the body could only store about 1% bloodline capacity. That teensy percent was nestled in the dantian. Absorbing more bloodline at this stage was useless to him.

But at Profound, where the Spirit Sea opened, things got intriguing. The Spirit Sea would be his very own store of qi. It’d let him fire off techniques powered by vastly more qi than Vigor, true, but it would also be a space where he’d store another nine percent bloodline capacity! Which meant at peak Profound, he’d wield up to ten times the bloodline power as he had in Vigor.

If he could snag up enough bloodline relics to fill that capacity…

He would be a monster untouchable in the Oasis.

He squeezed the ring, felt its comforting heft nestled in the grooves of his palm, and his grin turned feral. How much bloodline was the pearl on this ring worth? One? One-point-five? Two, even?

He was looking at—at the very least—a doubling of his bloodline powers.

On top of the obvious benefits of ascending to Profound, of course. Oh, my…

He skidded to a stop before the doors to the cultivation chambers, still hanging ajar, tufts of watery purplish smoke billowing from the entrance. Then, without pausing, strolled in.

He was greeted with what seemed to be the main chamber, but in miniature: a foyer of clean-cut stone with carved doors along its sides, but made for men rather than giants. A thick layer of that purplish smoke nuzzled the floor, winding and flowing like a lazy river. It was a smoke of smokes—made of wispy vapors of sky-blue and rose-pink and midnight-black and forest-fire-orange streaming out from each of the doors, all mingled together. The sky-blue smoke streamed from a door with a feather symbol. Rose-pink came from a flower-door. And so on. Each of these doors led to a cultivation chamber with its own aspect.

But Dorian already knew which one he’d choose. One door taller than all the rest stood at the very center, marked with a curious symbol: a lonely moon in a twilight sky. More qi gushed from it than any other. Of course the Heilongs build the best of the rooms for their cultivation aspect.

He smirked. This little coincidence of bloodlines is paying dividends ten times over.

He stepped up to the door and sank his thumb into the indent. With a grumble of gears, it slid open.

It was as though he’d opened a portal into a midnight forest in some eerie faerie realm. There was no ceiling, just a starscape canopy—white pinpricks against a satin gloom. Before him stood a grove of crooked trees with bone-white trunks slender as as man’s thighs. Their boughs bore strange fruit: leafless, shiny, orbs colored a purple so dark it verged on black. From these fruits flowed vast torrents of that purplish smoke-qi which settled over Dorian like a thick summer wind. A pebbled path wound through this grove, ending at a shrine at its center.

The shrine was simple white wood, and a single bamboo mat lay at its center. There was an array carved on this mat. Its job was simple: to marshall all the billowing, soupy fog of qi in this room, and pour it on a single point. And it sat there, idle, just waiting for someone to use it.

As Dorian stood there, at the threshold of the shrine, he felt himself, too, standing at the threshold of the Profound. It was right there. Within reach. But such an endeavor was not to be taken lightly. There was a gravity to a bottleneck as monumental as this. This threshold would not admit a dilettante. It demanded full-hearted conviction, a single-minded focus. So, he took one last inventory of his status. All the preparations were made. All the materials were there. What of the state of his mind? He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then another, in-out, in-out, until his heartbeat had slowed to the steady beat of a war-drum, until each muscle in his body unwound its tensions in turn, until he was cool as a crystal-clear freshwater lake atop a wintry mountain’s peak. There was not a ripple on the surface of his mind.

Then he opened his eyes, and they shone with frigid bright light. He knew what had to be done. He knew he had the power to do it. He entered.

* * *

A boy in a shrine, legs crossed, eyes closed, breathing heavy.

The air was heavy with quiet.

And then the ground underneath him erupted with light. Brilliant light which drilled into the sky, cutting pale holes in the stark black. One by one, the stars went out.

There was a rumbling. Like an earthquake, but in reverse, for this didn’t begin deep within the earth. It came from up there, in the heavens, streaming down: a pulse, a wave, a surge. And then it was like every little particle of air was vibrating, hissing with energy.

Then, the mist moved. As though blown by heady winds they drifted in, coiling around the shrine. Dorian felt them seeping into his body, coursing down his meridians the way thawed glacier-water rushes down dry riverbeds. Still, they kept coming, drenching him, running faster and faster until he sat cross-legged, eyes scrunched at the center of this gathering storm, struggling to carry its weight. Sweat beaded his temple as he tried to rein it all in, but it was like trying to hold down a stable of bucking stallions. Excess qi was thrown out from his body, then swept back into the storm again. He felt like the weight of a universe was crashing upon his shoulders, all at once, and he felt himself compressing, folding in, hunching over, every muscle in his body crying out, veins straining against his skin. He screamed, and a blast of excess qi rushed out his open lips.

Dorian sat on a standard gathering array in a cultivation chamber. The only thing was, such an array was meant for Earth-level cultivators. Dorian took it on at Vigor. And it was crushing him like a tinfoil can. All this qi had no outlet, and so it chose his body.

Dorian had to give it new direction.

He locked his mind on a single point. A little dot right above the dantian—the dormant node of the Spirit Sea.

And he formed one thought.

Open.

* * *

Tan Heilong hummed merrily as he clacked down the corridors of the Heilong estate. The day was going splendidly! Soon his new, dear friend Io would be at Profound, and they’d go out shopping and spear-fishing—whatever it was friends did. Tan frowned. He wasn’t really sure? He didn’t have very many friends. Really just the one, now that he thought of it. The other times were just his older brother’s friends pretending to be his friends, then shoving him into mud-pits, and pointing, and laughing, which wasn’t really the same thing as having a friend at all. Smiley, happy men simply didn’t approach waifish dwarves like him, he guessed. He sniffled.

Speaking of his brother and his friends, those horrible cretins were still out there in the front yard, doing their brutish dueling-practice. He curled a dainty lip. Uncouth things, and not the least bit aesthetic. Tan never got the appeal of muscles. Veiny, lumpy things, bulging out of male bodies—ugh! He much preferred the slender, agile forms of the girls on the field. There was that girl, Lin, that gorgeous sprite of the air, weaving across the skies like a ribbon of light, loosing bolts of crackling qi. His eyes glittered. Oh, how Tan wished he were like that…

Then Tan frowned. A great ugly shadow had fallen across the field. What the heck? It was thick, and misshapen, and had an unpleasant sense of familiarity to it…

He looked up. And his blood ran cold.

A battleship, a hulking, blocky monstrosity of bolted metal streaming with red flags, disgorging thick plumes of smoke. But it was not an enemy ship, come to attack. That would’ve made Tan less nervous.

This ship was the Heilong’s own.

He recognized this ship. It belonged to his uncle. The one-and-only Great Elder Bin Heilong, major-general of all of the Oasis’ aerial forces. A man who could put the fear of the Dweller in Tan with but a twitch of his arrow-straight brow.

A man who was not supposed to be here. He should’ve been in the far reaches, putting down those bothersome Ugoc savages!

Not good. Not good at all. Very not good. Tan swallowed. He’d been under the impression all the adults had gone out, and he could let his little friend play around in the manor.

But if any senior knew he’d let a foreigner into the Heilong family’s most restricted zone?

A droplet of sweat dribbled down Tan’s nose.

Very very very very not good. Not only for him, but for Io. Tan didn’t even want to think about the things Bin Heilong would do to his friend if he found out. That man had a gaping hole where his heart should be. He’d killed for far, far less.

There they were. A swarm of black dots in the sky, exiting the hull of the ship. And at their head, dressed in flaming silks, was Bin Heilong himself, a clean-shaven, gray-haired man whose thin physique belied monstrous strength. Tan had seen the man drop an Earth-Realm drake with a flicker of his fist. And now he was not thirty feet away, frowning severely—his default expression, but it chilled Tan to his bones nonetheless.

Tan dashed out onto the field. His brother and his friends were already there. Most were bowing their heads in deference.

“Welcome home, uncle,” said Yu Heilong, chin held high, looking the very definition of a young master. “I must apologize for the sordid reception! We were not expecting you for weeks.”

“No need for an apology. Or a reception,” snapped Bin with a flourish of his sleeve. “The business in the north is more dire than we’d thought. By far. I’ve come back for reinforcements.”

“Those savages? The Ugoc?” Yu frowned. “I’d surmised that with you and father’s combined might, one campaign would be enough—”

“You’ve surmised wrong.” Bin swept past him without a second word. “Attendants!” he roared. Silence. He cursed. “Does no one in this household possess a smidge of competence?!”

A servant burst out a nearby door like a headless chicken. “S-sir!” he yelped.

“Prepare the cultivation chambers,” Bin growled. “Load them with one-hundred high-grade Spirit Stones. Before I return, I shall break through to late-Earth Realm.”

“Yes, sir!” The servant dashed off.

Tan felt faint. Or, rather—he was about to faint. He was sure of it. His heart had sank to his stomach. There was a voice coming from his dry-as-desert throat, but it didn’t sound like hiss. It was quivering, and shrill, and squeaky—the type of voice a death-row inmate might have before his execution.

“U-uncle!” he yelped, nearly tripping over himself as he ran over to the man. “Uncle! Wait!”

Bin stopped like a stuck gear. Then he turned his head and fixed Tan with a gaze so black and so forceful Tan’s mind went utterly blank. For a second he was certain he was already dead.

“What.” One hard syllable, hissed out of thin gray lips. Tan swallowed again.

“I…may have let my foreigner friend borrow the chambers…?”

There was a pause, a pause which seemed to hold within it an eternity.

Then Bin Heilong’s Earth-Realm aura erupted out of him, flattening the field like a heat-wave, and it contained a rage so pure it knocked Tan clean off his feet.

“You. Did. WHAT?!”

THIRTY-TWO

NEW HORIZONS (IX)

Dorian, of course, had no clue about the hubbub above him. Even if he did, he couldn’t afford to think about it. Gales of qi scythed in and out of him, intent on carving his body from the inside-out. There was so much qiflowing through him that his skin had taken on a translucent, glistening tenor. His hair, drifting upward, was no longer bound by so puny a force as gravity.

Open.

All the great forces of the universe bore down on one point deep within him, shrieking their eagerness.

There was a click.

[Rank-up!]

[Peak Vigor -> Early Profound]

[Spirit-Sea Opened!] Grade: Low

It was done. He felt the space within him open, expanding like a third lung, but much smaller: it was the size of a pea. It might not’ve seemed much, but such a space could store enough qi for him to toss low-grade techniques for hours without ceasing. It was more precious to a cultivator than his heart.

Most who tried to break through the bottleneck to Profound failed. Of those who succeeded, about three-quarters got the default Spirit Sea grade: Low. Once the breakthrough was complete, the size of the Spirit-Sea could not be changed. If Dorian stopped now, he’d be stuck with a Low-Grade Sea for the rest of this life.

But Dorian had no intention of stopping. Not by a long shot.

There was blood in his mouth, warm and salty. Somewhere in all the gnashing and screaming, he’d bitten his tongue. Now, he bared his teeth, a crimson crescent shining in a violet storm.

I want to go higher!

So he pushed.

* * *

“I will gut him like a fucking eel!” Yelled Bin Heilong, eyes flashing.

“Uncle—please!” Wailed Tan, dragging at the hems of his uncle’s robes. But he was sent flying with a vicious backhand. He tumbled head-over-heels, then landed in a heap at the feet of the other young masters. He lay there, groaning and whimpering.

“LOCK DOWN THE HOUSE!” Roared Bin. “SEAL THE GATES!”

And all around them, walls of studded metal fell, blocking off the doors, damming the gates.

“No, no, no…” sniffled Tan. He clambered to his knees and whirled around, helpless. The First young master laughed.

“I knew you were stupid, brother,” Yu Heilong sneered. “But even I didn’t see this coming!” he leaned in, leering. “How do you think Uncle will deal with your little savage friend? A beheading? A spear through the heart, perhaps?”

Tan’s eyes shot up, wide and watery. “H-he wouldn’t!” But it was a lie, and they both knew it.

“Please!” Yu crossed his arms. His grin had gotten so wide it threatened to slip off the sides of his face. “I’ve seen him kill passersby on the street for merely a disrespectful glance. An intruder in the heart of the family’s most closely guarded chambers?” He barked a laugh, and still managed to look heroic doing it. “His death is as inevitable as the sunset! It’ll be a miracle if Uncle doesn’t descend into the afterworld just to kill him again!”

Yu was taking a special pleasure in this, Tan could tell. His brother had always been a cruel one. Clearly, the First young master was still smarting over the humiliation Io had given him a few hours before.

Lin, for her part, was beside herself. Tan saw her struggling to get past a barricade of guards. “Senior!” she screamed. “As First Young Mistress of the Zhang Family, I bid you cease this tomfoolery immediately—hello? Are you even listening to me? Excuse me?!”

Plainly, General Heilong was not listening. He was almost at the main doors now.

Lin tried to corkscrew around the guards, but they were wise to it and grabbed her by the arms. “You can’t do this!” she screamed. Bin didn’t even look at her as he stepped into the house and slammed the door shut. The sound cracked across the field like thunder.

There was a sense of finality to it, like a clock striking midnight.

“Gah!” Lin sank to her knees, pale and trembling. Tan wasn’t much better.

It would take a miracle to save Io now, he thought.

But that, too, was a lie. He swallowed, tears brimming at his eyes. For what miracle could possibly forestall the wrath of the Butcher of the West—in his own house, no less?

* * *

Dorian could see his Sea. When he closed his eyes and sent his senses scurrying down his body into his core, he felt it like a chamber in his body. A soft, pliable chamber.

A chamber forced wider and wider by a thunderous rush of qi. It poured in like a flood, blasting at the walls of the space, and his Sea expanded. And soon, just when it had reached about a third larger—

[Level-up!]

[Spirit Sea] Grade: Low -> Mid

Dorian smirked. Only a rare few got to this tier, one in ten cultivators or so. It was here that even most young masters were halted, the impetus of their breakthroughs sputtering out. To achieve a Mid-Grade Spirit Sea was an impressive feat by any standard. It was the minimum to achieve Godhood.

But it wasn’t enough for Dorian.

More. More!

The walls of his Sea were growing strained. The flows of the qi was growing chaotic, erupting in seething whirlpools and leaking out in all directions, taxing his mind. At this point, most cultivators could no more direct the qi than they could direct the flow of a raging river with their bare hands.

Even for a Godking like Dorian, who’d been here a hundred times over, things were getting dicey. He gnashed his teeth. He was slipping, and he knew it. He could feel the flows wrenching at him. Each second was a trial, and still that flood within was rising, howling, bucking. It took all of his mind to hold it back.

His hold would not last forever. This could only end in a blow-up of epic proportions. But for the wisps of time he could hold it down, trapped in his Sea, its fury was his to harvest.

And harvest he did. He fell into a trance, a singular flow. In this state he didn’t feel the seconds pass. Time was immaterial. There was no past or future. There was simply the now, the task at present, and he was utterly devoted to it. He became one with this grueling, messy, agonizing moment.

And his devotion was rewarded.

[Level-up!]

[Spirit Sea] Grade: Mid -> High

The notification nearly broke him—relief flooded him so strongly he nearly let it all slip. It took a staggering effort of will to reign himself in, heaving and rattling. Yes. YES!

Less than one percent of Profound cultivators ever climbed to this peak. Within this Oasis, maybe only the highest- of the highest- had High-Grade Seas. Clan Leaders. Ancestors. Generals. A scant handful. At this grade, a Sea’s store of qi was double that of a Low-Grade Spirit Sea. A High-Grade Spirit Sea might as well have been an entry in the history-books. This was the highest Grade there was.

Well—almost.

That was what most everyone here thought, since it was all anyone here had seen in their sordid little lives. Little frogs, staring up from the bottoms of little wells.

There was one more Grade. A grade that was the stuff of whispered legend in the Izod Desert. A grade which most took to be mere myth.

It was said the Founder of the Azcan Oasis had achieved this grade. It was said that the founder of the Heilong Family had done the same, lo those centuries ago. But no one since, here or anywhere else, had heard tell of it.

It was a grade which neither skill nor preparation could conquer. One also needed a great deal of luck, even if one was a Godking.

Dorian grinned despite it all. This run, I seem to have all three in spades.

He was hanging onto his hold by a thread. The qi within him had grown to a monstrous, ravenous thing. If his mind were a dam, stress fractures were crackling down its length. White-hot stars of pain drilled into his skull and his vision had taken on a blurry, faint, far-away quality. He’d crack any second. He could feel it. But not before he played his last trump card.

The Heilong ring slid down into his palm. The scale stood proud atop it, its polished surface reflecting the ghostly, warbled streams of qi swirling about it. With two fingers, Dorian popped out the scale.

And swallowed it.

* * *

“Impossible. Try it again!”

“I assure you, General—the door is locked.” The Heilong servant yanked at the door to the cultivation chamber with a full-body effort before collapsing to his knees, panting. It remained stubbornly shut.

“How can that be?” Snarled one of Bin’s lieutenants. “Only those who possess the Heilong bloodline can lock a cultivation chamber from the inside!” he dashed up himself and, with all his Earth-Realm powers, ripped at the handle. Locked.

The lieutenant blinked at his hand, disbelieving, before trying it again. Same result. “It’s true,” he said numbly. “I shall call for the gatekeeper! He’ll procure a master key—”

Then his words were cut off by his own yelp. He ducked, and barely missed having his head blasted clean off by a blast of hellishly hot qi. The qi drilled into the door, dispersing against it with an earth-rattling crash. The gold sizzled there, drooping off the door frame. This gold was of the highest caliber—mined from the boiling depths of the realm, gold which would’ve repelled Profound-Tier dragon’s breath with ease. Now, it melted like common steel.

The lieutenant swallowed. The general’s qi was as potent as ever, clearly.

“THERE IS AN INTRUDER IN THE HEART OF OUR FAMILY!” Screeched Bin, red-faced, spittle spraying out of gnashed teeth. “We are the defenders of the Oasis. We are the men who hold the gates! And now a trespasser has not only snuck by our own front door—and is gorging on our most sacred resources, in the Shrine of the Fucking Serpent, no less—and you want me to wait for a master key?!”

Another bolt of qi had Bin’s men ducking for cover. When the shaking stopped, another inch of gold had melted off the door.

“TEAR. IT. DOWN!”

The general’s men glanced at each other. One by one, they rushed to obey.

* * *

Thousands upon thousands of li away, a prince was enjoying the sunset atop a high plateau.

Nijo Ugoc lay atop a nest of plush pillows. The flaps to his tent were wide open so that the waning sun nuzzled his face, bathing the whole of his body in a soft orange glow.

“Nijo?” A smooth, deep, yet still womanly voice. His consort, Yíla, and one of his highest-ranking commanders. She drew up beside him. He felt one gentle hand graced his shoulder. “There you are. What are you doing up here, this late? Should we not be reviewing our battle-plans?”

“No need. The battle is as good as won,” said Nijo, taking a sip of wine. “As is the war. With the Azcan Oasis, and with the rest of this plane.”

“So your mind has turned to idle pleasures. Before the task is done.” There was a note of admonishment in her voice.

“No, dear,” he said, and smiled sadly. “I have come here because I expect a…message, I suppose you might call it…from an old friend. A friend I had not known was here, until very recently.” He turned his eyes once more to the waning light.

“What message could possibly matter in a time like this?’ Yíla was growing cross. Nijo sighed. He supposed he’d better explain.

“There is a curious property of this realm,” he said softly, his eyes still fixed on the horizon. “This place is drenched in Fate, you see. It is the Graveyard of the Gods, after all…we ought to expect strange things. Every so often, when an extraordinary cultivator makes an extraordinary sort of breakthrough—a breakthrough which catches the attention of Fate, and of the Heavens—the realm responds in kind. It is a rare sight. I’ll not miss it.”

He patted the cushions beside him, smiling. “Come. Sit with me. We’ll watch it together.”

She frowned at him but took her place beside him nonetheless, he criss-crossed, her on her knees, back ramrod-straight. And they sat there, still and waiting. And waiting. And waiting still.

The sky grew darker. The sun was a watery orange sliver on the horizon. Heavy slate clouds were slowly creeping over them, sagging with coming rain, like great blankets of the evening. Finally Yíla turned to him, her gaze flat as a board.

“What am I meant to be seeing?”

A pause. “It…has not yet appeared.” A faint flush tinged Nijo’s cheeks.

Yíla frowned. “Are you certain it will appear?”

Another pause. Then—”I have faith in him,” Nijo said slowly.

Yíla opened her mouth to spit a barb, but Nijo raised a hand. A soft smile was creeping back on his face. “Ah. Look.”

His finger traced a point on the horizon.

There was a mote of bright purple there, staining the orange. Yíla’s breath caught. It was growing—now it was a brilliant fingernail of light in the distance. Still it climbed higher, broaching a cloud-layer, brightening like a second sun. It spread up, up, up, until it was a thin, dazzling, swirling line which split the sunset in two. A beam which dared the heavens. A beam which could be seen for thousands upon thousands of miles, proud and mighty. Up close, it might’ve covered half a city.

“Incredible,” breathed Yíla, eyes wide.

“That,” murmured Nijo, “Is one massive cloud of qi, roused to the skies by a chance disturbance of Fate. It is known as ‘Purple Air Comes From the East.’ It is only the second time in all my life I have had the privilege of witnessing such a thing.”

Yíla glanced at him, frowning. “Are you crying?”

Nijo blinked, then dabbed a hand at his face, feeling the tear making a slow journey down his cheek. “Ah. So, I am,” he said, and his lips quirked at the edges. “Well. It is beautiful, is it not?”

Yíla snorted. Then squinted. “Wait.” Nijo saw the dots connect in her mind in real-time. “Is that from the Azcan Oasis?!”

“It is indeed.” Nijo winked. “And soon, Fate permitting, we shall meet the man who caused it.”

THIRTY-THREE

NEW HORIZONS (X)

The scale sank within him, down his throat, and nestled into his Spirit Sea. Right in the eye of the storm.

Dorian felt the shockwave of qi from his bones to his skin. His whole body vibrated, top-to-bottom, like a string plucked by the hand of an angry god.

He lost it. His grip slipped. He yielded easily, relieved, and let the storm of qi detonate within him.

It lashed out like the death throes of a writhing beast. It stormed his Spirit Sea, snarling and thrashing against the walls of the space as it dashed from his body, and the Sea, stubborn and stretched as it was, had no choice but to give.

And a status screen Dorian had long craved flashed before his eyes.

[Level-up!]

[Spirit Sea] Grade: High -> Perfect

He’d done it. Dorian felt a rush of fierce joy. He was burning up with it. He couldn’t keep the grin from his face. He basked in the feeling. This—this!—was what gave existence color. Compared to all those other petty pleasures, this was a delight of a different kind. It stood alone. He lived for moments like this.

The Perfect-Grade Sea held triple the qi of Low-Grade. It was a heaven-and-earth difference, one which made a Perfect-Grade Profound cultivator worth ten of his lesser counterparts.

But Dorian’s breakthroughs were not yet done.

The Sea was a perfect sphere lodged within, a pearl where most every other cultivator possessed but a grain. It was a glorious orb of shining light within him, fiery and lovely. At its center lay the source of the heat: the bloodline scale of the Great Serpent, dissolving into the Sea, tinging it. Melding with his body.

[Level-up!]

[Bloodline Density]: 1% -> 3%

And at last, it was complete.

He felt reborn, every ounce of him tingling with newfound power—his own qi, trickling over him from out of his newfound Spirit Sea, dense as the deep-sea, black as a starless sky, slick as pitch oil and just as smothering. A qi which exuded an aura of effortless majesty. Kneel, it seemed to say. For you stand in the presence of a king.

His qi was but a stream now, but soon his Sea would fill. Soon he would be awash with his own bloodline qi. Soon he would be invincible in the Profound Realm.

He’d barely begun to fantasize about his impending glory before it happened.

A wrenching in his gut, a nauseous feeling.Dorian started, eyes wide. What?!

The air around him twisted, smearing the colors about him as though caught in a massive heat wave. But this was no heat. This was a kind of reality distortion. A kind with which Dorian was all-too-familiar.

Fate! But how?

He whirled around, but there was no one there. As the tug grew stronger the air seemed to pull apart, making his vision a grotesque watercolor. He felt for the source of the disturbance. Was there some foul magic at play? Had Old Man Fate broached the realm?!

Then he stopped. For he’d found the disturbance’s source.

All this warping stemmed from…himself.

What. The. Fuck.

It was like some divine gong had been struck in an unseen dimension and now its waves spread out endlessly, rippling reality. Where the waves spread the qi grew agitated, flaring, sizzling.

Which was a hell of an issue, since Dorian stood in the middle of a storm cloud of qi! Qi that had, in the blink of an eye, turned vicious.

Then, as one, it moved.

* * *

The door to the cultivation chamber was taking a pounding.

A dozen Earth-Realm and peak-Profound elites, among the best soldiers of the Oasis, threw the full heft of their cultivation bases at the door. Thick gobs of qi sailed through the air. Gauntleted fists pummeled dents into the door. The door clung on, gritty in its old age, but it was sagging under the assault, its golden facade burned to a crusty black.

Bin Heilong gave an impatient humph. “Pathetic!” he snarled. “My finest men cannot bring down one measly door? Can the Heilong name be shamed any further on this blasted day?”

“Step aside!” he flung out his arms as he stalked between them, and his men scattered, yelping.

“I’ll do it myself.”

A fizz of crimson-white sparked to existence before him. It swirled into a fireball the size of a finger, then a heart, then a boulder, building on itself mid-air the way a snowball grows as it crashes down an avalanche. Bin’s men glanced at each other, their faces white, and plastered themselves against the walls.

This was the Cry of the Dragon. It was the general’s signature move, and it was so named because he’d shoved it down the throat of a peak Earth-Realm Flood Dragon, and it cooked the beast alive from the inside. The Dragon’s agonized cries could be heard for miles.

This would not merely melt the door. This would reduce whichever unfortunate soul stood beyond it to slag. There would be collateral damage. He might scald one of the shrine’s sacred trees, an act which would get a lesser man hung.

But no one dared say a thing, since the general was far beyond caring.

Suddenly, just as the Cry was cresting its apex, the door started to tremble.

The general blinked. The men blinked. No. That wasn’t quite accurate. It wasn’t merely the door. It was the whole of the chamber. Bits of debris bounced up and down, and the ceiling let out a labored gasp.

“Whoever is doing that, cease!” Snarled the general, whirling on his men, his technique held high above his head like an executioner’s blade. But his men simply looked to one another, baffled, for none of them had done a thing.

Then the door blew open.

The flood of qi which erupted out snuffed out the general’s attack like a candle. None of them had so much as the time to scream. The room was blasted apart, the men within flung out like leaves in a whirlwind. All there was was this shrill, endless rush of blinding purple-pink qi which streaked with animal desperation for the heavens.

* * *

Kaya Rust was jolted awake.

Warm, salty tang on the side of her face, a hot throbbing at the base of her skull. She scrambled to her feet, spitting sand, whirling around. It was like a whip had cracked across her soul. Where was she? She froze as she soaked in her surroundings. Blood, so much blood, and not her own. The mangled bodies of foreign men lay about her, their limbs bent at stomach-churning angles.

Then the memories assaulted her. She’d been the one to bend them. She’d laughed while doing it, too! A spike of white-hot pain lanced her between the brows, and she doubled over, coughing. She was going to be ill. In the moment it’d felt so good, somehow, so right—

Her thoughts evaporated.

One moment, the sky was blue.

The next, it was violet.

She was thrown off her feet, tumbling across the ground. There was nothing but a hollow ringing in her ears for a few seconds, then sound gushed in: a long, cavernous roar unlike anything she’d ever heard. If the earth grew a mouth and could bellow, she imagined this was the sound it would make.

Wiping the soot from her eyes, spitting out a mouthful of sand, she glanced up, ears ringing, eyes streaming with tears, head throbbing something awful. And gasped.

She’d been trapped in a raging sandstorm before. It was like that—except each grain of sand was a mote of qi, streaming upward, blanketing the world. An ocean of qi, more qi than she’d ever seen by so many orders of magnitude her brain felt like a dried-out fruit just trying to comprehend its scope. It was unlike anything she’d seen.

She sank knee-deep in the blood of her enemies, and, for the second time that day, blacked out.

* * *

They’d all felt it—the Chosen on the field of the Heilong manor. That sharp twang, deep in their souls, even before the ground in front of them erupted, and a universe of qi broke out.

Now they’d picked themselves up off the ground, dusted themselves off. At first they’d assumed enemy action. There were a few moments of hot-headed panic. Then they all, as one, saw their folly.

This could not be the work of man, nor beast. This was the work of a higher power.

The qi was fast-flowing, sure, but it didn’t seek to harm them. It didn’t disturb them. It simply went up, returning to the skies. A phenomenon of nature. A sign.

“Remarkable,” spluttered Tan, twirling, taking in the frothy haze all about them. Lin could barely hear him over the roar. For a while they all stood there, transfixed.

“Remarkable,” Tan said again, dumbly. “It’s—it’s like that poem, isn’t it? The Rhyme of the Ages.”

It was a poem taught to them all, a nursery rhyme. A myth, made up of hot air and fantasy—or so Lin had thought. A myth about the founding of the Azcan Oasis.

It was said that when the Founder broke through to Profound—

“Fate plucks a string,” breathed Lin, eyes wide. “A legend rises. And Purple Air Comes From the East.”

She’d heard other legends about this, but she’d never believed them. Her grandfather had told her the tale of the Moondragon Knight, Founder of the Heilong Clan—how he’d carved a bloody trail across the Desert, unified it under one banner, and ascended to the heavens. How, when he broke through to Profound, the very earth and skies had trembled in recognition.

And now it had happened again. Right beneath her feet. She could scarcely believe her eyes.

Just what sort of monster had been born down in that chamber?!

* * *

All across the Oasis, eyes turned to the sky. Eyes of the lowly and the powerful alike.

In the Governor’s Palace, a wizened, dwarflike old man squinted at the skies, and scratched at his mustache, and frowned his bushy brows. For this unassuming man’s name was Zhang, and his title was Oasis lord—a title he’d held for decades, ever since he’d ascended from his role as head of the Artificer’s Guild. He was true to his roots. He liked to keep his little city running as smoothly as polished clockwork.

And he didn’t like unforeseen disturbances.

The Rat-King, Feiyang Shen, hung by two fingers on a skyscraper’s ledge and watched the Air rise in stony, narrow-eyed silence. master artificers. master alchemists. The heads of each major guild. Family leaders, gangsters, tournament rankers, young masters—all stared at the skies in awe. For they had all heard the myths, the legends. But few had believed them.

Until now.

* * *

All dust, no matter how violent, must settle. Air rises and is gone—even Purple Air. In the aftermath, amidst the ruins of once-great Chambers, stood two bedraggled parties.

One was the Heilong forces. They’d been battered, thrown about, and splattered against the walls of the chamber by gales of irresistible qi. Now, they’d gathered in a jagged line, red-faced and huffing.

The other party was Dorian, who had just gotten out of being trapped in this cage of fast-flowing qi. And now was confronted with a row of furious-looking Earth-Realm elites, all bearing the Heilong insignia.

They stared at each other, equally speechless.

Hmm, thought Dorian, swallowing. I appear to be…screwed.

Silence. More silence. It was growing awkward. They stared at each other, neither side willing to break the stalemate. Nobody seemed to know quite what to do.

Then a man stepped forward. Stern-looking, a once-slick mustache plastered up his face. Judging by the obscene number of stars on his uniform, he seemed to be the leader.

“What,” he croaked, pointing a thin, trembling finger. “Is your name?”

THIRTY-FOUR

THE HIGHEST BIDDER (I)

Dorian and the Heilong Elites stood in a crater, a blackened ruin of the great chamber, its sizzling grounds sloshed with half-melted gold and iron. Smoke wafted like incense over heaps of fractured treasures. The last of their qi leaked out in sparking spurts.

“What,” croaked Bin Heilong, “Is your name?”

There was a deathly silence.

Dorian wasn’t sure what to say. I suppose there’s no point in lying now. What difference will it make?

“Io Rust,” he said with a smile. “Pleasure to meet you! And you are?”

“I am Grand General Bin Heilong.” Bin’s eyes were narrowed, his brows drawn in, his lips hardly moving as he gritted out the words.

“Today, Io Rust, you have humiliated the Heilong Family.” His aura grew fiercer with every hissed word. “You have infiltrated our sacred chambers. You have destroyed our treasures. You have brought ruin to our treasuries. You have cost us untold fortunes in the span of a fucking hour.”

This was the sort of man who grew quieter the madder he got, who let his rage wind him smaller and tighter until it all burst out in one huge blast. The man’s eyeballs had started trembling in their sockets, red veins creeping across the shivering white like cracks on a frozen lake. His aura was starting to tremble. Yikes.

“Your life is forfeit!” Snarled Bin Heilong, eyes bulging.

Dorian opened his mouth, then—at the sight of streams of piping-hot qi literally leaking from Bin’s ears—promptly shut the hell up. You know what? I don’t need to grovel just yet. The man’s talking! Which means he’s decided not to kill me yet. I’ve got some wiggle room here. I think.

“By all rights,” said Bin, quiet as a grave, “I should smite you where you stand.”

Dorian’s ears perked up. He could sense a but coming. Excellent. Taking advantage of buts was a specialty of his.

“But.”

Bin took a long, deep breath.

“Fate has proven…unexpectedly fickle. Perhaps there is an opportunity to make use of this disaster.”

Fate. Yes. That whole purple air business. Dorian would have to figure out just what that’d all been about. If he made it through this little jam, that was. Very, very big if.

“That purple air of the East,” hissed Bin, eyes flashing. “That was you?”

Dorian nodded slowly.

“Hmph. Very good!” Then I will give you two options.” Bin’s nostrils flared. “The first? I kill you, here and now, where you stand.”

Ah. So, you’re really giving me one option.

“The second—” Bin thrust out a finger straight at Dorian. “You atone for what you have done here today. You swear a soul bond to the venerable Heilong Clan. You join the Backbone of the Oasis!”

Dorian blinked. Wait. What?

He’d been expecting something like “I will tie you up, spit-roast you, and feast upon your liver!”

“Make no mistake,” growled Bin. “You would not be an official member. You would be granted none of the privileges of a Chosen, or—Heavens forbid—a young master! But because you appear to have some…potential…I am offering you the chance to become a servant of the Clan. I am offering you the chance to be a weapon bred for our use. A tool.”

“Uh,” said Dorian, perking up, mind whirling. “But to make an effective tool—to take advantage of my, ah, potential—you would need to invest resources in me, no?”

Bin frowned. “I…Yes. But only to improve your capacity to serve the family. Nothing more!”

Externally, Dorian let his face droop, as though distraught.

Internally, he beamed.

Out of all the things Bin could’ve said, this must’ve been in the top three in terms of outcomes for him! Well, other than the servant and the soul bond thing. Soul bonds were notoriously hard to wriggle out of, even for him. But the whole not-dying and being given the clan’s resources bit? That Dorian was a very big fan of indeed. Really, any outcome that had him leaving here with all his limbs intact was well above his expectations.

Then Bin puffed out his chest. “You would fight for us. Represent us in the tournament—and in the war!” he cleared his throat. “If necessary, to the death.”

…

It was like Dorian had been doused with cold water. Oh. Right. This is the military clan of the Oasis.

A vision flashed before Dorian’s eyes—Nijo and his flood of horrible Beasts descending from the north, sweeping through the Oasis walls like flypaper and laying waste to its insides.

The implications struck Dorian like a slap on the face.

A Soul Bond would tie me to the clan. Which means I’d be tied to the defense of this little shithole. Which means I would, by compulsion of soul contract, be forced to fight to the death for it.

Dorian’s head spun.

Hells no!

This changed everything. His stint at this Oasis was supposed to be short and sweet. Snatch its resources, high tail it out before the Ugoc arrived. An in-and-out affair, two months, tops. The kinds of magic that Nijo bastard was playing with far outstripped the stuff this place could muster. Of that he was certain. He wasn’t sticking around for this place’s certain destruction. In truth, Bin Heilong offered him a choice of two death warrants.

Of course, he didn’t give any hint of his thoughts on his face. Instead, he threw up an easygoing grin. “A tempting offer, sir. How about this—give me a day! Then I shall give you my answer—”

He ducked as a bolt of qi scalded the air where his head had been.

“You have five seconds!” Bin stepped up, aura raging to the Heavens, and so did his ten lieutenants. A line of furious qi, blazing like a wildfire. “That was a warning shot. My next bolt fries you on the spot. Decide. Now!”

Dorian got the distinct impression the man was not bluffing.

“All right, I’ll do it!” he cried, throwing up his hands. “Goodness. You can put your life-and-death techniques away!”

“Good.” Bin Heilong harrumphed. He caressed a ring on his finger and drew out a shimmering sheet of gold-foil parchment, then held it out to Dorian, stone-faced. Dorian felt an eye twitch. Who kept soul contracts in their Interspatial Ring, ready at a moment’s notice?

He scanned the contents, and his eye twitched.

The more he read, the more incredulous he got. Oh, come now! You can’t be serious.

No frills, no addendums—the simplest form of contract there was. Which was horrid news for him, because it was too simple to have any loopholes. It bound him, by force of soul, to identify the Heilong’s wellbeing with his own. To serve the clan, and to protect it. To obey its every order until his last breath. To give his life to it. To devote to its welfare his every thought. Indeed, never to think of the clan in negative terms…

His eye twitched again.

Did they take him for some illiterate savage?

They probably did, come to think of it.

“There appears to have been a mistake,” Dorian started pleasantly. “I ought to be a retainer of the clan. At the very least, a servant. You seem to have handed me a slave contract—”

Then he heard a blood-chilling fizzing, and looked up.

Not an arm’s length from his face was what looked like a hundred-mile lightning storm trapped in a space the size of a lantern. It was attached to Bin Heilong’s gnarled fist, right next to Bin Heilong’s snarling face.

“What did you expect?” Bin Heilong stepped in, close enough that his specks of angry spittle misted Dorian’s face. “From the moment you stepped foot in our chambers, your life has been forfeit! No more dallying. Sign!”

Dorian’s smile grew awkward.

There was no way he would’ve signed, simply on the basis that he’d be forced to contend with Nijo’s northern hordes.

Now that he’d seen the terms it’d take all Nine Hells freezing over for him to stamp this soul contract.

There was, however, also the very immediate-looking matter of the ball of instant lightning-death staring him in the face. Quite the convincing argument.

Dorian sighed.

Is this how the run ends? Really?

He’d envisioned going up in some awesome plume of dragonsmoke, but then again runs seldom ended in epic fashion. It was usually these small, mundane things, these pan-cosmic potholes littered across all spacetime. They really were everywhere. It was a miracle of probability for anyone to make it to godhood.

It was a miracle of probability for Io Rust to get this far at all.

Dorian’s eyes steeled. His Spirit Sea, newly christened, flared to life. It might not be a fiery plume of dragonsmoke, but it would do. There was no realistic plan of escape, but common sense was for common men, and such boring bounds as ‘the realm of possibility’ had never meant much to him.

The general must’ve sensed Dorian’s resolve, for that sphere of electric death flared, suddenly unstable, taut like an arrow on a drawn bowstring. At the same time a bloodline ancient as the plane itself uncoiled in Dorian’s body, baring its fangs. Bracing to meet the threat.

Bin’s eyes met Dorian’s. For a second they stared at each other, teetering on the edge of the point of no return.

Then, just as the tension grew unbearable, just as Dorian was sure one of them would break—

“Hm-hm. What have we here?” The voice warbled softly, leisurely, from a spot far behind Bin. A tiny shadow hidden in a cloud of dust, crouched on the far lip of the crater.

Even so, Bin’s head whipped around, his snarl deepening, and the moment eased. But was that a pale tint, coloring his face? Was that a hint of panic in his eyes? “This is an army matter! Stay out of it!”

“You forget your place, general.” A chuckle. Soft yet hard.

Out from the smoke came a dwarf who seemed to be made of plumes of fluffy gray hairs. Hairs peeking out from his bright-red sleeves, hairs which made fuzzy slippers of his bare feet, hairs which made puffy drapes over his eyes. He was a comical sight, and yet Bin Heilong didn’t seem in the mood for laughing. He looked rather sick.

The dwarf pattered up beside both of them, squinted at the charged-up attack in Bin’s hand, frowned at it, and gave a little puff. For the second time that day, it blew out as easily a birthday candle. Bin’s face was a cauldron of horror and disgust. He stood there, a choked sound leaking from his lips.

“There, there. Isn’t that so much better?” said the dwarf happily. “Now we can all speak like civilized men.”

Then the dwarf turned to Dorian, and his eyes lit up. “So here’s what has caused all this commotion! What is your name, child?”

Dorian had been a little baffled, at first. But he could guess at what was happening. Had guessed. Who else could snuff out the attack of a general of the Oasis? Who else could make such a man halt in deference?

For the second time that day, Dorian gave his name.

“Io Rust.”

“Io Rust. Rust, Rust…” the dwarf hummed as he thought, scritching at his beard with his foot like a dog. “You must be one of our Tribesman friends! It is very nice to meet you.” He looked Dorian in the eyes—two black riverstones—as he held out a hand. “Greetings! Do you know who I am?”

Dorian smiled as he took the man’s hand. It felt like shaking hands with a tumbleweed. “It’s a pleasure, Oasis Lord Zhang.”

THIRTY-FIVE

THE HIGHEST BIDDER (II)

The smoke was thinning, and Dorian could see the impression of a crowd at the crater’s edges—a smattering of damp wraiths staining the gray air. There was a warble of shouts and screams.

Staining the gray air. There was a warble of shouts and screams.

“I must admit,” said the Oasis lord, lips pursed, “That your sudden appearance has been a great surprise.”

“A good one, I hope,” said Dorian with a smile.

The lord sized Dorian up with flat eyes. He looked at Dorian as though he were a cut of fish, and he was trying to guess the freshness of its meat. Uh…Dorian didn’t like that look. Not at all.

Then the Oasis lord broke into a toothy grin. “For your sake, I hope so, too!”

Well! That’s…hardly reassuring.

Bin Heilong, meanwhile, was still steaming. “I must insist, Governor.” He snarled. “That you leave the premises posthaste. An intruder has broken into Heilong grounds and stolen Heilong goods. His fate belongs to the Heilong Family—and no one else! Not even you have the right to interfere.”

The Oasis lord frowned. “Maybe. If this were any ordinary matter. But the birth of a Hero of the Age concerns all of us, don’t you think?”

Hero of the what now? Dorian perked up. Huh. It was dawning on him just what the hells was happening.

My breakthrough seems to have triggered a reaction from the plane. That purple air. Usually, this sort of thing only happened in the Celestial Realm—but triggering one this early was still possible. Unlikely, perhaps, but possible.

And now it’s got two of the most powerful men in the Oasis thinking I’m a hotshot? Because of…colored air? Dorian stifled a snort. Oh, mortals. You come up with the silliest superstitions.

As though he could hear Dorian’s thoughts, Bin barked a laugh. “Hero of the Age? Nonsense! A children’s tale! Bait set for knaves and fools!”

The general’s face was pale. His lips trembled as he spoke. He protests, but he believes in it. Why?

Dorian was baffled. Couldn’t this all be due to a huge underground gas leak? Or perhaps some flatulent sinkhole whale? Surely there were more plausible explanations than ‘a hero is born!’ for ‘big poof of qi!’. But both old men seemed weirdly sure of themselves.

“The signs are there, are they not? The stir of Fate, Purple Air from the East…it’s precisely as the records describe. Precisely as I recall seeing with mine own eyes, lo those centuries ago, when your ancestor, the Moondragon Knight, crossed the edge of Profound! Long as I live—and it has been very, very long indeed—I’ll never forget sight. Why, it’s one-of-a-kind.” The lord chuckled.

Bin stiffened. His breaths came in shallow gasps.

“Let us drop the act, Bin. Would the child still be breathing if you didn’t know what he is? What has the potential to become? It’s quite the windfall.” The Oasis lord grinned, scanning the wrecked estate. “Heh. Windfall. A little wordplay to lighten the mood, eh?”

“Don’t you test me, Nala,” Bin growled. He looked one taunt away from attacking the lord outright. “Not now.”

“Very well. Then let me be straightforward.” The Oasis lord met the general’s eyes, unflinching. Then he glanced to Dorian—there was that appraiser’s gaze raking over him once more. He looked satisfied. Far too satisfied. A pit dropped in Dorian’s stomach.

“You wish to claim him for your own,” said the Oasis lord happily. “But your scheme, I fear, neglects the common good.”

There was that fish-market look again. Except this time it had a certain hunger to it, a hunger which gave Dorian pause.

“Such a useful asset is to be requisitioned by the state, for the welfare of us all!”

Fuck.

“You!” The general was in fits.

Dorian frowned. So, the jolly dwarf is not here to save me after all.

Or, rather, he was here to save Dorian for himself.

Either way, it made little difference. Was there a way he didn’t end up as some old man’s property?

“Look, sirs,” said Dorian with a weak laugh. “Surely there’s been a mistake. I’m no Hero.”

Both men promptly ignored him. He sighed. As expected. I’m too weak for my opinion to matter, apparently! There was something darkly amusing about watching, helpless, as your fate is decided by two ornery old men stuck in a catfight. Though Dorian was more used to seeing it happen to countries than people.

The air had cleared enough that Dorian could make out the outlines of people, big and small, huddled around the crater. Bin opened his mouth to splutter a reply, but the Oasis lord was already turning to face the crowd, a smile lighting his face.

“Rejoice, citizens of the Oasis!” he crowed, and his voice took on a booming quality. “Today, for merely the fourth time in the history of Azcan, we stand in the presence of a Hero of the Age!”

Murmurs of confusion. Of disbelief. Wide, staring eyes, hundreds of them, all fixed on the lord’s smiling face. In the half-light what little of his skin peeked out beneath his tangle of hair was too-smooth and shiny. As he spoke, he seemed a doll come to life.

“The Hero brings fortune wherever he goes. He is a supreme talent at whatever he chooses. Each time such a man has arrived, the fate of the Oasis itself changed. The first was the Azcan Emperor, who drove out the Beast-Kings and founded our Oasis with his two bare hands! The second was venerable Jani Zhang, the mother of Artificing, who bequeathed us the steels which undergird our way of life! And last is the Moondragon Knight—a man who I am honored to have called a mentor and friend. A man who would leave us to ascend to Godhood—but not before leaving behind the most fearsome military the Desert has ever known.”

The lord’s eyes swiveled to Dorian. The eyes of the crowd, hundreds, wild, swiveled to him too, and Dorian felt them like a swarm of insects crawling up his skin. Just what is he playing at?

“And now we have Io Rust. Our Fourth Hero of the Age! What will this young man do for us? Fight back the Ugoc scourge? Deliver us a new era of Artificing? Of Alchemy? Or something more? Something new entirely, which will raise the Oasis to greater heights than ever before?”

The crowd’s murmurs rose. Dorian saw silk-laden citizens, hair blown wild by the winds, looking to one another, nodding, pointing, whispering.

“Can it really be?”

“Is it true?”

“A Hero, like in the myths?!”

The lord turned to Dorian, a twinkle in his gaze. But it was no longer a starry-eyed twinkle. Instead, it reminded Dorian of the glint of a polished knife. “Whatever it is, I can assure you, my friends, that the Governor’s palace shall not let such a man go to waste. I have served the Oasis all my life. I have been your lord for the past quarter century—and before that, I served as the Head of our crown jewel, the Artificer’s Guild, for a century beyond that! Suffice it to say, I know how to make best use of raw metals. Rest easy, citizens of the Oasis, for the light-soaked days are coming! I shall make sure of it.”

“Three cheers for the lord!” cried a voice. “Three cheers for the Hero!” said another. A throng of uneven shouts rippled down the crowd. “Hear, hear!”

They sounded weakly optimistic. Mostly baffled. Dorian felt the same way.

If I’m not mistaken, Dorian thought, bemused, I just got publicly claimed. Curious. He wasn’t sure how to feel about it. If it was a choice between being taken by the military or the Governor, he supposed he preferred the latter. There were worse fates than joining the most powerful man in the Oasis. Better than being thrust out on the front lines, at least?

“Objection!” Bin had spoken up, screeching to make his voice heard over the din. Compared to the general’s deep boom, his voice was but a shrill squawk. “When we face our fiercest threat, the military should have first pick over all resources! These are dire times. We are at war, gentlemen! War!”

Resources? Really? “I do have a name, you know,” Dorian sighed. “And shouldn’t I have some say in this? I am, after all, the resource in question.”

His words were like a hot breeze flying straight over their heads. They didn’t even look at him. Dorian rolled his eyes.

“What are you saying, General?” snapped the Oasis lord. “That you do not trust your own clan Patriarch to stamp out a few unruly savages from the north? That you truly need a Hero at your disposal?”

He shook his head slowly, like a parent addressing a petulant child. “No. I think not. It seems to me, my old friend, that you are caught in a fit of passion. Such a transparent power grab is beneath you.”

But before Bin could bite off a response, a chortle wafted through the air.

Both men’s faces snapped up. Dorian’s did, too, and he had to stop from snorting aloud at the sight. Don’t tell me a third cat is entering the fray?

The sound had come from a plump old man with slicked-back hair who could’ve strolled straight out of a dinner party. He wore a sleek, silky suit and held a thick cane drowning in golden stylings. He sauntered down to them from the skies, head held high, the single button on his collar struggling mightily against the flopping of his double chin.

“I daresay, Governor—isn’t that a mite hypocritical?” His voice was a reedy drawl.

Behind him was a bald, squat, bespectacled man bulging out of a tight white suit. The man cleared his throat. “Presenting his eminence, Finance Minister Ouyang, Keeper of the Gold Bullions, Head of the right honorable Merchant’s Guild and of the right honorable Royal Bank of Azcan!”

“Thank you, Renford. You may withdraw.” the finance minister sniffed.

Now, Bin looked even more displeased, if that were possible. “What nonsense is this? You have no business here, Ouyang!”

“I run the bank, Sir Heilong,” said the Minister, a brow cocked. “Please. I have business anywhere commerce flows—which is to say, everywhere in this Oasis. What sort of banker would I be if I didn’t attend to the creation of new capital?”

His beady eyes locked on Dorian.

“It is the opinion of the bankers’ and merchant’s guilds, for whom I represent a unitary voice, that the boy ought to come to us. We shall make of him a titan of industry unlike any this Oasis has seen.”

Bin stared. “Wh—” he spluttered. “You greedy rat! What the hells would a horde of sniveling cheats do with a Hero?!”

“Though I would not phrase it as harshly as my colleague, I must agree,” said the Oasis lord, crossing his arms, eyes narrowed. “Back off, Yin. This matter is none of your concern.”

“Damned right!” Piped up a voice from behind them all.

Dorian whirled around. Another one?! Really? How many of these assholes are there?

It was gruff voice from a gruff-looking man, stomping across the ground, sending up big poofs of dust with each step. He was shaped like one huge hairy block of cement, twice as tall as anyone here and thrice as wide. Dorian recognized the gilded badge on his thick artificer’s leathers. Behind him trailed Martial Elder Kal, looking harried. Dorian frowned. If he’s a Grand Elder and he’s trailing behind, then this man must be…

Kal cleared his throat. “Introducing his eminence Thon Wang, Head of the honorable artificer’s Guild—”

“That boy came to us first!” Bellowed Thon. His fists were clenched so tight his veins stood out like steel pipes on his arms. “He’s an artificer, through and through! Blood runs hot with molten metal!” he thumped his chest, burping. “He belongs to us, you hear? Us! With a Hero in the guild, forging us great new weapons, this Oasis can conquer this whole blasted desert! Nay, the world!”

Dorian’s head was starting to pound. This is getting absurd.

Then—as though on cue—yet another voice spoke up.

“Truly?” From a far side of the crater, a troupe of men and women descended upon the crater. They were dressed in moss-green robes etched with curling silver—the robes of the Alchemist’s Guild. At its front was a little old lady with a cane, hair tied back in a tight bun, looking cross as all hells. She drew her gaze across the awkward gathering, her lip curling. “What a banal aim. An alchemist Hero would advance us to a new Era of medicine and save countless lives. Who among you dares deny us that? The Alchemist’s Guild is late to the negotiations, it appears. Hmph. If any of you think this is an excuse to cut us out of our rightful share of the prize, you are sorely mistaken.”

“Your rightful share?” Thon snarled, rounding on her. “Your rightful share, Mala, is zero! Fuck off!”

“Truly?” said the alchemist’s head, cocking a brow. “Who supplies the Oasis its healing elixirs? Who gifts its citizens the pills they require to fast, fly, and cultivate? We of the Alchemist’s Guild have long been the unsung heroes of our state. Refuse us face and you shall not like the consequences.”

“Unsung heroes?” Screeched Bin. His hair, once neatly combed, was now a frazzled thicket. “The Oasis shovels thousands of lira to fund your silly experiments, and you pompous asses think yourselves martyrs?! Despicable! Wanton! Inconceivable! The true unsung heroes in Azcan are the military—we who brave the dangers so you can live your ingrate lives!”

“Gentlemen, gentlemen, at ease!” cried the Oasis lord, waving for silence. By the frown on his face, he was well aware things had slipped away from him. “Surely we can come to some amicable solution—”

He halted, frowning, and squinted at the sky. Dorian did the same, and his eyes widened. This time, he couldn’t keep from snorting. Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.

The patchwork of pink-and-black smoke had given way to a blue sky blotched with drooping, leaden clouds. And in that sky, spearing through the clouds, were the prows of airships.

Blimp-like ships built of huge sheets of bolted steel, trailing rivers of smoke. They were fitted with billowing white masts—masts painted with emblems. There were over a dozen in total, and Dorian saw that each was of a different noble family of the Oasis.

And on each ship, standing at the prow, was a pissed-looking old man or woman in needlessly posh garb. A dozen Heads of a dozen families. And Dorian had a sneaking suspicion he knew why they’d come.

He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

At this rate, the only way this ends is if they cut me up into ribbons! Only then can all of these fuckers get a slice of me!

THIRTY-SIX

THE HIGHEST BIDDER (III)

Dorian stared, speechless, as the ships rolled in. The earliest to arrive was a chunky steamer studded with masts of all sizes. It plunked to a stop mid-air, blotting out the sun and drenching the crowd in shadow.

There was a terse silence.

Then a tiny man with a waxed mustache leapt up on the prow. He cleared his throat, then cleared it again for good measure.

“Announcing the arrival of the venerable Fang family!” he cried, rolling the r’s, sticking up his nose up to the high heavens. His voice quivered, as though struggling under the weight of its own pompousness.

The Patriarch wobbled up, a fine-looking old man in fine-looking robes. “Warmest greetings! The Fang family has heard of the birth of a Hero,” he said in a half-whisper, his dewy eyes drifting across the crowd. They came to a rest on Dorian, and he smiled, baring startlingly white teeth.

“We have come to pay respects.”

Dorian blinked. Really?

“And to put forth a humble request.” The Fang Patriarch’s eyes drifted over to the Oasis lord, then to the general, then the alchemist head, then the artificer Head. “I see there are others who would claim the Hero for themselves. We, too, would like to submit our bid for consideration.”

Ah. There it is.

The lord bristled. Dorian could see his patience fraying in real-time. The madder he got, the more the man’s hair stood up. He looked like a tumbleweed slowly transforming into a porcupine.

“Patriarch Fang, I regret to inform you that this is not an auction, nor a market, nor a wishing-well,” he said, his voice tight. “You cannot simply—”

“Announcing the arrival of the venerable Cai family!” Shrieked a voice, drowning him out. It was so shrill and loud Dorian swore he heard a few windows shattering in the distance.

Another airship had come. Another herald stood at its prow, looking quite pleased with himself. Then another old man stepped up and stared down at them. The Cai Patriarch. This one was very old. Half his teeth were gone, the other half set at odd angles, ridged with black mold. His eyes were dim, dull pools which seemed unable to focus on anything.

“What was that, sire Zhang?” Croaked Patriarch Cai, waggling a spindly cane. “I regret I am a smidge hard of hearing—you’ll need to speak up! There’s a market here, is there? Well, we CaI’s have been loyal subjects of the Oasis for generations! None more loyal! None! Whatever there is for sale, we shall have it!”

The lord groaned. “Sir Cai,” he said, struggling to keep his voice even. He tried on another warm smile but this time it wore oddly on his face, like an ill-fitting mask. “This is a matter of the state. It would be best for you, and the rest of the nobles, to leave us to—”

“Announcing the arrival of the honorable Shun family!” cried a voice to their side. A squat old lady in wolf’s furs leapt up on the prow of yet another ship. “That old coot Cai dares speak of loyalty, in the presence of the Shun?” She roared. “We Shun are the most loyal of all! It is we who built the roads. It is we who lifted the aqueducts! We, the industrious Shun, deserve to get the Hero!”

The lord threw up his hands, desperate. “Please, friends! This is all a great misunderstanding!” he cried. “The Hero is not for sale. The Hero will not go to any one family. Let us all calm ourselves—”

“Then who will he go to?” snapped the Shun Matriarch.

The lord opened his mouth, but General Heilong beat him to the punch.

“The Oasis lord means to keep him all to himself,” sneered Bin. A nasty grin was creeping up his face. “He means to cut the rest of us out of the deal!”

“Surely not,” whispered Patriarch Fang, eyes narrowing.

“Outrageous!” cried Matriarch Shun.

“Partridges?” Spluttered Patriarch Cai, eyes wide. “Where?”

“Enough!” Roared the Oasis lord, eyes flaring. “In times like these, it is imperative that we keep our heads. We must not quarrel over—”

“Announcing the arrival of the honorable Ouyang family!”

The lord whirled around. “Heavens! What now?”

An enormously fat man waddled to the prow of a tiny, pretty all-gold ship which rocked under each of his thumping steps. His hair was drenched in sweat, his breathing heavy. Only his embroidered silk robes gave him away as the Ouyang Patriarch.

“Stop!” he cried, brandishing a sausage finger. “Cease at once, you villains! We Ouyangs claim the Hero! None of you’ve got a right to him! He licked my son’s feet! That’s a sign from the Heavens if I’ve ever seen one! He’s ours—ours, I say!”

Four Patriarchs and two guild Heads screamed “Objection!” All at once. They all looked at one another, furious.

And all hells broke loose. A storm of bickering and screeching and insulting and general tomfoolery swept the scene, upending any good intentions, tearing up compromise by its roots. The lord screamed something, waving his hands—a plea for order, perhaps—but it was lost in the cacophony.

Dorian shrugged. He tapped his Interspatial Ring, brought out a beach chair and a fruit drink, sat down, and started to sip. They would be here for a while, he could tell. The shouting only got louder, more blustery, more confused. Lots of hot air blowing in all directions, and it wasn’t from the desert winds! One of the Patriarchs chucked a wine glass at another. A herald ran around screaming, his hair inexplicably on fire. Blind old Patriarch Cai challenged fat old Patriarch Ouyang to a gentleman’s fisticuffs, a duel he promptly lost when Patriarch Ouyang simply opted to sit on him. The old man vanished, shrieking, under enough rolls of fat to sustain a small village. Dorian snorted. This farce was made only slightly less amusing by the fact that they were arguing over who would decide his Fate.

But by now he’d mostly resigned himself to the fact. He wasn’t getting out of this one without someone laying claim to him. It was simply a matter of who.

He took another sip of his drink, settled into his seat, and let out an ahh. He smiled.

Maybe no one will claim me. Maybe they’ll keep arguing forever. He brightened at the thought.

Then, as always seemed to happen when he was pleased by a twist of Fate, Fate promptly twisted the other way.

Somewhere in the chaos there was a turgid thrum of qi, and Dorian sat up, frowning. A great suction roared to life, clawing at the qi in the air, dragging it inward. The hairs on Dorian’s skin stood up. He felt in that moment a sharp stab of vertigo. It was as though he were standing at the edge of a cliff he knew was there but could not see. There was a pop—it was soft, softer than a bubble’s popping, but somehow it made itself heard over the clattering din.

Then a streak of blinding silver carved through the air, punching a hole through a sagging cloud. The cloud was blasted to scattered tufts. There was a terrible wooshing, smothering the cries of the crowd, popping Dorian’s ears. Then a surge of mist blasted him clean in the face. He choked, his eyes plastered with mist, and was tossed out of his chair head-over-heels. He barely managed to land, wide-eyed and gagging, on unsteady feet.

The bewildered masses picked themselves up, blinking, and looked up.

The Oasis lord stood at the center of the mess, a simple wooden staff in hand. It looked like it could’ve been carved by an amateur out of any common tree, but its aura said otherwise. It was strikingly dense, denser than nearly any weapon Dorian had seen in this realm. Second only to the Heilong Javelin.

Bin Heilong leapt to his feet, spitting a cough. His face burned with rage. “What is the meaning of this?! You dare draw your weapon on us, Zhang? Here? You go too far!”

Cries of agreement rippled through the crowd. A dozen angry stares descended on the Oasis lord.

“I’m sorry. I had no other way to draw your attention,” sighed the lord. “And it is clear this was going nowhere.” He sighed again, like a disappointed father. “Look at us! Squabbling like children! We must remember that we are one Oasis, united. Only together can we resist the beasts of the Desert. Only together can we vanquish the Ugoc threat.”

He got a few nods from that. Most still looked at him side-eyed—especially the Patriarchs and Matriarchs.

“There must be some objective way to decide who gets the Hero. We must come up with a solution that satisfies us all,” said the lord. His smile was tired but warm.

“A nice speech,” sneered Bin. “And yet why do I have the feeling that any solution you suggest will only satisfy you?”

The lord frowned. “Very well. Then I shall petition all of you. Any suggestions?”

The old folk looked to one another, frowning. For a few breaths, no-on spoke.

“If I may,” said the finance minister, a glint in his shrewd eyes. “Why not let the market decide? Whoever values the Hero the highest, in lira, obtains him.”

“And who does that favor, I wonder?” Snarled Bin.

“Bin’s right,” sighed the lord. “That criterion is biased toward the bank. The terms must be objective.”

“I, for one, think the Hero should go wherever he can save the most lives,” said the alchemist head primly.

The finance minister hissed a laugh, his face a hard mask. The man was still smarting over being denied. “And I suppose you’ll say he can save the most lives with elixirs. Your chosen specialty. How curious.”

The alchemist head shrugged. “A happy coincidence.”

The Oasis lord groaned.

“Bah! This is all nonsense! Nonsense of the most heinous order!” cried Bin. “We should’ve gotten him from the start! But if we insist on playing this game—he should go to whichever faction is most valuable to the Oasis. Obviously, that is the military!”

“Oh? Truly?” said the alchemist head, eyes narrowed.

“That don’t sound right at all,” said Artificer Head Wang darkly.

“I reject your terms,” said the minister coolly. “Though, even if I accepted them, the military is far from the Oasis’ best asset. That would be its businesses.”

“And who owns those businesses?” Piped up Matriarch Shun. “The nobles! That’s who!”

“All right, all right, that’s enough. We are not doing this again.” The Oasis lord’s gaze was flat and cold as a sheared glacier. He looked totally, utterly, immensely done with this shit.

“It appears,” he said, kneading his brows. “We are at an impasse.”

The old men and women glared at each other, unyielding.

There was a terse silence.

And then Dorian had a thought. A dangerous, stupid thought. But it was also a very happy thought, a thought that had him licking his lips. Maybe—just maybe—there was a way for him to turn this mess on its head. A plan popped to mind.

“Ahem.”

The Oasis lord blinked. The old men and women blinked. And slowly, with immense incredulity, their gazes all came to a rest on Dorian.

He stood, wiping the wet off his sleeves, and smiled. “You all want me to yourselves, right?” he said. “But you’re deadlocked! Well, I have a fair way to decide who gets me. A way that isn’t biased toward any of you.”

A silence stretched between them. A long, befuddled silence.

Then—”What, pray tell, do you have in mind?” said the lord softly, eyes narrowed.

“Simple!” Dorian stood, rubbing his hands. “I will go to whoever makes me the best offer.”

They stared at him like he was a wyrm that had somehow learned to talk like a human. Quite a few gaped openly, like they couldn’t believe he had the audacity to suggest such a thing.

The lord frowned. But before he or anyone else could object, the finance minister butted in.

“Very good! I agree to your terms,” said the finance minister with an oily grin. “My offer to you is one million lira.”

“No, no, no.” Dorian wagged a finger. “Not merely money. You misunderstand me. I want things I deem of value to me.”

Now, for the really dangerous part. Saints, this plan had better work!

If not, it was impossible to understate how badly he was screwed.

Dorian cleared his throat and named the single most valuable thing in this Oasis.

“My starting price is one bloodline Scale of the Evernight Basilisk.”

Thereafter followed the deadest silence Dorian had heard in this lifetime.

“Let the bidding begin!” he said with a smile.

As Dorian surveyed the Oasis’s most powerful men and women, he saw one thought written across all their lined faces.

Who the hells does he think he is?!

THIRTY-SEVEN

THE HIGHEST BIDDER (IV)

Silence choked the air.

Jaws sagged open. Eyes popped. Cheeks twitched. One Patriarch let out a reedy wheeze which reminded Dorian of a tiny critter being slowly run over.

Hmm. I do believe I’ve gone too far. Which was part of the plan, of course, but it was still unsettling to go through with it. It meant pissing off essentially every powerful faction in the Oasis—at once. Pissing people off was Dorian’s specialty, but demanding the sacred treasures at the heart of the Oasis? Which shifted its aqueducts and heated its forges and infuses its forests and powered its artifacts? Which even the wealthiest families hoarded jealously? The uproar was ear-splitting.

“Preposterous!” cried Patriarch Fang.

“Impudent!” ccreeched Matriarch Shun.

“How dare you suggest such a thing?” hissed the alchemist guild head.

“Your demand is unthinkable!” Roared Patriarch Ouyang. “Who gave you the idea that you have any choice in the matter? You can’t be trusted to make a decision of such import, child! The Oasis lord would never allow it!”

He turned to the lord, bristling. “Tell him!”

But the lord wore a thoughtful expression. He said nothing.

Oh? A grin played at Dorian’s lips. Could it be?

“Uh…my Lord?” Ouyang said, wavering. “You won’t allow it, surely?”

“Hmm.” The Oasis lord scratched his chin. “Actually, I find the child’s suggestion intriguing.”

Dorian smirked. I knew it!

This was Dorian’s gamble: that the Oasis lord would allow Dorian’s plan. Sure, it meant paying a hefty price, but the man was rich as all hells! The Zhang family was the biggest in the Oasis. It had ruled for hundreds of years. Who could outbid them? If Oasis Lord Zhang agreed to a bidding war, he’d likely get Dorian all to himself.

Buying a once-in-a-generation super-talent for the price of a few scales? For other families, it might mean sacrificing a treasured heirloom. For him, it merely meant giving up a small chunk of the Zhang family’s vast resources. It was an easy trade.

The other old coots, meanwhile, looked aghast.

“What?!” By the look on her face, Matriarch Shun could hardly believe her ears. “My Lord—you would have us cater to the whims of this insect? Have you gone senile?!”

The lord smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “May I suggest you watch your tongue, Cousin Shun? The construction contracts the government awards your family suit both of us. I’d hate for our relationship to sour over petty insults.”

Instantly, the color drained from the Matriarch’s face. “O-of course, my Lord. Of course! My humblest apologies. My tongue, heh, it has a habit of running away from me!”

“Yet here you speak the truth,” said General Bin. He glared at Dorian. “Why should we listen to you?”

“Because every other method suggested so far is biased,” Dorian said. “You’re all biased toward yourselves! This way isn’t biased toward any of you. It’s the only fair way to go about it, really. “

“But this is biased toward you!” One of Patriarch Fang’s eyes had gotten a size bigger and a great deal redder than the other. It twitched madly.

Dorian cocked his head. “I’m not the one bidding, am I? My criteria are impartial with regards to all of you. Isn’t that all that matters?”

“You have to admit, he’s got a point,” drawled the finance minister, inspecting a painted fingernail. He had an air of indifference, but his sly smile gave him away.

Yes! The finance minister was only other man who might support Dorian’s plan: he was likely the only man in the Oasis who rivaled the lord in wealth. Supporting Dorian’s plan meant that he only needed to defeat one real threat to snag Dorian. And if the Minister was like any other banker Dorian knew, he sat atop a hoard of not only Scales, but also elixirs, manuals, and money…in any bidding war, he’d bet on himself to win.

Now Dorian had the support of two of the coots. Those were the easy ones.

The rest of them still looked at him like he was a slab of rotted meat. Now, for the hard part! Beating them down with a verbal stick.

But first, let’s dangle a carrot.

“Look. You’ll give me resources. But by signing a contract of servitude, I’ll become an asset of your family too, right? You’re really investing in yourself here,” said Dorian easily. “Upgrade me, and I’ll better serve you. It’s a win-win!”

That got a lot of those old brows furrowing. Suddenly, the prospect seemed much more palatable. Dorian snickered. It’s all about how you frame it. With the right angle, you can make turd look like gold!

But a few—the ones who knew they had no real shot at him—still looked disgruntled.

“Oh, come now! We can’t seriously be entertaining this idea,” cried Matriarch Shun. “You want us to make offers for you? This—this blatantly favors the wealthy! It’s unfair!”

“On the contrary, it’s totally fair,” said Dorian, shaking his head. “You’ve mistaken equality for fairness. In a fair world, those with more resources—whether it’s power, or smarts, or wealth—should come out on top. Such is the way of the multiverse!” he shrugged. “Would you have me change the natural order to suit you? That, to me, is what seems unfair.”

“I—that isn’t—but—” spluttered Matriarch Shun. “What?!” Clearly, she hadn’t expected him to snap back so fast. She thought Dorian was spewing nonsense coated in a veneer of sense, and she was right! But in the heat of the moment, caught off-guard, all she could do was fume and gape.

Dorian looked around, still smiling. “Any other objections?”

“Yeah, you little dung-heap! I have a godsdamned objection!” It was General Heilong, red-faced. He had been piping mad for thirty straight minutes and didn’t look to be letting up anytime soon. “You destroyed my fucking house! Are you not indebted to me?! The fair thing would be for you to sign my soul contract and be done with it!”

“Hold on.” Dorian raised a finger. “Let’s make this clear. I didn’t destroy your house, did I? The Purple Wind did. Your quarrel is with Fate, not me. I do confess to borrowing your resources, with the permission of a Heilong family member. I can reimburse you the Spirit Stones if you wish. I’m responsible for nothing more than that.”

Bin was so spitting mad he couldn’t even talk. He made a grunting, hacking sound, like an engine about to catch fire. Two down!

“Anything else?” said Dorian mildly.

A clamor of voices cried out—Patriarchs and Matriarchs alike raised fists, spluttered spittle, spoke over each other.

“Objection! Your method is far too blunt!”

“The alchemists would prefer a more structured solution.”

“The Fang Family considers this plan frivolous!”

“It’s crude!”

“It’s unfair!”

Dorian held up a hand. “All right, new rule. If you raise an objection, you must come up with a fairer alternative solution. Otherwise, we’re right where we started, and worse for it.”

That shut them all up.

The looks on their faces ranged from ticked off to outright pissed. And yet for a few tense seconds, nobody spoke. And Dorian let himself hope.

Then Patriarch Fang opened his mouth. Bollocks.

“You want a fairer method?” said Patriarch Fang, snorting. “I can easily propose one! Split your time among all of us. We shall each get a share.”

Dorian rolled his eyes. Okay. Time to make an example of this idiot.

A smoother strategist than Dorian might spew honeyed words. He might ensnare everyone, nobles to guild leaders, to his plan. He might win without making a single enemy.

But Dorian was not such a strategist. He was more of a “kill the chicken to scare the monkey” type of guy.

“You’ve run into the same problem as Matriarch Shun,” snapped Dorian. “You’ve proposed a solution which is equal, but very unfair. Would you feed a giant the same meals as an infant?”

The Patriarch opened his mouth to protest, but Dorian cut him off with a sigh. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “How about this? I’m a gentleman, so I’ll concede that point to you. I don’t need it to refute your silly idea. What would you have me do—be split among all the guilds and families? Sign a dozen soul contracts? Be beholden to all of you? Spend a mere hour a day, rushing from one faction to the next?”

Dorian snorted. “Ridiculous! Here’s a wild guess: Jani Zhang didn’t found Alchemy by spreading herself thin. The Moondragon Knight didn’t conquer half the Desert by juggling a dozen different tasks, did he? You, in your greed, propose that each of you tears off a fin of the fish. You fail to see that this kills it.”

“Watch your tone, junior,” growled Patriarch Fang, flushing.

Dorian held his gaze. “You insist on wasting all of our time with inane suggestions. What tone do you think you deserve?”

And Patriarch Fang choked on his own spit.

Truthfully, Patriarch Fang’s plan wasn’t a bad suggestion. It was simply inconvenient for Dorian. He still had grand plans to get his Wizard’s Staff and brewing industry off the ground! He didn’t have the time for it.

But shutting him down wasn’t Dorian’s true goal.

He’d embarrassed the man so badly that the rest of the Patriarchs, and Matriarchs, and even a few guild Heads—who’d been chewing on half-baked ideas to throw out—now shut up.

Dorian took inventory of the coots again, and they each looked to be biting their tongues. They wore sour looks. But none of them said a word. Dorian cracked a wry grin.

Excellent. I’ve browbeaten them into submission!

It was a strange sight. One Profound Realm newbie, staring down nearly a dozen peak Earth Realm experts. And yet somehow, he was the one who had them all in knots.

“One last time, then. Any objections?” said Dorian, and this time his smile was outright smug. He knew there wouldn’t be any. This was the awesome power of bullshitting. Any one of his arguments was nonsense, of course! But they took some thinking to refute. Strung together in quick succession—and delivered with Dorian’s trademark self-assurance—they were surprisingly hard to shut down.

Dorian operated by a simple principle. He really ought to coin it. Call it Dorian’s First Law: bullshit, spoken with enough confidence, becomes truth. It came with a corollary: if nobody calls you on your bullshit, then you’ve spoken the truth! Simple as that.

The coots didn’t like it. They still looked like Dorian was serving them plates of dung and forcing them to swallow.

“Look,” said Dorian gently. “There is no such thing as a plan which will satisfy all of us. We needn’t all agree. We simply need to agree to the fairest plan, even if it’s not ideal for you personally. Such is the nature of compromise.”

Thon, the Artificing Head, stamped on the ground. He groaned. “Fuck it. Do it. All this talking is making my head hurt. Just be done with it already, damn you! The wife’s making crab soup tonight. Shit’s probably already cold. Fuck!”

The alchemist guild head sniffed. The old lady was leveling an icy glare at him, but she seemed to Dorian like a pragmatic type. She knew she wasn’t winning this one. “Fine. Have it your way, child,” she said coolly. “But there is no need to rub it in. I chafe at your condescension.”

“I’m in favor,” said the finance minister.

“So am I,” said the lord.

It’s happening. Dorian’s breath quickened. It’s happening!

“I certainly don’t agree to it,” said Bin darkly. “It’s utter wyrmshit! But I can the see tide’s against me. You’ll go through with it anyway.” He glared at the group. “The military will remember this.”

The last major holdout fell, and that was that. And one by one, looking constipated, the family heads muttered their grudging assent.

Saints! Dorian was tingling.

“Then we are decided!” said the lord. “Excellent.”

The twinkle was returning to his eyes as he nodded to Dorian. “It appears I’ve underestimated you,” he said softly. He chuckled. “Formidable, young Io. Formidable. But you may be too clever for your own good. It is a common trait of the young: too much cleverness, too little wisdom.”

‘Young’? Dorian blinked. I’ve outlived you a hundred times to one, bud! I’ve been wise before, countless times across countless lives! Let me tell you—it’s dreary as hells. You’ll figure it out eventually. ‘Maturity’ is at best a leash which holds back interesting men, and at worst the chosen fetish of boring men. Life’s more fun when you let yourself fart around.

But what he said aloud was: “Then might I suggest you bid, Sir Lord? With your wisdom and my cleverness, we could go far!”

The lord chuckled. “All right. A compelling argument. I bid one Scale.”

Dorian’s smile couldn’t get wider.

“counteroffer,” snapped the finance minister instantly. “One scale, three high-grade technique manuals, and two hundred thousand Lira.”

Never mind. Yes, it can!

The lord squinted. “One scale, four hundred thousand Lira, and access to the Zhang Family’s distribution network!”

“One scale and a bottle of Dragon King’s Tears.” The finance minister looked up from his nails. “That is an elixir which can boost you directly to mid-Profound, by the way.”

Dorian was giddy.

In one fell swoop, he was about to gain orders of magnitude more resources than he’d gotten this whole lifetime. He’d ascend from the earth to the Heavens in a single step!

THIRTY-EIGHT

THE HIGHEST BIDDER (V)

The bidding was heating up.

“A bottle of Dragon’s Tears?” Mala scoffed. “Please. I’ll give you one Scale and three drops of Moon’s Essence. Each drop is thrice as potent as the meager elixir my colleague offers.”

She looked flatly at the finance minister, then Dorian. “The cauldron is our domain. In this, no one is our equal. If it is cultivation you seek, the Alchemist’s Guild is the obvious choice.”

Dorian drew a sharp breath. Then he nodded. “Thank you. A strong offer.”

Even now, he was bullshitting—He kept his expression cool and thoughtful.

Inside, he was hopping with joy.

This thing would shoot me straight to peak Profound!

Dorian almost said yes on the spot.

“I’ll give you a Scale, and free reign to do whatever the fuck you want! Take all the guild’s shit—it’s yours!” Roared the Artificing Head. Dorian perked up. Oh?

“My nephew here tells me you’ve got big plans!” Chortling, the Artificing Head gave Martial Elder Kal a friendly slap on the back. Kal looked like he’d been struck by a sledgehammer. His eyes popped, mouth gaping, face a white sheet of horror. There was a great boom, and Dorian saw the force literally ripple up his back, his chest thrust sharply forward, arms thrown back in panic. He was sent face-planting into a dune. When the dust plume settled, only two tree-trunk legs were left aboveground. Kal’s furious bellows were choked by the sands.

“Oops,” said the Artificing Head. He squinted at his nephew’s thrashing legs. Then he turned back to Dorian, shrugging. “Any-how! Where was I? Don’t tell me! I’ve got it, I’ve got it…ah! Yes!”

He smiled. “You’ve got big plans, don’t you? You want to make a big ol’ business! You want to sell your fancy little sticks! Come with us, and you get to use all our steel, free of charge! Any forge you want—it’s yours! Whatever idea you’ve got, we’ll eat the costs!”

Now Dorian was straight-up salivating. But he had to hold himself back. If things have jumped his far, this fast, how much higher can they go?

He licked his lips. Maybe I can push this.

“Ooh. Intriguing! I’m almost sold on it. I’m a fan of the support. But I wonder—can you go just a little higher on the resources? I’m really quite partial to Scales, you see…”

“Two scales!”

The cry came from Patriarch Ouyang. By the look on his face, he might have torn out his own heart and offered it to Dorian.

“Two scales,” said the finance minister, “Plus, one million lira.” He cleared his throat, cool as can be. “Enough to fund any venture you’d like. Artificing or otherwise.”

A strange sensation shivered Dorian then. Like he stood atop a very high mountain, and the air was getting thin, and his blood was pumping fast. A tingly light-headedness.

“Two scales, plus one Grand Elixir,” countered the alchemist head instantly. “Each year, the topmost alchemists of our guild gather to brew one Elixir of the highest grade for thirty days and thirty nights. This is the Grand Elixir. Should you take one…you shall leap to the Earth Realm.” She snapped her fingers. “Like that.”

Dorian hardly had time to process her offer before another voice butted in.

“Two scales, plus we fund your sticks, plus you get a super-powerful artifact!” said the Artificing Head. “Err—the Spear of Yaksha? We still have that fuckin’ thing, don’t we?”

He said it to Kal, who’d only just gotten his head out of the sands. Kal glared at him, coughing. “Of course, we have ‘that thing!’” he snapped. “‘That ‘thing’ is our family’s heirloom treasure! It’s passed down for fuckin’ generations! My grandpa—your uncle—died protecting that ‘thing’. It’s priceless! You can’t just—”

“Great!” The Artificing Head grinned. “Then you can have that too!”

Kal choked on his own spit.

Then the Oasis lord cleared his throat. “Two scales, and the Governor’s Palace will provide the resources to raise you to the Earth Realm, and you gain full access to the Zhang Family’s Martial Library—the most extensive in all the Oasis. Perhaps all the Desert. It is a privilege only our Grand Elders have.”

“Piss on that! Who gives two shits ‘bout books when you could rule an empire of steel?” The hotter the Artificing Head got, the more spittle he sprayed, misting the air. He’d gotten so heated that each roar left a tiny rainbow around his mouth.

“I should think my offer is the still obvious choice,” said the alchemist head primly. “The journey to Earth is an arduous one, undertaken over decades. Take my offer, and the time you’d save is invaluable.”

“I can think of a value. And it is less than the sum I offered the child.” The finance minister would not be left out. He shot Dorian a pointed look. “Everything my colleagues offer can be bought. Do not be taken by their bait. In this world, money is still king.”

The four bosses glared at one another. It had become a matter of pride. Dorian was positively giggling.

We’re here. We’re at the last part of the plan.

He hadn’t expected to get half this far, to be honest.

Now that he was here, he wasn’t sure what to do.

The offers had all gotten monstrous. Was he really about to jeopardize this by opening his big, fat mouth? He thought for a moment.

Yeah. Yeah, I think I am.

Because while this was all very nice—Dorian liked getting free stuff as much as anyone—what he liked more was being free to use that free stuff. For his own ends, that was. Not beholden to the plans of another. It was rather hard to build his own Artificing and Alchemical empire as a slave.

This whole slave business was unsavory. Dorian had always chafed at collars. His runs were always bound by unspoken rules: that they had to be fun, and they had to be done his way. Fun was the whole point! And beating his record in some boring, horrid slog as someone else’s bitch was no fun at all.

Which was all to say that—even though it was only temporary—he’d really prefer to be rid of that slave clause.

Now, after things had gotten this far, maybe he finally had the leverage to say something about it.

This miiiiight not go over well. But today’s been my lucky day! Why not try one last gamble?

“Thank you all, truly,” said Dorian with a smile. “These are all very generous offers. But what I’d really like is a slight variant on my terms of service. I’m imagining something closer to, say, a retainer than a slave. I’d be tied to your faction, sure, and happy to further your interests—but still free to do my own thing, too. I’d value this as much as a Scale.”

He eyed the group. “So…any takers?”

He knew instantly it was the wrong thing to say.

It was like a frigid gale had swept over the crater. Everywhere he looked were stone faces. Their silence was even stonier.

Uh-oh.

“I said you were clever,” said the Oasis lord, a soft edge to his voice. A serrated softness. Perhaps I was mistaken. Are you trying to alter our agreement? Now?”

Oops. Time to backtrack just a bit. “Not at all! It’s not a demand. It’s not a requirement. Think of it as merely an option to offer me.”

Dorian gave what he hoped was a winning smile. “I’m simply telling you a preference of mine! That’s all. Should no one take me up on it, very well. But if there are any interested parties…”

Dorian turned his gaze to the Nobles. Take the hint! “I’ll give such an offer special consideration.”

The silence stretched on. Thump-thump-thump went the beatings of Dorian’s heart. Thump-thump-thump. A bead of sweat trickled down his forehead with horrid slowness. Nobody was biting. Most of them were carving him up with glares. A few—mostly the Nobles, who had the most to gain, in theory—looked to be mulling it over. They were who Dorian had hoped to rope in with the offer.

But no one said anything.

Oh, come on! Pretty please?

If he was enslaved, his plans went up in smoke. No Wizard’s Stick revolution. No mass-produced Elixirs. He’d be naught more than an old man’s pawn.

Someone. Anyone!

“I…shall do it!” Came a rasping wheeze.

Yes! Dorian sagged with relief. But where had it come from?

The Nobles looked to one another, confused. So, did the guild Heads. There had been a sound. That much was undeniable. But who?

It seemed to have come from Patriarch Ouyang, but the voice was much shriller, reedier. Even Ouyang seemed baffled. He glanced around him. Then he realized, horrified, that he was looking in the wrong place. He looked down.

One withered old arm was wriggling out from under his plump behind. Beside that arm, gasping wetly for air, was a withered old head.

Dorian blinked. Patriarch Cai! I totally forgot he existed! Dorian hadn’t seen the man since he tried picking a fistfight with Patriarch Ouyang in the ruckus earlier—and promptly got sat on. He vanished like a mountaineer caught in an avalanche. Dorian sort of assumed that had been the end of him.

But against all odds, he’d dug his way out!

“One…scale!” Wheezed the Patriarch, eyes veined with red. It took everything out of him just to say the words. “And you shall be given the same rights…as a Chosen of our clan! Our best elixirs! Manuals! Treasures!”

Dorian breathed out. “Ooh. I like the sound of that.”

Patriarch Ouyang frowned. “Shut up.” He shifted his weight. Patriarch CaI’s eyes bulged. For an instant, his mouth curved into a valiant, defiant snarl, the sort one would find on a statue of a hero of myth. His expression seemed to say, No. This is not how I go out. Not today, villain! I will not go quietly into the night! I shall fight with all I’ve got! Today shall be my Independence Day! I—

That was all it managed before it, too, vanished from view once more.

A beat. Then Patriarch Fang sighed. “Ah, damn it all. So be it. I offer what our erstwhile friend Cai offered. I shall also tend to your lodging, and to the lodging of whoever else you wish to bring along.”

Patriarch Ouyang kneaded his head, groaning. “Bah! Argh…if this is the price of a Hero, fine! I offer what Fang said, plus one hundred thousand Lira. But that’s as far as I can go.”

“I—I’ll give you what he said, too!” Piped up Matriarch Shun. “And…bridges! All the bridges you want. And my daughter’s hand in marriage! She’s got a face like a brick left out in the sun too long, true, but she’s real good with her hands!” It didn’t seem like she knew what she was saying. She just didn’t want to be left out.

The Oasis lord looked quite miffed at this sudden burst of competition.

“Perhaps Matriarch Shun was right,” growled the lord. “You have grown far too bold, Io Rust. It was an act of extreme generosity to agree to your terms. Is this is how you reward me? Do you call this fair?”

A gruff voice cut in. “Ha!”

It was the Artificing Head. He grinned craggy tombstone teeth at the Oasis lord. “I see how it is. You agreed to his plan ‘cause you thought you already won! It was between you and money-grubber over there from the start. The boy throws the rest of us a stick—and now you cry unfair? Get the fuck outta here!”

Dorian could’ve kissed the man.

The Artificing Head rounded on Dorian. “y’know what? I like your spirit, you little rascal. I’ll throw you back a stick. Scratch the slave shit. New offer. We’ll fund your Wizard’s Stick. You get Two Scales. Plus—you’ll work under me as my apprentice. Directly. And you get all the rights this—”

Wait. Wait. Wait. Dorian froze. Did I hear right? Did he say the word apprentice?!

The Head, meanwhile, was busy grimacing at Kal. “What’s the word? Give me a word. Something big. Important-sounding.”

“Uh,” Kal frowned back. “Distinguished?”

“That’s right!” he pointed a meaty finger to the heavens. “You get all the rights of this distinguished title! Our best metals. Our best elixirs. Our best Spirit Stones. We’ll raise you like the guild’s own fuckin’ son. During the day you’re by my side. The rest, you go do your shit.”

Dorian felt faint. Not even in his wildest hopes had he expected to get this kind of deal. It didn’t feel at all real.

The Oasis lord would never have given it. Neither would the finance minister, nor the alchemist head. They were too shrewd for that. It took a simple man, with simple whims, to throw him something as stupidly generous as this. His mouth was dry. His tongue felt like a thick wad of cotton.

Would he really go from nearly a slave to one of the most favored sons of the Oasis, in one stroke? It seemed too good to be true. Most of today felt that way.

The last time he had this feeling, he nearly died to a burst of hot pink air. And then nearly died again at the hands of Bin Heilong and his ornery lieutenants.

His fortunes had reversed, and un-reversed, and reversed again so many times in the span of a few hours that he was almost apprehensive. Is there some kind of cosmic catch? Some twist of Fate? Surely not…right?

The Artificing Head looked him square in the eyes. “Don’t get greedy, now! No negotiations. This is as good as it gets. My final offer, take it or leave it. What do you say, kid?”

INTERLUDE 2 (I)

Northern Izod Desert.

The battle was all but won.

The Heilong Patriarch stood with his lieutenants around a hidebound roundtable. One grimy lantern hung above them, swaying gently in the humid air. It threw sickly yellow light on a mess of maps, all littered with flags marking out the battlefield ahead.

Outside, there were three divisions of archers. There were two fleets of Azcan’s most fearsome airships, monstrosities of plates and smoke which dwarfed the clouds in the sky. There were thousands of men bearing Azcan steels which gleamed like slicked blood in the ruddy dusk sun.

All waiting at the ready. Waiting for the Patriarch’s orders.

The Patriarch squinted out the tent flaps. In the far distance, a curl of pale smoke rose above the camps of his enemy. Even from here, the Patriarch made out torn-up tents and burnt-down stables, courtesy of the last Azcan artillery shelling.

This Ugoc army had less than half their number left. Their air forces, little more than a ragtag bunch of Vordor riders, were crushed by the Azcan fleet. Their foot soldiers rode on beasts—wyrms and sandwollves—which broke against the well-oiled machine of the Azcan Army.

This horde of loose tribes, banded together, had wiped out two Oases? The Patriarch could scarcely believe it. Theirs was a savage way of combat and an inferior one, a relic of a cruder time. No match for modern weaponry.

First, he’d beaten them back with fire and steel, then chased them hundreds of miles, picking off their squadrons, butchering their beasts in a grueling, moons-long campaign. Now, he had them pressed up against a high plateau. He’d run them down at last. And they knew it, too. They’d halted their flight and formed up. It could mean only one thing: they were preparing for one last stand.

The Patriarch had to admit he was pleased. He dared not let down his guard—this was only the Ugoc Fourth Army, after all—but first blood in any war was critical. And first blood was about to go decisively, brutally, to the Azcan.

The true test of the Azcan defenses would be the First Army. They were busy carving a bloody trail across the other Oases.

When they come, thought the Patriarch, mouth twisting in a grim shadow of a smile, we shall be ready for them. We know how to fight them. And more—we know how to destroy them.

“First Leiutenant,” he said, his voice a deep rumble. “Are the preparations done?”

“Aye, sire,” said the Lieutenant. He was bald, and a thick scar cutting across his mouth lent him a perpetual frown. But right now, he was smiling as much as he ever did. “We’re ready. Let us at the savages!”

Patriarch Heilong nodded. “Then sound the first horn. We march when the sun meets the horizon.”

“Aye!” The man gave a salute.

He made his way to the entrance in military march. But as he loosened the strings threw open the leather flaps a blur barreled past him, collapsing to the sands. They all froze. The Patriarch frowned.

It was a messenger—young, grimy, wild-eyed.

This was most unusual. He should’ve announced his presence before entering. And how had he gotten past the guards?

“Sir!” The boy cried, looking up. “You need to see this!”

“Now?” said the Patriarch. “You’ve chosen a most inopportune time, courrier.”

“We think—we think they’ve chosen to surrender!”

That gave them all pause.

“They’ve sent a man—a boy—not sure—very strange,” gasped the messenger. “He’s in between our camps. He came alone—and he’s—he’s—well, we’re not sure what it is he’s doing. We, ah, we think they’ve sent him to negotiate the terms.”

“Hmm.” The Patriarch blinked. “Very well. Take me to him.”

* * *

The messenger had spoken truly. There, smack-dab between two war camps, was a lone boy. He was not their general. That much was obvious. But he was not even in emissary’s robes—he was dressed in rags.

The Patriarch scratched at his beard. What was this child doing in an army? The army didn’t admit orphans, or urchins, or stragglers. There were no civilians here. Was this some local, somehow stumbled into conflict? But as far as he knew this zone was uninhabited.

Strange. Very strange.

“To me, my honor guard!” he called. Eight grizzled Earth-Realm warriors decked in full, gem-studded Artifice armors answered his call.

They marched out, silent except for the ringing clanking of metal.

From out here, the Patriarch couldn’t quite make out what it was the boy was up to. But as he got close, as he crested a dune, he saw. And it only perturbed him more.

The boy knelt at a grave.

He must’ve been at it for a while. It was almost complete. A loose ditch, small enough to fit a child. At its head stood a single flower, its stem vibrant green, its silvery petals brushed with snow-white flecks. The Patriarch had never seen such a thing in his life.

To his side, the First Leiutenant’s brow squinted.

“Don’t,” grunted the man. “Could be a trap.”

But the Patriarch couldn’t tear his eyes from the scene. There was something so arresting, so immediate, so peculiar. It called to him. He took another step, almost trancelike.

“Milord?” said his First Leiutenant.

“Your paranoia clouds your reason, Etho,” muttered Patriarch Heilong. “Do you think a child on his knees can threaten me? Truly?”

The man jerked his head. “Just a precaution. Why even bother with this? Can’t we just wipe them out? A few well-placed airstrikes should do it.”

“Because we need not be savages,” sighed the Patriarch. “Perhaps they do intend to surrender. Let us hear what the boy has to say.”

* * *

The boy was small, thin, plain-faced, with short black hair like trimmed grass. There was not a single memorable feature on him except his eyes. They were big, and round, and full of tears, and under them were circles so dark they nearly seemed to be bands of rotted skin. He was kneeling by the grave, wracked with gasping sobs, tears trickling down his cheeks. He must’ve been here a while. Hours, maybe.

And the Patriarch didn’t know what to do. His lieutenants looked to one another, baffled. Here they were, decked in full plate—but where was the battle? Where were the negotiators? Where was the trap? The Patriarch had half-expected the ground to erupt under his feet, or perhaps a volley of hidden archers might pepper them with bolts. Nothing of the sort happened. They were alone: nine of the Desert’s finest warriors, and one sobbing boy.

Not a Ugoc warrior. Not a shaman. Not a negotiator. Just, inexplicably, a boy in the middle of no-where.

It made no sense. And yet there it was.

“Ho, Ugoc warrior! What have you got for us?” Roared the First Lieutenant. The Patriarch almost yanked the man’s hair out.

“What are you doing?” He hissed. “Were you recently struck on the head with a blunt object?!”

The boy’s head jerked up. Tears still stained his eyes. He looked slowly about him, soaking in the sight of the eight armored men. “W-What?” He croaked, swallowing. It was clear he hadn’t a clue what was happening.

The First Lieutenant’s grimaced. His hand drifted to the hilt of his battle-ax. It never got there. The Patriarch’s grip held it firmly in place. A back-and-forth shot between them in a glance:

Have you gone mad? Put that thing away! Ugoc Warrior, my behind! It’s a child, for Saint’s sake! A confused, grieving child!

The Lieutenant wrinkled his nose. It’s a distraction, is what it is. I don’t trust it. I say chop him down and be done with it.

Absolutely not. Stand down. I will handle this.

His Lieutenant rolled his eyes, but backed off. Floor’s yours.

Feeling silly, the Patriarch knelt down by the boy. Their eyes met.

“I’ve felt it too, you know,” said the Patriarch softly.

“Huh?” Croaked the boy.

“My first was my father. A champion duelist. Chouzu of Steel, they said, for his enemies could not so much as scratch him.” The Patriarch was happy to see he’d snagged the boy’s attention. At least the child had stopped crying—for now. He stared up with those big, watery, curious eyes.

“He was a big man. Laughed big, lived big, loved big. Then one duel, he got caught clean.”

The Patriarch shook his head. “Spear through the eye. Gone. Like that. Probably didn’t even feel it. I still remember his face, frozen in that moment—the look of utter shock to him. And I remember feeling that way, too, as I knelt by his grave…” He felt a lump in his throat. “He was the first of many. What I’m saying is, child—I know. Truly, I know. And I’m sorry.”

The boy sniffled. “D-did it get any easier?”

The Patriarch thought about lying. Then he sighed. “No. But you do become better at bearing it.”

The boy went back to crying. The rest of them stood there, awkward, baffled, waiting.

The First Lieutenant threw up his hands. So? What now?

The Patriarch held up a hand. One minute. He mouthed his next words. The Ugoc are trapped. We’ve got time to spare.

The Lieutenant rolled his eyes, but he still went back to his place. The rest of the honor guard glanced at one another, shrugging. The Patriarch’s off on one of his whims again, said their looks. But Heilong didn’t care. They were army men, but they could still have a damned heart, couldn’t they?

It took another few minutes for the boy’s sobbing to stop.

“You know, it isn’t the first time for me, either,” the boy said at last, looking up at the Patriarch. His laugh was shaky, choked-up. “But each time seems as hard as the first.”

The Patriarch shook his head. He didn’t know what to say. He settled on, “I…yes. But there is nothing for it, I fear…” He sighed. “Why did you come here, child?”

If he didn’t ask it, the First Lieutenant might strangle him. He could feel the man’s gaze boring a hole in his back.

The boy blinked. He seemed befuddled. “I came to mourn.”

The Patriarch looked back to his exasperated Lieutenants, and shrugged. The First Lieutenant pinched his nose. “We’re done here. It’s smoke and nothing. Just some dumb, lost kid. Saints! And to think we’d geared up for a Ugoc surrender!”

He barked a laugh. Then he squinted. “Hey, kid—if you want to live, you have less than an hour to get the hells out of here! Can’t you see this is a battlefield?”

“What my friend means is,” said the Patriarch, shooting the Lieutenant a glare, “this is no place to grieve. Let’s get you back to your family. From where do you hail? A nomadic tribe? Or do you dwell on the plateau?”

The child’s gaze met the sands.”My family’s all dead,” he said in a whisper.

The Patriarch stilled. Hells. “All?”

“Yes,” sniffed the boy. “Ma, Pa, little Maia…I miss them.” Somehow the boy still hadn’t seemed to grasp the severity of the situation. His lips trembled as he spoke. “I see them. I see Pa’s big smile drawn in the stars. I see Ma’s face in the crags of the moon. Sis loved to splash about in mountain springs. Sometimes I pretend every sinkhole is a spring pond. If I close my eyes, and wish hard enough, maybe she’ll come out, and throw water in my face, and laugh that tinkling laugh of hers, and …“ He swallowed. “Well. It doesn’t help any, does it?’

“By JanI’s ashes!” The First Lieutenant threw up his hands. “Must we put up with this wyrmshit sob story any longer? We ought to be prepping for war!”

“Etho,” said the Patriarch, rounding on his Lieutenant. “Shut the fuck up.”

Something in his face must’ve gotten through to the man. Etho shut the fuck up.

Sighing, the Patriarch turned back to the boy. He laid a hand on the boy’s bony shoulder.

“No, child,” he said, in as tender a voice as he could muster. “Don’t scratch at the wound. Let the passing of time bind it up. It is the only way to stop the bleeding. It hurts, true enough, but it is the only way forward. We do what we must.”

A silence.

Then the boy sniveled. “Yes. Yes, I suppose so.” With the back of his hand, he wiped at his cheek. It left a smudge of thick grime where the tears had been. “I think…I think I’m okay, now. Thank you.”

“Good.” The Patriarch stood. He held out his hand, smiling. “What is your name, child?”

And the boy smiled back. It was a sad smile, true. But it was also lighter, somehow. There was a hint of whimsy in it. It was the sort of smile you give when you’re asked about a secret.

“I go by many names,” he said softly. “Which would you prefer?”

INTERLUDE 2 (II)

The dying day bled out in furious reds and stark yellows. At the horizon, the sunset melted to a mournful violet as night crept up the sky.

Assembled on a battlefield was a most curious scene: a Patriarch, eight warriors, and a child. A very peculiar child.

Perhaps a little too peculiar—sobbing, stranded in the desert, kneeling beside a grave. But the Patriarch was touched, and so he reached out. He held out a hand.

“What is your name, child?” he said.

The boy smiled, blinking tears from his eyes. “I have many names. Which would you prefer?”

“Whichever you would like to give,” said the Patriarch, smiling back.

“Hmm…” The boy touched a finger to his lip. His brows scrunched. “My first name was Jez,” he said. “It meant sunrise in my tongue. Here, they call me Nijo. I think I like Jez better.”

“All right, then,” chuckled the Patriarch. “Well—Jez, he-of-many-names. Whoever you’ve lost is with the Dweller. I’m sure they’re proud of you.”

Then the boy glanced up at him blankly. “Whoever I’ve lost?”

The Patriarch shook his head. Must you make me say it? “The deceased,” he sighed. “The one you bury.”

He gestured to the grave.

And frowned.

He’d been focused on the boy. But now that he craned his head in for a closer look at the grave, he saw it all the way to its bottom. It was filled with nought but shadow. There was no body.

Why dig an empty grave?

A rush of nausea churned his stomach.

The boy must’ve seen the look on his face.

“Ah,” he said, blinking. “I see. You misunderstand, I fear.”

The boy stood, brushing the sand off his patchy cloth robes, and the feeling grew stronger. What was wrong with him? Perhaps he’d had bad oysters. The Patriarch tried on a smile, tried to brush it off. “Oh? How so?”

Then something else came to the Patriarch. It was like he’d been viewing a scene through darkness all this time, and suddenly the lights flickered on. Things stood out to him—things he’d somehow missed all this time.

This child had been out here, digging, in the scorching heat. He must’ve been here for hours.

Why was there not a single speck of sweat on him?

The feeling knifed at his gut.

Come to think of it—the boy’s demeanor had changed, now that he stood up. His chest straightened. His tears dried up. Something about his aura had gone from enfeebled, trembling, to nothing. Vanished. The boy didn’t feel like anything or anyone at all. There was a shift in him—something subtle, yet utterly drastic. And the Patriarch could not quite put his finger on it.

Then he took a step back, gasping.

He saw what gave him pause. It was the face. The expression. It was no longer that of a child’s. In those placid, watery eyes, in that soft, wistful smile, was an ageless serenity. All of the emotion had drained from him. This child looked at peace with himself, but not as children do. He looked how certain wise crones look when they have made peace with death: a very old look on a very young face. It felt deeply wrong. The Patriarch was struck by a terrible instinct. It came from somewhere primal, deeper than bone, and he felt it in the same way an infant knows to flee from the serpent despite never having seen one before. Every fiber of his being screamed at him to run.

Preposterous! He shook his head, struggling to clear his mind. He, second only to the lord himself in strength among all the Oasis, spooked? By a child, of all things? A child who had shown no malice? Madness. Utter madness!

But he couldn’t unsee the strangeness of it all. A boy, kneeling alone. Hundreds of li from the nearest Plateau settlement. A flower the color of ice, sprouting lively from dead sands. An empty, shallow grave.

“You see,” said the boy softly, slowly, letting the syllables sway like hanged men in the hot air. “I do not weep for the past. I weep for what I am about to do.”

“Excuse me?” Croaked the Patriarch. There was that smile again. This time the Patriarch was struck by the boy’s eyes. So innocent, yet they held within them that ancient aura, that timeless grandeur he’d seen only in fossils of the Old Gods.

His question came back to him, unbidden. Why dig an empty grave?

Because you expect to fill it.

An icy fist closed around the Patriarch’s heart.

“Please believe me when I say I take no pleasure in this,” said the creature that called himself Jez. Those big watery eyes were still as the depths of the night sky. He smiled, and the worst thing about it was its innocence. He really meant that smile. He really was sorry, and yet his those eyes were also as hard as cast iron.

“It is as you say. We do what we must.”

The air was very still.

Jez’s finger touched the air, drawing a line. Where his finger passed a weapon was unsheathed, like he’d drawn it from nothing at all: a blade whiter than white, older than time, incandescent in the light of the dusk.

* * *

Azcan Oasis.

The Artificing Head made an offer no one could beat, and everyone knew it.

Or so they all thought.

The finance minister bit his tongue. The alchemist had her head shunted to a side, eyes closed, arms crossed. She wasn’t stepping in.

Dorian brightened. Is this it?

Apprenticeship? Funding? And the full backing of the most powerful guild in the Oasis?

The silence stretched on. Dorian had a feeling this was it. It was a hell of an offer—certainly better than he deserved.

Then a grave voice cut in.

“All right.”

Dorian’s head snapped up. It was the governor who spoke. He stood there, arms clasped behind his back. He sighed. “I grow tired of this. Very well, child. You’ve forced my hand.”

Dorian tensed. Is he reneging on the agreement? Now?! Surely—

“I refuse to alter the slave clause,” said the lord. “I simply give you this as my final offer.”

He swept a stern gaze around the ring, as though daring anyone to challenge him. Then he spoke.

“Four bloodline Scales of the Evernight Basilisk.”

The man might as well have detonated a bomb in the center of the crater.

no one said a word. Eyes popped. Jaws hung from slack faces. It took everyone a second to register just what, precisely, the man had said. Even Dorian wasn’t sure he heard right.

Four scales—four?!

Just the qi alone from four scales would be enough to boost me to at least the early Earth Realm!

But that was nothing compared to the true benefit.

Four scales would grant me over 10% bloodline purity.

Forget the Earth Realm. That would meet the requirements to ascend to godsdamned Sky Realm!

That was the highest realm in the lower planes. Which meant that if Dorian said yes, right here, right now?

All he would need was qi. It would be a huge amount of qi, true, but as long as he chomped enough treasures, there would be no bottleneck between now and Godhood.

If he agreed to this, he was set.

Shocked silence gripped the crater. All Dorian heard was the thump-thump-thump of his heart blasting in his ears. He had to think straight. He had to. But he was find it rather hard, with amid all the clamor in his head, amid that little inner goblin screaming at him TAKE IT! TAKE IT NOW! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR!?

He tried to sort out his thoughts. How much did he value his freedom? The loss of it would likely be temporary. This place wouldn’t survive long anyway after the Ugoc came through—right? And those scales—those damned Scales! Sky Realm. Right there, within grasp. Godhood would be in striking range!

Dorian gnashed his teeth. Damn! His inner goblin, screaming bloody murder at him, was making it hard

And Dorian was almost ready to give into it. Almost.

“So?” The Oasis lord raised an eyebrow. I await your decision, Hero. What will it be?”

Dorian forced open dry, cracked lips. “I—”

He didn’t even have time to complete the sentence.

For a bald man had run headlong into the crater, bowling through the crowd, shoving citizens aside. His tunic, black embroidered with light-blue, marked him out as a messenger.

The Heilong family crest was stitched on the robes’ front.

“Make way! MAKE WAY!” he cried. “EMERGENCY! EMERGENCY OF THE HIGHEST ORDER! FOR GENERAL BIN HEILONG’S EARS ONLY! MAKE WAY, DAMN YOU!”

Dorian stared, speechless, as the man half-dashed, half-stumbled his way to a mystified Bin Heilong.

He whispered a few words in Bin’s ear.

Bin’s face turned a shade paler.

He whispered a few more words, and Bin’s face drained of blood.

A few more, and his face was as white as the bones they hid. His mouth slowly drooped open. His eyes stared blankly at the air, wide and shivering, as though he was staring at some unspeakable horror only he could see. His thin body started to tremble. The man was an Earth-Realm warrior, and he looked like he was about to faint! He staggered back a step, gasping, one hand clutching at his chest.

It was so peculiar that—for just a moment—they all forgot about the auction.

“Bin?” said the Oasis lord, frowning. “Are you all right?”

Bin opened his mouth. No sound came out. He stood there, mouth hanging open, frozen except for his trembling.

“Speak to us, Bin,” the alchemist head. “What is it?”

“If this is a ploy to disrupt the auction, it is an exceedingly ill-considered one,” sniffed the finance minister. But even he looked disturbed.

Bin’s breaths rattled up and down his chest. His gaze whizzed about, face blotchy, somehow pale and flushed at once.

His eyes settled on Dorian. Dorian felt like a criminal under a spotlight.

“YOU!!” Roared Bin, thrusting a finger at him, and Dorian cringed, bracing himself for impact. Qi leapt to his fingertips. His bloodline powers thrummed under his skin. The general had been too mad for too long—he’d cracked!

But what was with his face? Why did he look so torn? He’d developed an unseemly twitch up and down his brows, his cheeks, his quivering lips, his trembling eyes, spasming between expressions. The man looked like he wanted to storm off in a rage, and break down in tears, and beg for help—all at once. And he couldn’t decide which to pick.

This was not the look of a man with murder in mind.

If Dorian didn’t know any better, he’d say it was the look of a beggar. A man at the end of his rope.

“You want to be treated like royalty?!” cried Bin Heilong. “Fine! You shall have it! I offer you the same treatment as a young master bound to the Heilong Family!”

Dorian could’ve fallen over then and there.

What the hells is going on?!

“You also get access to our best Martial Texts! And three of our top-grade elixirs!!”

The entire crater was gaping openly at him now. Dorian felt like he’d been struck by a hammer. Is this real?! Has he gone insane?! Thirty seconds ago the man had been so mad he didn’t even deign to make an offer! Ten minutes ago, he nearly murdered Dorian then and there! What could possibly change his mind this much?

Dorian swallowed. It was shocking beyond belief, Dorian would give him that. But…“General Heilong,” he said, struggling to keep his voice even. “Thank you for the offer, but compared to those of the guild Master and the Patriarch, it’s simply not enough to—”

“I’M NOT DONE!” Roared Bin.

The man stomped over to a pile of rubble. With a scream like the death throes of a dying animal, he smashed his hand into the mess. There was a deafening CRACK, a blast of scalding heat, and then the stones were rent apart. Sediment sprayed the air—a splattering of rock that had them all covering up.

When Dorian dared look again, he was faced with a familiar sight. Bin Heilong held up a weapon.

“My last offering,” he croaked, holding back tears. “An artifact with the same powers as three Scales of the Evernight Basilisk.”

There was a chorus of gasps. Then a storm of indignant cries, furious roars, shrill protests—all from the ranks of his own family. Even his own lieutenants looked scandalized.

“The Heilong Family Heirloom,” continued Bin, ignoring them. “A Spirit Weapon of unmatched power. I offer the single most fearsome weapon in all the desert, the weapon of our founder—”

He took a shaky breath. His words came out in a whisper. “The Heilong Javelin.”

There it was, clutched in his two hands, as gorgeous as Dorian remembered the first time he’d seen it in the Chamber. Its head was one huge fang, stark-white, shining like the crescent moon on a clear night sky. One look, and Dorian knew that thing could gore any creature on this plane. It was attached to a rope of inky midnight, curling up to another, smaller Scale at its tail. It served as a handle of sorts, completing the look.

A Spirit Weapon! And a hell of a Weapon at that.

A weapon that grew as its user grew. A weapon that would only be stronger the earlier you got it.

In this plane, at this stage in a run? Once Dorian got his hands on it, grew it, modified it, customized it, made it his very own roaming dart of ivory death?

In that moment Dorian could not name a single thing in this Oasis—nay, in this plane—worth more to him. His mind had gone utterly blank. He could hardly believe what was happening. He couldn’t stop staring at the thing. The bone winked white, as though it spilled starlight into the world from some higher plane.

He had to have it. He had to. If he wasn’t thinking straight before, now he could hardly muster a coherent thought. He was quite certain he was openly drooling.

“On one condition,” said Bin.

Anything. Anything at all. Name it, fool! It’s yours!

“You swear to wield this weapon…to vanquish the Ugoc threat!” Screeched Bin, eyes shot with blood, angry purple veins bulging out of his neck.

Dorian froze. …say what now?

“You promise on your Soul not to rest until every last one of those fuckers is dead!!”

…okay. I was wrong.

Apparently there was still one thing in this world, just one thing, that might stop Dorian from saying yes on the spot. That could give Dorian even a moment’s pause.

And the general had named it.

THIRTY-NINE

SPLENDID WEAPONRY (I)

“You swear to wield this weapon…to vanquish the Ugoc threat!” Screeched Bin, eyes shot with blood, angry purple veins bulging out of his neck.

Dorian hesitated. What to do?

There was a fruit in the Upper Realms called the Ul-Kran fruit. It was akin to a big, juicy blueberry which smelled like sweetest honey on softest winds. Its skin glistened in sleet or rain or sun alike. And it tasted divine—its tart skin sealed flesh so delicious no words could do it justice. To taste the Ul-Kran, it was said, was to feel the single greatest pleasure open to any creature, man or God.

It also killed whoever ate it, hollowed out that person from the inside, and made them its zombie. It was an S-Tier devil-fruit, a parasite which made a sport of killing gods. Some poisons are sweet to the tongue and the eye.

As he stared down Bin Heilong’s offer, Dorian felt like he was looking at an Ul-Kran fruit. An image popped to mind: a sea of beasts, Wryms and Vordors and sandwolves and drakes of all sizes and power levels, crashing through the Oasis walls, trampling hordes of its wailing citizens. Then there was Nijo, wielding those golden god-given powers, blasting through the city—

Hardly appetizing.

But…

Dorian looked to his choices. First, the Oasis lord, who gave him a stern squint. Second, the Artificing Head, who gave him a toothy grin. And third, to Bin, who looked at Dorian the way a starving, caged animal looks at rotting meat. Bin wasn’t happy about any of this, but given the circumstances the man was far beyond caring.

All three offers would tie him to the Oasis. He’d be forced to confront the Ugoc armies one way or another. But Bin’s would put him most directly in the line of fire.

Bin’s offer was also the best by far.

A Spirit Weapon of the finest caliber in this realm. Three scales’ worth of Essence stored in that gorgeous thing. And he’d be treated like a young master!

The only hang-up was the specter of imminent death. Dorian still remembered that Pearl boy—almost certainly one of Nijo’s agents—with that same gold mark on him as Nijo’d had. He also remembered nearly getting a hole blasted in his Soul by whatever golden god—or gods—Nijo dealt with, back in that tournament.

A good rule of thumb for mortals: don’t fuck with gods. Don’t fuck with factions backed by gods.

But Dorian’s eyes glinted. A familiar mischievousness tickling at him again. Since when had he been one for rules?

He glanced around the smoking ruins, the hunks of melted steel and blackened stumps of stone littering the crater. The main Heilong Estate was in shambles, true, but its main forces were still undamaged. This was the military family of the Oasis. It likely had hundreds of men at its disposal, and Dorian had the know-how to arm them. He would forge his staffs. He would make elixirs that were miracles by this realm’s standards. Yes. Yes! He could stock this place with the weapons of a new age.

They might’ve had a god on their side…

Dorian looked at his hands, and grinned.

But we do too, don’t we?

He looked to Bin Heilong. His grin turned fierce. And he nodded.

“I accept your offer.”

Mission: defend the ludicrously outmatched fortress against a beast tide that is literally backed by godly powers is a go!

Dorian hummed. Admittedly, the name could use some work.

* * *

Through a blur of choking dust-clouds and throbbing, head-splitting pain, Kaya managed to stumble her way home. She didn’t remember half the journey. It had all happened in some dazed haze. Only once she’d sagged into the tent, felt the rough grits of sand shoring up her knees, stinging at the bloody scrapes there, did she heave out a long, slow, sigh. She closed her eyes. It felt like her body had been holding back a day’s worth of fatigue. Now, it crashed on her all at once, dragging at her eyelids, her thoughts, her horribly sore arms and legs. She felt like she was about to unwind—fall apart, drift off into dust clouds then and there. She was too tired to even cry.

Today made no sense. None at all! She was so damned sick of all this churn, this bustle. That weird super golden glow-power? That big stick of light in the sky? Getting knocked out—twice? She winced. Even thinking right now was like trying to swim through oil.

She let out a low, soft groan.

“Hey, sis! Good news!”

There was a shadow in the peachy murk of the door. Her eyes widened.

“Io!” she gasped.

“Yup,” said the shadow, chuckling. Her grinning brother stepped into the tent. “I’m back. Shame, I know. Anyhow, I—oof!”

He was cut off by her smothering him in a tackle-hug.

She took a long, deep, dragging breath. She dragged in another, gasping. She felt silly as hells, clinging to her kid brother like she was the younger sis, somehow it felt like the one thing that made any kind of sense. She sniffled. Io was here. Solid, real, here, with her in this damned mess! It was going to be okay. She was going to be okay.

Pulling back, she took him in again. She blinked. Something about him seemed…off. His skin was brighter, maybe. Cleaner. His hair blacker. Then she put a finger on it—it was his aura, streaming out of him like he was a lively hearth. The aura of the Profound.

This little rascal ascended again?!

Who was she kidding? A tired smile tugged at her lips. It was Io. Of course he did.

She had no clue what to say. Should she tell him what’d happened to her? Or ask what had happened to him? Or ask about that crazy storm?

She settled on hissing—”Where were you?!”

“That,” said Io, wincing, “Is a long story. I’ll tell it to you later. Suffice it to say, I’ll be making a few more breakthroughs than expected tomorrow…for now, all you need to know is I got us housing in the city! It’s a lovely place, smack-dab in one of the Heilong Estates. Quite a nice area, if I do say so myself—”

His face froze. Then it went utterly still. His eyes latched onto her hand.

“What,” he said slowly, “Is that?”

“Huh?”

Kaya followed his gaze.

“Oh!” On the back of her hand, there was a faint etching. She hadn’t even felt it! How had that gotten there? She tried wiping it against her tunic, but it wouldn’t go. She rubbed it harder, but only managed to smudge the back of her hand with grease and dust. It was stuck there, stubborn, like it was part of her skin itself. Two weird little gold circles, stuck together. Huh. She could’ve sworn she saw that symbol before…

Then she looked back to Io, and yelped.

His jaw was clenched tight as a fist, his eyes stark and staring. The look was so intense, so furious, the blackness of his pupils seemed to burn in the dim dusk light. She’d never seen him this mad. Ever.

The shift was so sudden it felt like a slap in the face.

“Nijo…” he breathed. “BASTARD!”

He snatched her wrist. She flinched as he ran a finger over it, muttering, then bringing it to his face and picking it apart with his eyes. She gaped. His face had gone totally rigid, mouth set in a harsh, snarling arc, cheeks flush with boiling rage.

For a second it was like she was seeing someone else—like he’d been possessed! Her brother was a sweet, gentle, fun-loving soul. Where had this come from?! He almost looked like some kind of demon!

She dared not move before he did. She barely dared to breathe. And he didn’t move for a time. Thinking back on it later, it might not’ve even been enough time for a tea-kettle to boil, but in the moment it felt like the whole night had passed before he let her go.

He started to laugh—a sneering, lilting sound. He looked out to the starry sky.

“Is this your idea of a peace offering?” he whispered. “A sign? A bribe? Hmph! Sneaky little prick. How dare you touch what’s mine?”

“What?” Croaked Kaya. She was still rooted to the spot. She still couldn’t scrub that face from her mind. Those eyes, burning with black…

“Heh.” Io turned around, smiling. It was like the whole thing had been one long joke. His rage had vanished in an instant—like it hadn’t been there at all! “Don’t worry. It’s safe.”

“What?” Croaked Kaya again.

“Ah.” He blinked. Then he drew up to her, gently taking her hand and looking her in the eye. Soft, warm, black eyes. Caring eyes. His brow furrowed, lips trembled. He looked worried-- really worried. “Oh, gods! Did I frighten you?”

Kaya stared at him. Maybe she’d imagined it—maybe she’d made something much worse than it was. She was really, really tired. And she had gotten hit by on the head a whole bunch.

“Uh?” she said.

He winced, looking chagrined. “Drat. I’m really sorry about that. I got scared. And…angry. I thought—”

He swallowed. “I thought someone was trying to hurt you.”

“Oh,” mumbled Kaya. “Oh.” That…changed things. That made sense. Of course! A little warmth bubbled in her chest. Then she felt a stab of guilt. She cringed. Her sweet little brother, possessed by a demon? What was she thinking?! She really had been hit too hard.

“It’s okay,” She said. He didn’t look convinced. “I’m okay. Really!”

“It’s not okay. I shouldn’t have grabbed you like that,” he sighed. “I just needed to make sure. You seem to have been…hmm. How should I put this? I think you’ve entered into a contract.”

Kaya swallowed. “What?” she said again, feeling very stupid. “Contract? With who?”

“Well…it’s hard to say,” said Io. “The important thing is that it’s a Blessing, not a Mark. If it were a Mark, you’d essentially be a slave, like our friend Pearl. But yours is one-way, and you can give it up anytime. Just…Heh.” He grinned weakly. “Not by scratching it, dummy!”

She didn’t even bother questioning how he knew it. The first dozen times she did. Now, she’d somehow grown used to it—he just knew things. That was the way he was now, all powerful and important and stuff. She used to think she knew every nook and cranny of him. Now, huge parts of him were way beyond her. Sometimes talking to him made her feel very silly. Like she was a toddler asking a patient adult to explain super obvious things—things that she somehow just didn’t know.

“So…” she said. She felt that way now. “Um. What do I do now?”

Io shrugged. “Well, you can use it—some of these things can be quite useful. Or don’t bother with it. Whichever. Do tell me if anything changes, all right? If someone tries to contact you through it, please let me know.”

Kaya looked to her hand, then to her hand, then to him again. Why couldn’t one thing that happened today—just one—make a lick of sense?!

“Why would anyone do this to me? Is it—do they just give these out?”

“Oh, Heavens no!” Io laughed warmly. “That took a lot of effort and planning to do, believe me. More than you could ever know. As to why they marked you, well. Who knows?”

He tapped his chin. “If I had to guess, it’s two things. First, as a gift. It’s a peace offering from them to me. But it’s a little like this fruit from the Upper—nevermind. Basically, they also marked you to remind me that they can get at you. It’s a subtle reminder that I have weaknesses.”

He snorted, looking to the night sky once more. “Or so they think.”

Kaya didn’t even try to make any sense of that.

“I think I’ma nod off,” she mumbled. Her brain felt like a clogged latrine.

“Oh, of course. You do that. You’ve got a big day ahead of you!” Io waved her off. “Among other things…the tournament’s first round starts tomorrow! And with, uh, recent news I expect you’ll hear of soon, I expect they’ll ratchet up the stakes to match.”

He grinned. “You’ll do well, sis. I just know it!”

FORTY

SPLENDID WEAPONRY (II)

Morning found the Heilong Estate in shambles. It was as though a giant spoon had scooped a chunk out the middle, leaving nought but charred slumps behind. There were cringing hunks of steel welded together by the cool night air. There were crushed artifacts. There were bookshelves flipped on their heads, their insides crisped brown. Broken pillars studded the land and mounds of crushed glass shored up the mess.

The two towers which made the bulk of the estate still stood, which was lucky. They had too much steel in them to totally bowl over. But they still looked shabby as hells. Their insides had been scraped clean by the Purple Air, their windows blown open, and segments of stone sagged out of the walls.

Dorian whistled as he sauntered along the camp. Already they were rebuilding: a swarm of servants and soldier —mostly bald, musclebound labor folk—milled to-and-fro, driving steel carts loaded with thick metal sheets, hammering nails into place, barking orders. Dorian smiled. So, he’d joined a troubled family, but it’s okay! He was here to help rebuild.

“Keep it up, fellas!” hehe called, smiling to a passing troupe of workers. A dozen bald heads glared at him as one. It looked like a very angry basket of eggs.

Oh, right. I was the one who caused all this, wasn’t I? This one really couldn’t be blamed on him! How was he to know this plane had some hidden quirk of Fate?

Dorian scratched his chin as he went. He wasn’t used to being a part of something. Teamwork wasn’t his thing. Having minions was his thing.

Nor was he used to cleaning up his own [messes]. Usually his plans were designed so someone else would have to deal with those pesky things. That was the implicit deal he’d made with the world: he took the shits, everyone else did the wiping.

Now he’d been forced into an altogether less fun kind of deal. A deal with General Bin Heilong, who he was on his way to meet. The man had insisted on a meeting at first light. Something about a briefing. The typical military nonsense, delivered in stern bark which, Dorian assumed, was supposed to convey that the man was not to be trifled with.

“Do not come late,” Bin had said. “The matters I have to discuss with you are of utmost importance!”

At Dorian’s nonplussed look—”I do not say this lightly, child! You are bound by your duty to the clan to obey!”

So here he was.

He came to a stop at the center of the pit, where Bin was snarling orders at a host of men in uniform. They wore fancy, thick-brimmed caps, and their uniforms had so many medals on them Dorian could barely see the fabric beneath. ‘Very important people.’ Probably his second-in-command, and officers, and so forth.

Bin stopped as soon as Dorian came into view.

“Dismissed!” he snapped. “Off with you lot. Go.”

A flurry of salutes, a stammering of boots, and they were left alone.

“Follow me,” said Bin, his perpetually narrow eyes even narrower.

* * *

Bin led him to a perfectly square box. Its outsides were plated steel, run over with gold etchings. A massive artifact brimming with arrays. By the runes inscribed on it—among them symbols for silencing and blocking— Dorian could guess at its workings. It was a black box. No sound in, no sound out.

Wordlessly they stepped in, and Bin sealed the door behind him. Up until the moment the doorframe touched the wall, Dorian could still hear the outside world. Muffled, but audible. Then the door slid into place, and it was like all sound was turned off. He was jarred by the silence. If not for the sounds of his breathing, he would’ve thought he’d gone deaf. So, I was right.

The inside was as boring as the outside. There were two stools and a lamp, all steel, no windows. The walls were carved with the same gold runes.

“So—” Dorian started.

“Halt!” cried Bin. His eyes ricocheted across the room, watering frantic red. “Not safe!”

He slapped a button on the walls. The runes flared like throbbing veins, then sank into the walls. The quiet reigned once more. Dorian got the sense that a war horn could’ve blared right outside, and they wouldn’t hear a thing.

Bin’s eyes scrunched shut.

“The Patriarch…is dead.”

A pause.

“Excuse me?” Dorian blinked. “Which Patriarch, pray tell? Surely you can’t mean—”

“I do.” Bin pinched the bridge of his nose. “The Patriarch of my Family, the Heilong, and now yours also. The entire First Army of the Azcan Oasis, too. Gone. Like that.”

Dorian’s smile slunk off his face as Bin’s words sank in. Dorian squinted at him.

Is he serious?

The man’s face was serious as stone. Dorian wasn’t sure the man had made a joke in his entire life.

“Might I ask—how the hells is that possible?” said Dorian slowly. “Are you certain of it? Wasn’t the war effort going well?”

“It was,” said Bin, his eyes squeezed painfully shut, teeth grinding. “And then it wasn’t—in the course of a day. I am as certain as I am of anything. I checked his lifeline artifact this morning. Cold.”

Uh. Dorian stared at him, scarcely trusting his ears. Are you telling me that the leader of the clan I just got roped into—the pillar of the military who led this whole damned war—is dead?!

He felt like a husband in an arranged marriage, lifting up his supposedly lovely bride’s veil—only to see a face ridden with warts and rotting teeth.

“What the fuck?”

“Indeed,” said Bin dryly. “Which is why I bid for you.”

He clasped his hands behind his back. “I don’t like you. In fact I find you a stuck-up prick. You have a maddening disrespect for the law. You flout authority. You talk back. And your face…is stupid.”

Bin sighed. “However! I had no choice in the matter. Don’t you see?”

A spasm ran up his cheek. “If I didn’thing, this would mean the end of the Heilong. Perhaps the Oasis!”

Dorian twitched. His morning optimism was quickly going up in smoke.

“If you truly are a Hero,” said Bin. “Now is the time to live up to it.”

Dorian didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. If this was true, this changed everything. He could hardly get a feel for the scope of this news. It was the mental equivalent of trying to hug an enormously fat man. He was having a great deal of trouble wrapping his mind around it.

He really wanted it to be untrue.

Which was, weirdly, how he knew it was probably true.

“Okay!” he said, scattered thoughts streaming about his head, plans rejiggering in real-time. This would really need some deeper thought. He’d need to fix a lot of things. But the first step was obvious.

“Time to evacuate!” he declared. “Let’s get the hells out of here. If something could wipe the Patriarch and his army out that fast, we’re definitely screwed! If we start now, we could be out of here in a week’s time—”

“Unthinkable!” Snapped Bin, red-faced. “How—how dare you suggest such a—”

He cut himself off with a groan. Then he began messaging his temples. “Never mention such nonsense to me again,” he whispered. “Run? Like sniveling rats?! Never! I would not stand for it. no one in the Oasis would stand for it! This has been our home—for generations! We defend what is ours. It is our way. That is the way of my father, and his father, and his father before him. Flee? Ha! I would sooner die!”

Dorian cursed inwardly. Crap. Pride and honor, back at it again! Culling the gene pool since the dawn of man.

“Besides, I suspect tomfoolery,” said Bin, nose held high. “Perhaps they lured the Patriarch into the trap—say, the lair of a Spirit Beast King— and ambushed him there!”

Clearly the man was even deeper in denial than Dorian. He couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that apparently, some troupe of Ugoc savages had roundly trounced his family’s most mighty army. It had to be trickery, apparently!

Seeing his self-delusion only made Dorian more resigned to reality.

This really is going to happen, isn’t it? And just when things were looking up! Blast!

Bin cleared his throat. “They shall find we will not be so easily cowed on our home grounds.”

But Dorian could tell Bin didn’t totally believe his words. There was a trembling energy to him. A stiffness of the jaw, a herky-jerkiness to his every move. He’d never admit it, but the man was scared shitless.

“Also. We have you, Hero.” He leveled an expectant—desperate—look at Dorian. “What say you? Have you any thoughts on the matter? I’ve paid handsomely for you, as you well know! I expect better ideas than to flee like craven mudspawn.”

“Hmm.”

Dorian rubbed at his chin.

At first glance, they seemed totally screwed.

On second glance…they still seemed totally screwed.

Shit.

The Heilong Patriarch was at the very least a Peak Earth Realm fighter. To wipe him and his army out without a trace took more than even a Sky-Realm fighter. It likely took divine might. The powers of a god.

To even have a hope of matching that…

To start, they had to get those Wizard Staffs into production. Immediately. And more.

“Fine. I do have another idea,” said Dorian at last. “A good one. Well—as good as you’ll get, at least.”

“Spit it out.”

“I’ve designed a weapon. A weapon that’ll let anyone—from the mightiest general to the lowliest street urchin—down a Profound-Realm beast, at no cost to their own reserves. So long as we can procure the Spirit Stones, that is. Think of it as a rapid-fire cannon for the masses.”

“Oh?!” Bin’s brows shot up. “That’s quite the claim. Can you prove it?”

“Of course. The designs are have already been tested in the Artificer’s Guild. We can begin production immediately.”

For a few seconds, Bin gaped openly. “Truly?”

Dorian could see it in the man’s eyes. He wanted to believe.

“Why hadn’t you mentioned this before?! This could change the course of the war!”

“It can!” said Dorian, quirking a smile. “Imagine: you could add thousands of fighters to your ranks in an instant. You could wield every man, woman, child, even—it would transform the defenses. Like that.”

Dorian saw Bin’s face light up. He didn’t bother to let the man down. He strongly doubted it’d be nearly enough to match whatever the hells Nijo and his band had on hand. Dorian would likely need to pull a lot more crap out of his ass for that.

But it was a start, at least. It was something.

“Ha!” Bin beamed. “Ha-ha!” he swept up to Dorian and clasped him firm on the shoulders, which felt like being clamped by iron tongs. “Child—I’ll admit I’ve had my many, many, many doubts—but if this is true, you shall be worth every lira I’ve spent on you. Every last one! This is superb news, simply superb! What are we waiting for?! To the forges! Demonstrate it for me this instant!”

“All right, all right. I’m glad to be of use! But let’s slow down a little, shall we?”

Dorian wriggled free of the grip and took a step back. He cleared his throat.

“All of this can be done in the afternoon. For now, I have the first round of the tournament to prepare for.”

“Ah. Yes. The tournament. That is of great import.” Bin crossed his arms. “Fine. The weapon can wait a few hours—no more! Return immediately after you are done. Understood?”

Dorian nodded, all serious-like. “You have my word.”

Dorian got the feeling both of knew just how much Dorian’s word was worth. But Bin chose to glare at him rather than press him on it.

“Very good,” Bin grunted. “About the tournament, then. There is something you should know.”

Bin leaned in conspiratorially. “The Oasis lord has been briefed on the issue of our Patriarch. He’s already begun taking the necessary measures—opening the Azcan reserves, drumming up recruitment, funding our family and the like. Whatever it takes to bolster the war effort, including raising the stakes of the tournament.”

“The tournament is the Oasis’s way to reward its best talents, right?” Dorian nodded. “Makes sense.”

“Indeed,” Bin breathed. “What I am about to tell you is strictly confidential. This year, the prizes shall be drawn from the Azcan Reserves themselves, which hold some of the Oasis’ most valuable treasures. Collected across centuries! They say there may even be relics of the Old Gods in those depths, though I have not been given the privilege of seeing them.”

He leaned in farther, giving Dorian an eyeful of his hawkish nose. “Do not take this lightly! War or no war, the competition shall be fierce. Some of the competitors are the elite of the Oasis—I speak of warriors deep into the Earth Realm, while you are merely at the gates of Profound! And you represent the Heilong now.”

One long, bony finger jabbed Dorian in the chest.

“Do not fuck this up.”

“I see.” Dorian nodded. He grinned, flashing his usual dumb confidence. “Don’t you worry! First prize is as good as ours—”

“First?” Bin barked a laugh. “Did you not hear a word I just said? You won’t sniff first! Young Master Yun has trounced Grand Elders in duels. And that Shen bastard’s been in the Earth Realm since his balls dropped! Hmph. Don’t embarrass yourself. That’s all I ask.”

“All right, I get it. Relax. I won’t,” said Dorian, rolling his eyes. “But I’ll need a few things from you before the first round starts.”

“Name them.”

He raised a finger.

“One. The Javelin. The first round is at noon. I intend to have fused with it—”

Dorian paused. “Oh. Right. I haven’t told you. I’m actually one of the few people in this realm who’s successfully imbibed the Evernight Basilisk bloodline.”

Bin just stared at him, unblinking, for a long while. At last he licked his lips.

“Yes. I suspected as much, though I hardly dared believe it,” he sighed. “Why else would you ask for so many Scales? And yet it still sounds implausible to hear it said aloud.”

“Ah, great! We can skip over the whole shock-denial-proof-more-shock cycle, then, and get to the point. I’d like to fuse with the weapon. As per our soul contract, you’ll deliver it to me. Now.”

Bin sighed. “Of course. I honor my bonds. You’ll have it. What else?”

“Housing for me and my sister.”

“Simple. Done.”

“Excellent! That’s all. Is this briefing over?”

Bin frowned. “Well…I suppose.”

“Go on, then. The Javelin, if you please!” Dorian rubbed his hands gleefully. “Oh, I can hardly wait.”

Bin glared at him. Clearly the man wasn’t used to being dismissed. “Wait here.” He threw open the door and was gone.

Morning light poured in through the open doorway, and through it Dorian saw the steaming mess that was the Heilong Estate. He took a slow, long breath. There was a hell of a lot of prep to do if they were to stand a chance. He wasn’t even sure this Oasis would have all he needed. He’d have to get real creative—but hey, what else was new?

Time to get to work.

FORTY-ONE

SPLENDID WEAPONRY (III)

Streaks of golden sunlight slipped in through the tent flaps. Kaya yawned, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, and stretched. Then she stilled.

“Huh.”

She expected to feel sore. But she didn’t—at all. Her head was a clear blue sky. She was positively thrumming. Her body was light as can be, coursing with hearty morning vigor. She stood and inspected her arms, then her legs. The skin there was smoother than she’d ever remembered it.

Weird.

She checked out her hands, her knees, her feet. Everywhere she looked was hale and clean and smooth, not a freckle, spot, or blemish on her, like the skin of a baby. She gasped. Then she dashed over to the tabletop, snatched up the obsidian plate there, and saw her dark reflection.

Saints, I look good!

Grinning, she flexed an arm. She struck a pose like a warrior-goddess heroically spearing some heinous fiend. And she damn well looked the part, if she did say so herself!

She blinked. She’d been down on herself so long this sort of thinking felt awkward. Like stretching a leg that had fallen asleep.

And today was the first round of the tournament, too. It was a darned pity she’d get all scratched up again in just a few hours—

No, no, no! She flicked herself in the temple. Bad Kaya! She made a mean face and made damn sure she saw it in the mirror. It was a very serious face, to show herself she meant business. No pouting! Not today. She curled a hand into a fist and breathed in deep.

“I will win this round!” she declared. Yeah, that’s the spirit. Happy thoughts only! She glared at the girl in the mirror.

“Whatever dumb goon they throw at me, I’ll mash his face in so bad even his momma won’t recognize him!”

She grinned, bouncing on her feet. Now, she was amped up.

Setting the plate down, she noticed a note on the table. It was from Io.

‘I’ve got some work in the city. Be back before noon for the first round. Wait for me.’ Short and sweet. She set it down, still grinning. Perfect. She’d spend the next few hours warming up.

Then she saw the mark on the back of her hand. Her grin froze.

This damned thing! It was still here, and she still had no idea what it was.

A contract—whatever that was supposed to mean—was what Io had called it. She squinted at it and tried rubbing it with a thumb. It didn’t so much as smudge.

A memory flashed to mind, warped and foggy, like a half-remembered dream. Her, kneeling in a pond of blood, surrounded by the crushed bodies of fallen Rats. She remembered laughing. She cringed. Was that really her? She still couldn’t believe it. Maybe it had been a dream. She liked hitting things, sure. She liked breaking things. She didn’t like hurting people…right? Not like that, anyway…

It felt really, really wrong.

But also kinda right, in a weird, twisted way. She shivered.

Whatever it was, she was damned sure this weird gold mark had something to do with it! She glared at it.

Best not to think about the damned thing, or touch it. Whatever the hells this contract was, she didn’t care. She’d pretend it didn’t exist—she’d pretend she couldn’t even see it!

She marched out the tent flaps, chin held high. She’d go about things how she always did and win how she always won: with her own two fists!

As she went, the rising sun bathed her hand in bright orange-yellow. Caught in the light, the golden infinity almost seemed to wink.

* * *

Dorian stood at the center of what looked like a ritual to summon a demon. He glanced around him, exasperated, as workers daubed the ground with thick lines of looping silver, making a loose circle. It was an array formation. It had one purpose: to protect.

Not to protect him from the outside as he made this crucial breakthrough. No—it went the other way. It was meant to protect them from him.

“Is this really necessary?” Sighed Dorian.

Bin scowled at him. “After what happened to this estate the last time you broke through? You have no right to question any precaution I take! I’ll take no chances—Hey, you! Moron!”

He kicked a nearby worker, who squealed, nearly dropping his brush. “Thicker, dolt!”

Dorian rolled his eyes. He glanced at the loose circle of workers, Heilong family, and soldiers gathered about him. A cultivation breakthrough was usually a private affair, done in seclusion. Perhaps a sealed cave or underground chamber. This setup, on the other hand, was like having a crowd of onlookers when you’re trying to take a shower. Most people would’ve have felt self-conscious.

Of course, Dorian was not most people. He grinned and took a bow. “Enjoy the show, friends!” he called.

Minutes later, the workers were done. They scampered off. In came Bin, hefting a case of black snakeskin. He clicked open the latch, set it at Dorian’s feet, and nodded stiffly.

“Begin on my command,” he said archly, and marched out of the circle. He snapped his fingers. “Ready the stones!”

“Ready!” Yelled a worker, saluting.

“Activate!” Roared Bin.

All around Dorian a veil of silvery light streamed upward, flowing into a glistening, silklike dome. Dorian felt like a bug trapped under liquid glass.

Bin clasped his hands behind his back. “It’s done. Do as you wish, boy.”

Dorian had begun unbuckling the latch before he’d finished speaking. He threw open the case, and a jade glow poured out. A hefty aura blasted Dorian like a midsummer gale, driving the air from his lungs, but he’d braced for it. He managed to stay on his feet.

The Rope Javelin was coiled snug in a plush bedding. Dorian licked his lips. Damned beauty. Weapon fit for an emperor, this one!

He gingerly clasped it, one hand at each end—one at the fang, one at the handle, letting the chain hang in between. It felt like reaching his hand into a dying hearth and clasping the embers. Weighty, icy embers. He winced. It scalded him—not his hands, but in a realm beyond the physical. It was shockingly heavy, too. A mortal would not be able to pick up so much as a link of its great chain. If he dropped the whole thing, the impact would shiver the crater.

Best to do it fast. He closed his eyes, letting the darkness drop over him. Then, calling his mind to full focus, he groped about in the darkness of the mind.

In his mind’s eye he saw it, a glowing presence. In his hands he felt it, this icy smoothness gripped tight between his fingers. But to fuse with a Spirit Weapon he needed to embrace it with his Spirit, to coax it into the space of the self.

He frowned, linking the feelings in his hands and the vision in his mind. The sensations, so disparate yet so equal, coalesced until the two were made one. There was a pleasant thrumming, a resonance of aura, a rightness in the act. He knew it was true.

Gently, with mind and hand alike, he tugged.

The weight of it left his fingers in an instant. The Javelin dropped easily into him. Or, more accurately, his Spirit.

Dorian ignored the chorus of gasps. He tracked it in the space of his mind. It sank into into his Spirit Sea the way a dense stone drops down a deep, lightless well. Slowly, and in utter silence.

He measured the time in heartbeats.

One, two, three…

It hit the bottom. It met the mouth of the Sea, where the essences of its brethren—the other Scales which made Dorian’s bloodline—lay nestled, tirelessly infusing Dorian’s qi with that precious bloodline essence.

And it claimed its spot among them.

There was no explosion. No earth-shattering blast of qi. Instead, bloodline essence gushed into him like a fresh geyser sprung in a shallow lake, fresh and wonderful and chock-full of vitality. The qi in his Sea—his qi—was tinged black before. Now, an inky blackness crept into his Sea, giving swathes of his qi the look of a liquid made of thick shadows. Soon it would convert all of it, and its integration would be complete.

Already he could feel it within him. It was a part of him, like that, like it had been there all along, the way a man feels a severed limb re-attached. Fresh, foreign qi flowed from it, too, mixing with the waters of Dorian’s Spirit Sea. Adding to it.

[Level-up!]

[Spirit Sea Saturation] 14% -> 23%

At full saturation—which meant his Sea was totally at capacity—the Profound Realm was complete.

Dorian let out a happy sigh. His Spirit Sea was Heaven-Grade. It held far more qi than most. Which meant that on pure qi volume, he could already compete with most of this place’s Earth Realm warriors.

[Level-up!]

[Bloodline Density] 3% -> 8%

[Level-up!]

[Spirit Weapon gained: Heilong Javelin]

[Spirit Property: Infinite Chain.

[So long as the user has qi to spare, the Javelin chain expands as long as the user wills it.]

[Level-up!]

[Weapon Technique: Shadow-Strike] Lv. 0-> 1

[The Fang enters a shadow and emerges from any other shadow in its vicinity, surprising the enemy.]

There was that rush of giddy joy, that feeling like his soul had caught on fire, that singular sense of aliveness which came with each breakthrough. Dorian let out a happy sigh.

Then the the system descriptions, etched into the Javelin by its maker, shimmered across Dorian’s mind. He read them. Then he sucked in a sharp breath.

Ooh! Really, now?!

That technique…the possibilities were already flooding his mind. Dozens of combat scenarios flitted in the darkness behind his eyelids. He could see himself crafting his new fighting style already, a swift, fast-flowing blitz of shadows and speed and venomous sharpness. Light steps and heavy strikes intertwined. Oh, my, my my! He was buzzing with eagerness. It had been a mistake, a huge, huge mistake, to give someone like him a weapon as delicious as this. This realm wouldn’t know what hit it.

His eyes shot open. He grinned ear-to-ear.

Let’s test this baby out, shall we?

FORTY-TWO

SPLENDID WEAPONRY (IV)

When Dorian opened his eyes, he found, to his annoyance, he couldn’t quite let loose. Yet.

First there was the array hemming him in. But more annoying—he appeared to be surrounded. By people.

The crowd had filled out. It’d mostly been workers before. But now its ranks swelled with Heilong robes. There were young acolytes and gray-bearded Elders and balding enforcers, their heads sculpted with draconic tattoos. There were even batches of little boys and girls pressed up to the front of the crowd, craning over one another for a better look at him.

And almost every last one of them was sneering, or glaring, or scowling at him. Suspicion drifted from them like a stench of rot.

Apparently Dorian had inspired a Heilong family reunion! By the size of the crowd, this must be most of them. They’d come to see the guy who destroyed their house and snatched their heirloom treasure—all in the span of a day. If the Heilongs were like any other noble family Dorian knew, half of them hated the other half’s guts. But a shared dislike of something else has a funny way of bringing people together.

“So?” said Bin. His arms were crossed. The frown on his face was cross. “Will you get on with it?”

Dorian blinked. “With what?”

“The breakthrough!” Snapped Bin. “I’ve not got all day, child!”

Huh? I just—Dorian blinked again. Oh. I see. His breakthrough was subtle. There was no explosion, no great shower of qi, not even a pulse. It all happened within. Outwardly, Dorian had been frowning for minutes for seemingly no reason at all. The only weird thing was the Javelin suddenly vanishing, but it could’ve simply gone into his Interspatial Ring.

To others, it probably looked like Dorian had stage fright. Or he was stalling.

Or maybe he’d botched the breakthrough.

As though on cue—”Heh!” It was Heilong Yu—the First young master who Dorian had met outside the gates of the Estate, Tan’s brutish older brother. With one hand, he cooled himself with a gaudy paper fan lathered with hand-painted glaciers.

With the other he jabbed a finger at Dorian, smirking. “You failed, didn’t you? I thought as much. You may trick your way into our family. You may steal our treasures. But you will never be one of us, Outsider! We all know it. It seems the Javelin does too!”

The crowd was suddenly boiling with speculation.

“No way…”

“Did you see anything? When Young Master Yu fused with his weapon there was a flash of scorching fire,” said a soldier.

“That’s right—I was there when Princess Eudora fused with hers! The Heavens sang with lights!” cried another.

“It’s true, it’s true! The mudspawns screwed it up!” Cackled a noblewoman.

“Pathetic,” growled a hulking golem of a man in spiked greaves—one of the army’s elites. ”Hear me, pretender! If you had a shred of honor, you would forfeit the weapon and never return!”

“Yeah! Go away, go away!” That last one came from a toddler so young his hair was still growing in, squirming in the arms of his scowling mother. He shook a tiny fist at Dorian. The kid was probably a year from figuring out object permanence, but he sure knew bad man bad.

Must I suffer these fools? Dorian sighed.

There must’ve been over a hundred of them here, most high in the Profound. A good chunk in the Earth Realm. Half were in soldier’s garb. The other were young, but bore bodies sculpted by stringent training. These were warriors bred from birth, one and all. Even the toddler had some biceps on him.

Hmm. I suppose I must bear them—at least a little. They’re some of the best warriors in the Oasis. Armed well, they could serve as damned good meat shields between me and Nijo.

Yes. His eyes glinted. This crowd could be quite useful to him. They simply needed to be put in their place.

But first—”Bin?” said Dorian, rolling his eyes. “Muzzle your hounds, will you?”

The general shrugged. He looked quite pleased with all the hubbub—as pleased as his stony face got, anyway. “I police men, not thoughts. The opinions of my family are their own.”

“Ah, but you forget that it was written in our soul contract that I would have equal rights and privileges to a young master!” Dorian wagged a finger at him. “I should think a young master should deserve a certain respect. Perhaps Fate thinks so too! Want to bet on it?”

An invisible string seemed to tighten between them.

Bin blanched. Then he spun around, waving to the crowd. “Shut up, all of you!” he roared. “What’s done is done! The kid is a Heilong now. You might not like him. But you shall treat him as such.”

A flurry of grumbles and mutters sprang up.

“That is an order,” snapped Bin. His monstrous aura rose above him like hackles. “Hear me, soldiers of Heilong. I am your general. You will obey!”

That shut them up.

“Thank you,” said Dorian with a grin. His eyes swept the crowd. “I get it. It’s only natural to have your doubts! Why, it would be unreasonable to expect you to accept me.”

“You’ve got that right,” snorted Heilong Yu, still fluttering his painted fan.

Dorian smirked. “But the weapon has.”

He reached for the space in his soul. And pulled.

It was as though he’d pulled a tempest out of thin air. A tempest of smoke which wreathed him, wrapping around him, snakelike, swirling around him and blotting out the sun above. In that funnel of swirling smoke was something stark and pale white, a fang the size of a man’s chest, curved wicked sharp. It coiled around him like a pet serpent, hissing as it shared the air. Effortless.

Dorian basked in it, relishing the way the fang carved its way about. Oh, that is lovely. Its aura was smoke: smoke that drifted off Dorian like a sickly purple-black mist, seeping off him in tendrils, shrouding him in the gloom.

The crowd was stunned silent. They looked like they’d seen the ghost of the Heilong Ancestor himself. The lady in war paint gaped. The soldiers stared. The giant’s eyes grew wide as plates.

Even Heilong Yu was speechless. He nearly dropped his fan. It was frozen by the side of his face.

“It— it—” gasped Bin. “Gods! It truly is. You’ve—you’ve done it! The Heilong Javelin, dormant for centuries…has awakened!”

Nobody said a word. Dorian got why. It was a storybook legend from their childhoods brought to life. Even Bin must’ve not really believed Dorian could bond with it. Until he did.

Then—

“S-so you’ve merged with it,” croaked Heilong Yu. His eyes were red with disbelief. “So what? That’s not even the hard part! The Javelin is notoriously hard to wield! It took the Founder three years to budge it an inch, and he was the most talented spearman in the history of the Oasis. It took him decades to master it! And you are not him!”

He thrust his fan out at Dorian, desperate. “A weapon is only as good as its wielder! Without that, it’s dead weight!”

“Good point,” said Dorian, nodding. “Hold still for me, will you?”

“Huh?”

It felt like extending out his arm to grab something. Easy, intuitive, with almost no distinction between thought and act. He willed, and the Fang moved.

It whipped by so fast it seemed a trick of light. Holy hells that’s fast! Dorian only realized it’d passed by when he saw the rope trailing behind it—a shadow in broad daylight, defying the sun, smoking black mist.

Its head pierced clean through the fan in Heilong Yu’s hand. The poor young master didn’t even have time to blink. He only saw it slink back to Dorian, his fan speared on its tip.

Dorian snatched it out of the air.

Then he started fanning himself with it. “Ooh this is nice,” he said with a grin. “I see why you like it.”

Young Master Yu seemed to have lost control of the muscles in his face. He stared at his hand—at the place where his fan had been. Then he looked at it. In Dorian’s hand. Then at his hand. Then at Dorian’s, and his torn fan wafting about. The two puzzle pieces in his head just weren’t clicking together.

“Bluh?” he said.

A fresh, familiar voice popped up.

“Yes, yes! I knew it!” Tan Heilong broke out of the ranks, beaming. “I knew you could do it! That’s my friend, everyone! That is Io! Our new Hero!”

Dorian grinned. Thanks, bud. What a timely injection to sway the crowd.

A few workers sank to their knees. The Heilongs pointed at him, trembling. A few seemed near tears.

Even Bin’s mouth hung open.

“It is exactly as father said,” he breathed. “Even more. How do you wield it so—so easily? It ought to be impossible!”

Dorian tapped at his chin. The crowd now had a much different face than at the start. If they were hardened metal, now he’d blasted them in fire, and they were molten—malleable. Open. Impressionable.

Here was a chance to carve an opinion in them before they hardened back up.

“Impossible?” Dorian laughed. “You will soon learn, I expect,” he mused, loud enough for all to hear. “Not to use that word around me. No matter the odds, my newfound compatriots, stick with me and I shall deliver you. It’s my right and duty as your Hero.”

No cheers arose. He didn’t expect them. But when he glanced around, he did see a sea of dumbstruck awe.

It would do. Gaining respect was the first step to gaining allegiance.

For now…

He looked up to the sky, squinting.

It was nearing noon—the First Round of the tournament—and he still hadn’t gotten a chance to test out his new Weapon Ability!

Which poor sod will be my first victim?

* * *

Somewhere tens of li away in an underground training bunker, Eudora Azcan licked her lips.

It had taken some begging and batted eyelids, but she’d done it. She’d gotten the pairings changed ever-so-slightly…and who would notice? Low seeds got paired up in the First Round all the time.

They might call you a ‘Hero.’ But you haven’t got me fooled for a second! Hmph!

A nasty smile on a pretty face.

“Oh, Io, Io, Io…” she crooned, twirling her Spirit Weapon about her. The Two Sashes of Heaven, a pair of pure-white silks which glittered with black spots like black stars in a white sky—the night sky inverted. One Sash whipped through the air, setting upon a dummy. She imagined it was that horrible Io instead.

It was like a funeral shroud squeezing with the force of a King Wyrm. The reinforced steel groaned, caving in, twisting on itself, hissing with leaking steam as it was crushed under the force. In seconds it was squashed to a ball.

You poor thing, she thought with a smirk. You don’t have the faintest idea just how screwed you are, do you?

FORTY-THREE

SPLENDID WEAPONRY (V)

The force fields encasing the Oasis only repelled Spirit Beasts, so humans were free to slip out as they pleased. Most of the time it was for hunting or rare herb-gathering.

This morning, Kaya headed out alone for some target practice.

Something about the day had her pumped up. Maybe it was the sunrise, hot and red like warm blood. Maybe it was the rush of air on her skin, a feral summer gale roaring past the Oasis, stirring the sands. Or maybe it was her. Her heart seemed to beat with twice its strength today, her sinews and muscle thrumming with life. She grinned. Let’s do this!

All of that Oasis stuff was behind her. Literally. She had to get her head screwed on straight. She had to get back to her roots: happily punching things. It’d be like back in the Tribe—back when life was simple and the world made sense, when she didn’t feel like a speck of sand blown about by wild winds.

No shenanigans. Not today. No more weird Oasis folk, no more golden circles, no more pink tornadoes! Today she was having none of it. She was here to beat something up, get her knuckles a little bloody before the main event. That was that. Any Origin-Realm critter would do just fine.

It didn’t take long to spot one.

Atop a dune some thirty-odd paces away, the smoky eyes of an endspider peered out from under the sands. Most of its body was buried, invisible to the untrained eye. Its front legs poked out, two grainy, flecked mandibles which dissolved into the dune’s textures. Its aura was subtle, restrained—but Kaya could tell it was at most late Origin. It was waiting. Probably for some lost sandwolf cub, or for a baby Vordor to wander near its nest.

Kaya leapt, screaming a battle cry, and chucked out a [Ray].

A scorching blaze roared from her fists, scalding a stark gold line scalding the air. The Endspider didn’t have time to screech before the technique bore down upon it. There was a blast of sizzling heat, an ear-splitting crackling, and the dune flared molten crimson. The glare was so bright even Kaya cringed, shielding her eyes.

When she looked again, there were no eyes. There were no mandibles.

The thing had been roasted to a blackened husk. What?!

Kaya looked at her hands, eyes wide. Then at the corpse.

That felt good!

Her breathing quickened, her grin growing fiercer, blood running hotter. It was like every fiber of her being was singing with light, crackling with boiling power. That was awesome!

But…how—?

She was not that powerful. Nowhere near it. …Right?

Had she broken through in her sleep somehow? She’d heard of this sort of thing happening. Or maybe her bloodline had awakened some kind of…she didn’t know.

Then it struck her. This feeling—it was familiar. It was the same feeling she’d gotten laughing, kneeling in that puddle of pulped flesh.

She stilled. Then she stared at the back of her hand. The infinity there was glowing.

Not like before. It wasn’t shining, but it was there. Her breath caught.

Last time this happened, she blacked out. She’d only come to once it was over, and she was splattered and—she shook her head, clearing it.

She certainly didn’t feel very passed out. She felt normal. Good-normal, even.

Was this, like, a well of power or something? Could she control it, even? Even now it felt like her brain was burning up with the thrill of it, smoldering bright. She grinned.

Then she slapped herself.

No-no-no! She just said she wouldn’t—what was wrong with her? What was she thinking? The feeling of flesh squishing under her fists, of bones cracking—

Crackle. Shift. Hiss.

Her eyes snapped open.

What was that?

She whirled to face the sound.

The smoldering, slaggy sands were shifting. Sinking. Falling inward, as though a pit had opened up underneath it, swallowing gobs of blackened sands whole. No. Not a pit.

A tunnel.

A sudden chill gripped her. Is—is that..?

In the darkness of the tunnel, eight scarlet, glassy eyes emerged. Then mandibles, bigger and hairier than the Endspider she’d just killed. Trunklike legs squirmed out of the sands. Its body was like three huge, furry boulders strung together. Its biggest segment was its last, a motley of red-and-black, and it was quivering.

An Endspider Queen, in the flesh.

Kaya froze. She couldn’t tear her eyes off the thing. Oh, hells!

Where there was a queen, her children soon followed.

Eight bloody eyes flickered in the darkness. Then another pair. Then the sands all around her shifted, seething, as huge forms clawed their way out from the ground, sand streaming off them like water. She barely managed to back up three steps before she heard the grating swish of shifting sands behind her. She whirled around, seeing those dark venomous things rising from behind her, to the left, the right, everywhere she turned, moths bared, the slick, slimy gloss of venom gliding down their hissing fangs.

She tried to breathe, swallowing, a sudden dryness in her mouth. She had to keep calm. She was a huntress—she had been—she’d been in scrapes before. She could get out of this one! Before the panic could take her she forced herself to think, to plan. Nine in total. Eight surrounding her, all in the Vigor Realm. All at her power level. Could she flee? No—impossible. Endspiders could leap faster than she could run, and she was surrounded besides. Could she fight them? She felt a manic laughter bubbling up at the thought.

And yet…

It was like her body hadn’t gotten the message.

Her mind was on the verge of hysteria. But her blood coursed through her fiercer than ever, pulsing down every finger. It was as though she was excited!

Then she struck by a startling thought. A horrifying thought. A thought that made no sense whatsoever.

She should be scared. She was scared.

But there was something new here, something that should not be. She was also eager. It made no sense, but it felt right.

She was getting hysterical—hysterical with fear, but also glee. Some part of her, deep-down, craved this. That last little critter had been no challenge. Now, she could really get her knuckles wet. She could have some fun.

That dryness in her mouth? That was from fear, but she was also panting like a bloodhound.

Her eyes picked out every sharp detail—down to the rustling of those russet furs, even the warped reflection of herself shimmering in the Queen’s glassy eyes.

She saw herself grinning. She saw herself bare her teeth.

Eagerness warred with fear in a rancid stew of thought. She didn’t know what to think--what to do!

So she stopped thinking.

She let herself go.

It was as though she’d been straining to hold shut a door in her mind, to lock out a part of her that was shoving on it with all its might. Letting go was the easiest thing in the world. Her grin widened, growing savage.

She cried out, and the world erupted in fire.

There was no logic to what happened next. In a blink she was before an Endspider. One moment she was there. The next she was here. The spider’s mandibles opened wide, yearning to sink into her, and she shoved her fist in, in, in, up to the arm, feeling its leathery, sticky insides squirm around her, and she set her own arm ablaze. And it burned—wonderfully, beautifully, loudly, deliciously, a triumph of heat and light. Dimly she heard her own cruel laughter, and felt a sick rush of joy flutter her eyes.

Then two spikes of pain seared into her back: fangs sinking into her, cutting muscle and sinew, pumping her with venom. But she turned, its fangs tearing at her, and sank her fists into it, and she burned so much hotter. Endspiders could feel pain. She saw its eyes shrivel, heard its screeching hiss, and she could nearly taste the texture of its agony. Yes, yes, yes! Burn for me!

The fire took it, engulfing it, gnawing through it in mere seconds, and then she only saw its remains: a massive clump of ash and charred flesh scattering on the wind.

She was conscious, but there was no thought, only brute action. She was made of pure feeling—like a wildfire tearing through an old forest, indiscriminate, chaotic, searing everything, everywhere, fearing nothing and no one. Her cackling grew louder, higher. She was lost in a mad euphoria. She was fast and utterly strong, burning with the same fire that lit the stars, and she knew that this—this alone—was what it meant to be truly alive.

Outside the Oasis an inferno torched the sands. Lives were smothered like candles. And each time she put out a light, she made sure to look into its eyes, made sure she caught the exact moment the life left its body. And in that moment she sighed with a pleasure that curled her toes and lit up her soul.

But fire needs something to burn. What does a fire do when the forest is naught but ash?

Kaya stood there, panting, smiling like a devil, knee-deep in a mound of incense. Incense of her own making. The summer winds carried them off slowly, cautiously, as though nervous to incur her wrath.

Steps away the Queen limped away, stricken The Queen—some Queen! It was fleeing! Kaya snarled. How dare you!

There was a flash, a screech, a silence.

Kaya stood there, still and silent, for a long, long, time. She was spent. As she gasped in air, thoughts floated slowly back into her. Soft, cottony wads of thought. Harmless. She was in that satisfied-tired, happy-tired state, floating in a pleasant, warm void of the mind.

Slowly, she glanced down her arms. Her torso. Her legs. She did a survey of her body.

No wounds. Not even a scratch. It was as healthy as she’d found it this morning. There was even a golden glow to it.

She looked down at her hand, at the glowing golden loops, and she knew.

Last time this happened she’d blacked out in a panic.

But this time she knew. She was here in the visceral moment. And what was weird—really, really weird—was that she wasn’t horrified this time. She knew she should be. But she wasn’t.

She was smiling.

She looked around at her, shaking her head in wonder.

She did that!

And her smile grew wider.

It was wrong. She knew it was wrong. But saints did it feel good! She knew where it came from, too—and it wasn’t from that golden glow on her hand. That simply fanned a flame.

This time, she felt it. There was no denying it. It came from in her.

Why had she been so scared of this? Because she thought that creature, kneeling in the blood of the slain gang, wasn’t her. Because Kaya Rust was not the sort of person who liked hurting other people. Kaya Rust was not the sort of person who took pleasure in pain.

But was she? Really?

Did she think these things because she ought to think these things, or did she think these things ‘cause they were true?

She looked at the charred ruins about her, and looked down at her hands, and she knew the answer.

She really had always liked punching things. Winning a fight gave her a sick joy, sure, but it was the pummeling that really did it. She had never been a thinker. She had always been a puncher. It was the simple truth of the matter.

Yet it had never gotten half as wild as this. Those golden hoops had poured a bucketful of oil on a candleflame, and it spread out of control, and morphed into something monstrous, all-consuming. It took a deep-down part of her—a part of her she was ashamed of—and inflamed it to unfathomable heights. It muted her fears. It squashed her doubts. It gave her a drunken, pigheaded confidence so she could indulge without a care in the world. It was her that had done these things. Just an utterly awful part of her, a part of her she hardly dared to admit.

She licked the blood off her lips. And she loved it.

But a worried voice still niggled at her mind. It was the thinking part of her, the part that flinched at this—this excess. This awful, gross display. Was this really who she wanted to be?

And yet…she bit her lip. Why was she more concerned about this than she was about her being an utterly helpless!? She gnashed her teeth.

The scene of that first time she’d gone berserk flashed in her mind. She’d been stuck on that last bit, her kneeling in the bodies.

She snarled. Was she forgetting that these were the bodies of would-be rapists?! How stupid! Who was the monstrous one, really? Each time she’d called on this—what had Io called it?—contract, it had come to her aid, and yanked out a part of her she desperately needed. It had saved her. No—she had saved her, with a part of herself she insisted on holding down! Kaya in the Azcan Oasis was a sniveling, sad, broken thing. Was that who she wanted to be?

She clenched her fists. To hells with that!

When something came at her with fangs she wasn’t dodging anymore. She was done dodging. Let it sink its fangs into her. She’d bite right back and savor its blood on her lips and smile.

She laughed with her whole body, fullthroated, holding back nothing. She sounded like herself. She felt as though there had been a nail stuck in her head her whole life, and she’d finally pulled it out. It felt delicious.

Then there was the last trifling concern. It seemed silly now.

This contract—what was it? Where had it come from?

She grinned.

Did she really care?

It had Io’s seal of approval. And Io said she ought to do as she pleased with it. And this—oh, it pleased her very much.

FORTY-FOUR

SPLENDID WEAPONRY (VI)

Kaya spent the rest of the morning playing with the feeling. It was a warm gold light in her spirit, buoying her mood, and she felt it curled in her stomach like a smoldering hearth: always there, low but burning softly. Ready to flare up.

A normal [Ray], done calmly, might blast a dune apart.

A [Ray] done when she fanned that flame, let herself burn up in it and relish in it? That could scorch sand so hot it melted into glass on the spot.

Its power went way up the more into it she got, as though it was fed directly by the strength of her feelings. It was like nothing she’d heard of before. She could scarcely contain herself. Deep down she knew she’d only dipped a toe into what this thing could do, and the curiosity was eating her alive.

But there was time to explore more later. For now, she still had a tournament to get to!

She was buzzing as she walked back. She felt like a little girl again, dying to share a new toy. As she strolled through the dirty, unpaved streets, she had the sudden urge to grab the nearest bedraggled Outskirter, shake them by the shoulders, point to those lovely golden hoops and and go, “Look! Look at this! Isn’t it awesome?!”

She had to tell Io!

As it turned out, her brother was already waiting for her when she came back. “Io, Io!” she called, dashing for him, grinning ear-to-ear. “You’ll never believe what I—”

She stopped short.

Something was different about her brother yet again. He didn’t look much different. Still had that catlike posture, that lazy, ever-present smirk on his face. It was in his aura, the subtle pressure of his soul, the impression it made on her. It was his bloodline, but even moreso. There was an air about him now that made him seem untouchable, like a vast mountain whose peak was shrouded in fog.

Oh, come on!

That curl in her gut perked up, intrigued. It sensed a challenge—someone whose power it could not fathom. It knew it couldn’t beat this aura, which only made it want to try even more. Her thinking side still had to reign it back. Don’t be ridiculous! This is Io, dummy! There’s time enough for punching later.

Instead she shook her head at him, incredulous. “Really? You broke through again?! You just had one yesterday!”

A playful grin tugged at his lips. “Well, a treasure practically fell into my lap, so I merged with it. Got lucky, I guess!”

She scoffed as she marched up to him. “Luck. Yeah, right!” She punched him playfully in the shoulder. “This is getting too unfair!”

She crossed her arms, fake-glaring at him. “Okay, bud. What’s your secret?”

Io sighed.

“Actually, it’s just that I work super hard to get stronger. I’ve gotten obsessed with it! It stems from deep-rooted childhood trauma…”

Kaya stilled. “Wait, really?”

“Yeah.”His voice trembled. He looked a little choked up. “You see, I learned at a young age that strength was the only thing that mattered. It was ingrained in me, really after years suffering at the abuse of this horrible older sibling. Every day she would manhandle me—ow! Ow!”

She kicked him in the shins again, and he yelped, backing away. “I yield! I yield!” he cried, wincing and clutching at his leg. “Saints! If you bring half that firepower to the tournament, the rest of us’ll be fighting for second place!”

Kaya snorted. “Oh, don’t you even pretend like that actually hurt. It prolly hurt my foot more than it hurt you!”

“Untrue!” cried Io. He looked at her with soulful eyes. “It may not hurt me much physically. But attacked—betrayed, no less—by my own sister? I felt it…in here.” He clutched his heart, swooning and gasping like an actor in a cheesy play.

Grudgingly, Kaya grinned. “Okay. That one’s not even funny. That’s just dumb.”

Io grinned back. “Then why are you smiling?”

“Oh, shut up.”

Laughing, Io dodged another kick. “All right, all right. In seriousness—are you accusing me of being lucky?”

His shrewd black eyes gave her a once-over. “I sense I’m not the only one who’s had a breakthrough. You’ve been training, haven’t you?”

“Um.” Kaya was sheepish. “Yeah. I went out to practice my forms this morning and— yeah. I think…I think this might be big.”

“It’s related to your contract, isn’t it.” He said it not as a question, but as a statement. He blinked owlishly at her, intrigued, and she jumped.

“Eek! How did you—you rascal! Since when did you get so sharp?!” Kaya flicked him in the cheek. “y’know, sometimes I miss the Io that wouldn’t know a ditch from a scorpion’s nest.” She snickered. “Sometimes it’s like you’re a whole ‘nother person!”

Io paused. Then he waved her off with an eyeroll. “Times change, sis. I’m not a little kid anymore. Dunno if you’ve noticed, but a lot’s happened in the past few months—whoa there! Hold on just one second.” He squinted at her. “Don’t you try to change the subject on me. Your breakthrough. I want the details. Now.”

“Uh…”

She’d been so eager to share before! Why were the words deserting her now? How the hells was she supposed to describe it? You see, brother dear, I kinda just sorta-ish black out, but not really, and then start uncontrollably tearing things apart and it’s maybe the best feeling there is in the world! But don’t worry, I’m not a lunatic. I promise!

Was she a lunatic?

She wasn’t so sure herself.

Io seemed to sense her issue. He winked at her. “Actually, you know what? You don’t need to tell me. Why don’t you show me at your First Round match?”

“Uhhhhh,” spluttered Kaya. A vision went through her head: her cackling with pleasure as some hapless noble kid was torched alive, reduced to smithereens, as his family watched on in horror. She blanched. “UHHH.”

What was disturbing was that that thirsty part of her was genuinely excited by the thought. Yes. Yes! Do it! She gulped. She’d let it out, but she really would need to get a handle on it. Surely there was some balance to be struck here. She couldn’t just descend into some mindless killing spree every time she fought!

…Could she?

She winced, shaking her head vigorously. No, no she definitely couldn’t!

“Good for you, sis.” Io’s voice snapped her out of her thoughts. He smiled at her. “I’m happy for you. You might even be training harder than me. What gives?”

She was relieved to hear a question she could actually answer.

“I know you said not to worry about it,” she sighed. “But…I dunno. Sometimes I just can’t help feeling like…like everyone else’s growing, but I’m sitting still. I feel like—like I’m…” She swallowed. “Why am I even here if I’m just gonna drag you down, y’know?”

Then, she stilled. “But that’s stupid. That feeling is stupid. I won’t be dragging anyone down. I just need to work twice as hard as everyone else!” She grinned. “And if that doesn’t work at least I went down swinging, right?”

Io gave her a long, meaningful look. “Huh,” he said at last. A ghost of a grin surfaced on his lips. “Nicely done. I like it. Y’know…one might even say it’s like you’re a whole ‘nother person.”

He’d already dodged out of reach before she could try a fourth kick at him.

* * *

Before they set out, a thought struck Kaya. So much had happened in so short a span it felt like there were ten thousand confusions she hadn’t cleared up. At this point she’d kinda given up on trying to make sense of things, really. The Oasis was one big, weird blob to her. Who knew what went on here?

But there was one thing she couldn’t not ask about.

“Hey, about that pink tornado last night,” she said. “What was that all about?”

Io shifted uncomfortably. He had a weird look on his face.

“Oh, right…about that…”

He scratched his head sheepishly. “It’s a long story. Basically…”

* * *

“You did WHAT?!”

FORTY-FIVE

SPLENDID WEAPONRY (VII)

Kaya gasped. “Is that where we’ll be fighting?”

She turned to Dorian, eyes wide. “It’s huge!”

Dorian chuckled. It was the biggest thing in the Oasis: a great sandstone disc which squatted amid the market district, forcing the streets to curve uncomfortably around its girth. In an Oasis of gray girders and glinting steel, it stood out as a hunk of rough, gradient yellows. Centuries ago, it had been an inconveniently placed lump of sandstone, too big to move. So, the Azcan lord gave the order to hollow it out bit by bit. Over the years cushions and seats, lighting fixtures and a fancy mechanized arena were squeezed in. Now, it was a venue that seated thousands.

And by the looks of it, it would be filled to the brim.

The whole wide street was choked with people, people of all ages, sizes, sexes, united only by their pastel clothes, dolled-up hair and too-smooth skin. It seemed the whole Oasis had come out for the tournament. The air buzzed with excited chatter, peals of laughter, the happy shrieking of children zipping in and out of the crowd, chasing one another. To Dorian’s left, two siblings were play-fighting.

“Hi-ya! I, Princess Eudora Azcan, use my Lash of the Sky!” cried a little blonde girl, whipping her scarf at a little blond boy. “I just turned your head to mush! You’re dead!”

The boy scrunched his nose. “No way. I, Young Master Ouyang, deflect it with my Demon Slash!”

“Too bad,” She stuck out her tongue at him. “I can’t hear you! Dead people don’t talk!”

People were cheery—too cheery. News of the Patriarch’s death hadn’t gotten around, apparently. Probably for good reason. If Dorian ran the Oasis, he wouldn’t want to add ‘mass panic and hysteria’ to his list of worries. The Ugoc were worry enough. Even now they were probably marching untold hordes up the desert, swallowing the other Oases whole…

Meh.

Kaya and Dorian ambled along the street, wrapped in shadowy cloaks. Dorian had quickly learned that wouldn’t be able to walk down the street without being gawked at, whispered about, or outright mobbed—by now there wasn’t a man, woman or child in the Oasis who hadn’t heard of him. As Dorian walked home yesterday, a woman fell to her knees and tried kissing his feet. Another tried to egg him.

By now, Dorian was used to it. Even without his causing natural disasters—which happened a great deal more than you’d think—Dorian tended to inspire strong emotions. Not necessarily good ones, mind you—but certainly strong.

They were nearing the entrance now, a yawning archway streaming with people. It looked like the massive mouth of a cave. There was no ticketing, no fee, no reservations.

“Um, where are we ‘spose to go?” said Kaya. She looked about, scratching her head. There was no other entrance in sight. “Just…right on through? With the rest of ‘em? Uh. You’d think we’d get some kinda special treatment, being the fighters and all…”

“You lost, miss?” A scraggly, shirtless kid grinned at them through checkered teeth. “Can I help?”

Something told Dorian this was not an official usher.

“Yeah, actually!” said Kaya brightly. “Which way to the fighter’s quarters?”

“Why? You a fighter or something?” said the street urchin with a grin. He turned to Dorian. ”And who is this fine gentlemaaaaohmygoodsaints!”

Dorian’s cheek twitched. Yeah. Strong emotions.

“It’s the Hero!” cried the urchin, pointing a quivering finger straight at Dorian’s face. “He’s here!”

It was like throwing fresh meat to a pack of sandwolves.

“What? The Hero?!”

“Where, where?”

“The one in the blue smocks? No—too tall. Can’t be—oh! Look—that child—under the cowl—it really is him!”

Dorian sighed. The gig was up.

A shock of gasps. A whirlwind of voices. Suddenly, men were shoving over each other to get a look at him. There was a fluttering of cloaks as hundreds whirled around at once.

Crap.

Then the crowd erupted in noise. It was like Dorian stood at the center of a whirlpool of human flesh. Shouting, screaming, tugging, shoving flesh. A confusion of voices deafened him.

“Rejoice, rejoice, the Hero’s here!”

“To hells with that Outsider! You believe that wyrmshit?”

“I can’t see him!”

“Hero! My son—he’s blind! Please, help us, help us!”

“Damn you! Your qi storm tore down my roof!”

All hot air and flapping gums. Grimacing, Dorian shrugged off a half-dozen grasping hands. Kaya clutched his arm tight to her. “This way!” she mouthed, but her voice was lost in the storm. She tried dragging him along, but the crowd was too dense, pressing in on them at all sides, all angles, squeezing them, jostling them to and fro, rubbing all over him, a great stinking steaming swamp of mankind. There was barely space to turn his head! Would he really have to blast his way out of this mess?

As it turned out, he didn’t need to.

Someone else did it for him.

The cries, shrill and frightful, came at the edge of the crowd. At first, the larger horde took no notice. Then a second wave—more, and in great pain—sliced through the noise. There was a piercing, screeching, high-pitched sound, like two jagged steels grating on each other. It was one of the worst sounds Dorian had heard in all his time here, and it pierced that most tender spot in every man’s brain.

Even Dorian sucked in a sharp breath. It felt like an invisible arrow went in one of his ears and out the other.

The crowd’s voices turned to moans. There was a great thump as hundreds fell to their knees, cringing.

“Make way! Make way in the name of the army!”

Army? Dorian’s mind was still smarting. He blinked. Ah. Yes—

A troupe of men in Heilong’s black, scaly uniforms were cutting their way through the crowd. One of them held two giant silver cymbals, scribed all over with noise glyphs. That thing really ought to be a weapon.

The mustached man at their head, a captain of some sort, saluted Dorian.

“Sincerest apologies for our lateness, sir. We shall escort you to the competitors’ quarters presently. This way, if you please?”

Suffice it to say, they were happy to comply.

* * *

The troupe led them around to the back of the coliseum, where a hefty steel door was set into the wall, flanked by armed guardsmen. They went through, then down a dizzying maze of stairs and corridors which tunneled into the bowels of the building.

“We leave you here,” intoned the captain. He gave another salute. “You’ll find the fighter’s zone ahead. Fighting prior to matches is of course strictly forbidden, and monitoring arrays have been set up to ensure fairness. You will find your pairings on an artifact on the walls. Your name shall be announced when your matches are up. Of the more than two hundred talents here…only sixteen shall remain by day’s end. You’ll receive further instructions at match time. Good day, sir.”

He took a deep breath. When he gazed at Dorian again, his soldier’s demeanor faded. Instead, there was respect in his face, something nearing reverence. Hope.

“And speaking as a member of the Heilong family…best of luck. We’re rooting for you.”

Dorian nodded, grinning. “Of course. Say, I didn’t catch your name. What is it?”

“My name?” The man blinked. “Ah— Goro, sir. Goro Heilong.”

“Well, friend Goro, I promise you I’ll do the family proud. Don’t you worry!”

It was the right thing to say. The man nodded, beaming, and withdrew.

Dorian and Kaya braved the final corridor alone. They emerged at a massive cavern bathed in a reddish glow.

It was already bustling when they arrived. Dorian heard Kaya suck in a breath.

These are my competition?

The competitors, all vigorous youths, were all draped in the uniforms of their noble families—tight-fitting battle-robes, flowy, showy and chic, as much form as function. Each family kept to its own loose huddle, chattering loudly, eyeing them with suspicion. In each huddle there was a clear leader: one fighter the rest all seemed to be looking at. Their ace.

Interesting. Dorian scratched his chin. I wonder how they’ll fare against my fancy new toy. A few of them wouldn’t be able to so much as scratch the hem of his robe, but some of these aces weren’t bad. Almost all of them must have their own high-grade Spirit Weapons. Some neared the peak of the Earth Realm, a full realm and a half above him. Even with his slick new Javelin, the gap was big enough to be threatening.

“Ooh, look!” Kaya pointed. It was the Tribesmen who’d qualified: the sharp-limbed Young Master Narong, the bearlike Young Master Yalta, the swift Young Master Zhaopai in his white silks. They looked like a herd of lost children next to the masses of top-tier Azcan talent. They were out of their depths, and they knew it. Then Kaya gasped. “Is that Pearl? I knew I saw those hoops somewhere before!”

Indeed, it was. The wild boy with the golden infinity branded on his head. He was almost certainly a servant of Nijo, but that mark looked very much like a soul brand—nothing as favorable as a Kaya’s soul contract. In whatever hierarchy Nijo belonged to, Dorian guessed Pearl was at best grunt-level. Something like a low-class servant, or slave. Gods often kept such cattle around. In Dorian’s past life as Yeshima, True Goddess of Light, she’d had millions scattered about.

In other words, the boy was a nobody. Not interesting.

“I think I should go talk to him…” mumbled Kaya, transfixed.

Meh. “Do as you like.” Dorian shrugged. “I’ll go check up on the pairings.”

She glanced at him, chewing nervously on her lip. “Meet up with me before the round starts, all right?”

Dorian shot her a reassuring smile. “Of course, sis.”

Then he frowned. Was it his imagination, or had it gotten kind of…quiet?

And then he turned back to the crowd. Everyone—all the competitors—stared straight at them.

Or rather—at him.

FORTY-SIX

SPLENDID WEAPONRY (VIII)

They didn’t approach. They just stared. There were glares and squints aplenty, but most sized him up in silence. Their looks asked unspoken questions—is this so-called Hero a threat?

And, more importantly—can I take him in a fight?

By the sneers on their faces, most of them had come to the same conclusion.

Easily! He doesn’t look like much at all!

Dorian let their judgments flow right on over him, a wry grin on his face. He was well aware how he seemed. A runty, unknown Profound-Realm upstart who’d somehow swindled his way into Heilong circles with a light show and a myth.

Luckily for him, he was at a stage where being looked down on by children had absolutely zero material effect on him. So, he could safely not give a shit.

The only thing was, most of these young masters had egos to them. He suspected a good handful had their suspicions. They wanted to see if he was the real deal. Eh. He smirked. Let them try.

Fighters from most every noble family were crammed in here. Dorian saw some familiar emblems from the bidding war: the Fangs, the Ouyangs, the Shun, the Cai, stitched neatly on tight-fitting battle garb. There were dozens of others— including the Heilongs, huddled near the cavern’s center.

Who were also all glaring at him. Including the youth at their head—Young Master Heilong Yu, who looked positively venomous. And they were supposed to be on his side!

You know, it would be nice—just one time—to be welcomed when I go somewhere. Dorian sighed. Why must bad things happen to bad people?

He scratched his chin.

Hmm. While I’ve got their attention, maybe now’s a good chance to scout out the competition.

“So,” he said with a grin. “Are we just going keep staring at each other, or will one of you introduce yourself?”

A young master at peak of Profound leapt up, his chest puffed out so far it popped a button on his tunic. “Look here, savage! I am Young Master Cai Shenlong, heir to the noble—”

“No, no, no! Not you,” snapped Dorian.

“Huh?!”

“I meant someone of consequence,” said Dorian impatiently. “You know. A heavy hitter, a threat. Someone I should care about.”

As the boy choked on his own spit, Dorian was already turning away, scanning the crowd. Aha! “Like…you! You there.” He pointed, grinning. “You were at a practice at Heilong Manor a few days ago, weren’t you? What’s your name?”

The man in question was perhaps the biggest human Dorian had seen in this life. Big, bald, and shirtless. His body was strange: doughy yet weirdly solid, like he was made out of some weird alloy halfway between fat and muscle.

Appearances often deceived. His size wasn’t why Dorian picked him out Dorian knew the aura of an expert when he saw one, and this man had it in spades. That cool, quiet confidence which one can only have with utter certainty in one’s abilities.

Also, he was at least mid-Earth-Realm. That alone made him dangerous.

His gaze was utterly placid. Like a cow chewing contentedly on a cud.

“Greetings, Hero,” rumbled the man. “This one is called Ma, and I am of the Yun family. I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”

He clasps his hands, bowing to the waist.

“I’m Io,” said Dorian. “It’s my pleasure! Say, how strong are you? Among everyone here, where do you rank? Give me a number, if you please.”

A few gasps from the other fighters. Especially those of the Yun family.

“Impudent savage! How dare you address Young Master Yun in such a cavalier manner?” Cried the boy behind Ma Yun.

“It is all right,” said Ma Yun, putting up one big hand. He gave the boy a dreamy, happy look, as though he was on the verge of falling asleep. “I have not been harmed.”

Then his brow furrowed. He thought for a few seconds.

“How strong I am…it is not for me to say,” he murmured. He shrugged. “I am seeded number two. Is this answer satisfactory?”

“Very.”

“Good,” said the big man. That peaceful-cow-look reemerged on his face. Huh. This Ma Yun genuinely did seem a simple, happy sort. Why couldn’t the rest of them be this agreeable?

“And I am seeded third,” said a breathy voice.

A freakishly tall, pale man stepped up. He reminded Dorian of a giant scarecrow: all gaunt and skinny, with thin, rangy limbs. This man kept his Spirit Weapon out for the world to see. It was a whip wrapped around the middle of his torso, binding his waist and stomach.

Dorian’s first impression was that for most fighters, dealing with him could be a nightmare. If you get past that whip, you still had those sharp, spidery limbs to contend with.

“My name is Ren, Io Rust! I hold the position of young master in the noble Fang family.” The man licked his lips. “You’ve asked me my standing, and I have offered it to you freely. Courtesy dictates that you tell me yours in turn, does it not? How strong are you, so-called Hero of the Heilong?”

“Why, of course!” said Dorian. “I’m nothing if not courteous. In terms of cultivation, I’m sadly lacking. In terms of skill…hmm. I’m probably the best in this world. I can probably beat all of you, and most of you with ease. But we’ll have to see, won’t we?”

Behind them there was a chorus of indignant cries.

“I see,” murmured Young Master Fang. Then he broke out into a ravenous smile. “Very good, young Io. The most dangerous quality a fighter can have is delusional self-confidence. Oh, I deeply hope I shall have the chance test yours on the battlefield.”

“If we meet, I’ll be happy to oblige!” said Dorian with a grin. Uh…why is he looking at me like he wants to eat me?

“Ooh! Me next!” Piped a squeaky voice. “Hi! Remember me?”

A boy scrambled up to him, peering out beneath a shaggy mop of hair. Dorian blinked. It was Pebble, the kid from that Rat gang in the Outskirts. The one who’d first guided Dorian and Kaya to their dwelling.

Also, the kid who Dorian had seen unscrew a man’s head like a light bulb! Even for an immortal Godking, one didn’t see that kind of thing very often.

“Of course! Pebble, right?” Dorian smiled at him.

Pebble clapped in delight. “It is most excellent to meet you again, Io Rust! I was afraid you’d been eaten by a passing vordor, or something! But here you are, shiny as ever. “

“Well, I try. Say, what seed are you?”

“Fifth!” Beamed Pebble. He wrinkled his nose. “But between you and me,” he whispered leaning in, “I think they’ve got me a tad high.”

“I see.” Dorian rubbed his chin. “Where am I seeded?”

Pebble grinned. “Oh, you aren’t! You’re far too weak.”

One of Dorian’s cheeks twitched. “I, ah, see. Well, in any case—it seems we’ve got most of the top five! May as well finish off the rest, eh? Who’s four?”

“That would be Princess Eudora of Azcan,” said Ma Yun.

Dorian blinked. “Uh. Who?”

But before the giant could answer, a door at the far side of the cavern croaked open.

The room was instantly flooded with noise. That tunnel must lead into the arena—for in streamed the booming chants of the crowd: “MEATBALL YUN! MEATBALL YUN! MEATBALL YUN!”

A referee poked his head through the door. “Fighters Ma Yun and Tu Ouyang! You’re up!”

Young Master Yun bowed again. “My apologies, fellow Io. I must go. I am most happy to make your acquaintance. May we meet again, Fate willing.”

Then he waddled toward the entrance, leaving a trail of deep footprints on the ground. Dorian watched him go with a quirked brow. The man’s body must be denser than steel! His opponent, a spindly little thing, gulped and hurried after him. The door sealed back up behind them, and the rest of them were left in quiet again.

“That,” sniffed Young Master Fang, “Is a timely reminder that we Fangs should return to strategizing for our battles. I will be watching, Io Rust. Let us hope your skills match your boasts, yes?”

He gave Dorian a sharklike grin, then stalked back to his family’s huddle. Dorian shrugged. Weird dude.

Young Master Fang’s exit seemed to mark a turning point. The rest of the families had gotten their fill of Dorian too. Curiosity sated, most began turning back to their battle preps, though a few fighters here and there snuck glances at him over their shoulders. The chattering of the crowd filled the space once more.

“Erm, ‘scuse me?” said Pebble, tugging at Dorian’s arm. “You were asking about Princess Eudora? Would you like me to point her out to you?”

“Hm? Oh, you’re still here?” Dorian looked down into the boy’s big round eyes. “Yes, that’d be quite helpful! Would you kindly?”

“Yup!” Beamed Pebble. He pointed. “That over there—that’s her!”

“I see.” Dorian squinted. “Uh. Hold on…”

Were his eyes deceiving him, or did that girl seemed awfully familiar? She was strikingly pretty in her flowing white silks, like a statue of a goddess come to life. She was surrounded by a swirl of handmaidens who all looked like lesser clones of her.

Except the last time Dorian had seen her—if it was the same girl—she was dirty, in rags, in an oyster restaurant! He’d booted her in the back to win Tan’s friendship!

He squinted. Yup. There was no mistaking it. This was her.

Then the name reverberated in his mind, a nasty echo.

“Wait. Princess, you said?!”

“Yeah, of course!” Pebble looked confused. “You didn’t know? She’s the daughter of the Oasis lord!”

Oh, Saint’s sake! Of course, she is.

Dorian could feel a headache coming on. As though that little stint with the auction hadn’t offended the Oasis lord enough…

As though sensing Dorian’s gaze, the girl’s head snapped around to face them. Their eyes met. She turned up her nose at him, a haughty, nasty smile creeping up her face.

Uh-oh. Dorian tried to give her a placating smile—a smile that he hoped said something like ‘Sorry for booting you in the back! It was nothing personal, I swear! Can we settle this over some tea?”

Her smile widened. It, meanwhile, said something like ‘I will tear your heart from your body and feed it to your corpse, motherfucker!’

Dorian sighed. Add another to his long list of enemies! He’d deal with it later, he resolved. He’d go home, consolidate his gains, maybe chug a few cultivation potions and get a solid handle on his Spirit Weapon. If he met this Princess Eudora, it’d be a real headache—he could tell already. Right now he had no clue how strong he really was. Could be anywhere from a lower-tier Earth Realm expert to somewhere in in the upper echelons. He’d broken through so fast so many times it was hard to say.

The lower end of that range probably wouldn’t be enough.

But he asked anyway, just to be sure. “How strong is she?”

“Oh, she’s real strong,” said Pebble happily. “Stronger than me! And I’m pretty heckin’ good—not to brag. She could probably be considered just below the true elites of the Earth Realm.”

Fuck.

If he was to win this thing and snag whatever relics of the Old Gods was the prize—and she was a top four seed—there was a darned good chance he’d face her.

At least there were three days between rounds! Three days for him to make another small leap and to solidify his newfound skills. Maybe it’d be enough.

“Erm,” said Pebble again, hesitant. “If you didn’t know that…err, I have some more bad news for you.”

Dorian got a sudden, sinking feeling. The boy didn’t even need to say it.

“You’re fighting her in the first match. She’s been bragging all day about how she’s going to squish you to bits! I’m surprised you haven’t heard, honestly!”

FUCK!

FORTY-SEVEN

SPLENDID WEAPONRY (IX)

This could not be a coincidence.

This Eudora girl must’ve pulled strings. The first round was supposed to lob him easy meat! It was meant to be a warm-up, a showcase for his new abilities! He felt as though he were a baby bird still a week away from hatching—and then Fate cracked open his egg, dumped him on his ass still bleary-eyed and dripping yolk, and chucked him straight out the tree, screaming “Fly, motherfucker, fly!”

Damnit! Dorian just couldn’t catch a break, could he?

He didn’t know what it was about this run. It was like it couldn’t make up its mind whether to give him really good luck or really bad luck—and it kept flip-flopping, one after the next, like a stone had been tossed in the lake of Fate, and all he could do was tread water in the wake of its ripples.

He scratched his head.

…Or—or—he was just being very overdramatic. That was a very distinct and likely possibility. It seemed more and more likely the more he thought about it.

“All right,” he breathed. “Whatever! It is what it is—too late to do anything about it now, eh? I’ll deal with it. What else is left? The first seed is the only one we’ve not covered, right? Why don’t you tell me about him?”

Pebble nodded. “Ooh, this is fun—fun fact—the first seed is actually my master! Feiyang Shen, the Rat-King of Azcan, Chief of the Mischief and Ruler of the Undergrounds.”

Dorian raised a brow. The name was vaguely familiar. Hmm. The Mischief—that was the main gang from the Outskirts. Now that I think of it, there’s a whole horde of Outskirters, huddled up, just waiting to be exploited! That’s a lot of manpower for my Sticks…

“Hmm,” said Dorian, rubbing his chin. “Point him out to me, will you?”

Smiling, Pebble jerked his head to the wall.

There, back against the wall, sitting alone, was a man.

That was the first thought that popped to mind. If you told some artist—perhaps a fevered, giggly pubescent girl—to draw her ideal fantasy of tall, dark and handsome, this guy was it. His jawline could puncture steel. It almost looked comical—like if he looked down too fast his chin might pierce a hole in his own neck. His hair was a mop of coal strings, his eyes sealed shut. In Dorian’s opinion, he was straddling some invisible line between “cool” and “trying way too hard to seem dark and mysterious” very well. Not a look many could pull off!

It was his power level, though, that most caught Dorian’s attention. Peak Earth Realm. Dorian blinked. Now, this was one to watch out for. Only warriors at the tippy top of the Azcan power hierarchy gave him this feeling—men like Bin Heilong. It wasn’t quite at the level of the Oasis lord, but it was close enough to be deeply concerning.

Somehow—incredibly—all the breakthroughs he made in the past few days still might not be enough to win this thing! He was at least a step behind this guy. It was a little annoying, to be honest.

Still. It’s just a little cultivation to go, isn’t it? Dorian would put himself somewhere in the Earth Realm right now. No clue where, but he was up there. At power level parity I should wipe the floor with everyone here.

He sighed. Worst come to worst, he could try a time-honored tactic: shitting on the reward to make himself feel better.

“Say, what are the prizes anyway?” he said. “I’ve heard whispers of relics and gods, but they’ve all been very vague. Is it really all that?”

“Well, there’s the usual—the super-potions and the riches and so on,” said Pebble. “But as for the main draw…y’know, I’m not sure either. That I haven’t heard about for sure. And I hear everything!” Pebble leaned in. “But—but—there’s a rumor floating about that it’s something to do with the Dweller in the Deep.”

“Oh?” Dorian raised a brow. “As in the thing you Oasis dwellers pray to? Some Prime Bone, perhaps?”

“No. No way!” Pebble shook his head. “It’s—”

He hesitated, looking around. “I don’t know if this is true…but some say it’s still alive. It didn’t die in that war of the gods years and years and years and years and years ago! Some say it’s still deep deep down in the sinkholes.”

“Sinkholes. Plural.” Dorian squinted. “Which sinkhole?”

Pebble cast his gaze about again, biting his lips. “Oh, I hate to say false things, these are merely rumors! You mustn’t hold me to this!” he paused. “But my cousin Sherlo is a courier. He says they saw a Flood Dragon surface at the Taimen Oasis’ Sinkhole. Then three weeks later it showed up at the Yao Oasis’s Sinkhole! They knew it was the same one. It had the same scars along its back and the same screwed up hind leg and everything! And this is only one of several stories like this through the years. There was that incident with the lost Chiwen fish, and the corpses of Jiatu clam, which should be native to only Azcan, showing up in sinkholes thousands of li away!”

Dorian perked up. Oh? This is interesting.

“So, you’re saying,” he said slowly, “That the sinkholes are connected somehow. Underground. Through, say, some network of tunnels. Or…an underground ocean?” “See, nobody’s got that far! no one knows!” cried Pebble. “The deeper you get, the more it’s Beast King Territory. Some of those things down there even the Oasis lord wouldn’t dare take on!” he paused, his voice dropping to a whisper. “Which is why some think the Dweller is still there. Nursing its wounds, biding its time and stuff.”

“I see.” Dorian chewed on the thought. It was a lot to digest, and he had no clue what to do with it right now. Probably best to shelve it for later. “That’s all well and good,” he said. “But what’s it have to do with the relic?”

“Ah, yes!” Pebble’s eyes brightened. “See, the thing with the Dweller is it’s got some pretty gnarly abilities! Again—darn, I’m saying this a lot—no clue if it’s true. But some say it can mess with time. Some say it can heal a limb in a blink! Some say it’s got a qi pool as big as all the qi in the realm combined! If even a tiny bit of that’s true, swallowing merely a drop of blood might grant some nasty powers…”

He paused. “y’know, the Oasis lord’s never lost a fight?”

“Really, now.”

“Yup. And some say it’s cause he can see his enemy’s every move before he does it! ‘Cause he drank one drop of Dweller’s Blood.”

Dorian was, in his first life, the Godking of Time. Some monikers never leave you. So, he knew better than most anyone how unpredictable the future could be. It was downright irresponsible. It made promises it simply couldn’t keep, a recipe for disappointment.

And yet he couldn’t keep from salivating. Just a little.

He knew of powers like these. They were rare, even among gods, given only to a few bloodlines and guarded jealously.

He also knew their potency at a very, very deep level. You never know anything quite like your first Heavenly Dao. Sure, all the comprehension had left him in this form, but it’d be back in a blink. Right now, he was akin to a legendary swordsman being forced to fight with a kitchen knife.

If Dorian got this, it frankly didn’t matter what his power level was. Are you kidding?! Give him even three seconds of sight into the future, and he’d never lose to anyone on this damned plane ever again!

But of course—of course—

It was probably nonsense. By the way Pebble described it, it was speculation wrapped in rumor, dunked in hearsay, and lathered with a thick sheen of embellishment besides.

Still, it had him piqued. He’d give it that.

“Hmm,” said Dorian again at last. “Well. For a person who claims to abhor rumormongering, you sure traffic in your fair share, eh?”

“Hey! Unfair!” Pebble puffed out his cheeks and crossed his arms. He glared. “You were the one who asked, mister!”

“I’m only playing, child. Relax.”

Pebble made a face. “That’s mean. Don’t do that! I can never tell when people kid.”

Before Dorian could respond, a voice smooth and deep as a riverbed cut in from the other side of the room. “Pebble.”

It was the Rat-King. He regarded them both with a flat, black gaze. His gaze lingered on Dorian for a touch longer than necessary, then it slid onto Pebble. He beckoned.

“Oooh,” said Pebble with a wince. “Gotta go! Hope this was helpful—and good luck! I expect you’ll really need it.” He held up a finger. “Here’s a tip! Don’t let her sashes around your chest or head! She seems real mad, and that’s the only way you might actually, erm, perish. As long as you don’t let her do that, she’ll prolly just batter you around for a bit and they’ll call it off!”

With those parting words of encouragement, he threw Dorian a thumbs up and scampered off.

Dorian was still chewing on all the revelations Pebble had dumped unceremoniously at his feet as he walked over to the Rust Tribe camp. Kaya stood there, frowning, in some kind of discussion with Pearl. The tattooed man was staring at her like she had grown three heads.

She saw Dorian as he drew near, and grinned. “Oh, you’re here! Perfect! I’ve got a question for you.”

“Yeah? What?”

“I got paired up with this guy—Leo Ouyang. Heard of him?”

…

The pungent taste of watermelon mixed with toe sweat floated through Dorian’s mind. His cheek twitched.

Ah, so the pairings are rigged! I’m not paranoid after all.”As a matter of fact, I have.”

“Really?” Kaya said, wide-eyed. “Who is he? What’s his deal? How should I fight him?! I’m so—”

She was cut off by a blast of chatter, the white noise of a boisterous crowd. Dorian squinted to the front of the chamber, where the door had creaked open once more to admit a referee.

“Princess Eudora of Azcan and Io of the Heilong!” said the man. “You’re up!”

Dorian blinked. Already?! He shot Kaya a sorry smile. “That’s my matchup! I’d better go.”

“Oh, okay,” she said, looking a smidge disappointed. She said something else too, but it was drowned out by the blast of the crowd.

“One last thing!” Dorian had to fight to make himself heard. “His fatal weakness is his feet!” he shrieked. “Target them without mercy or conscience! Best of luck!”

Then he clapped her on the back and strode calmly into the mouth of the beast.

Well, Javelin, so-called greatest weapon in all the desert! It’s time to see if you’re all you’re cracked up to be.

Because if it wasn’t? He was unfathomably screwed!

FORTY-EIGHT

SPLENDID WEAPONRY (X)

The youth was a well-groomed, stern-looking fellow—probably a nobleman himself, but today he wore the muted grays of a referee. He tossed an armband at Dorian. “Put it on.”

He’d turned on his heel and walked away before Dorian even caught the thing. It was a wrought steel band engraved with stark red glyphs, and it felt unnaturally light in Dorian’s hand—as though he was holding a feather, not metal.

“Will do. Hey, what is this thing, exactly?” asked Dorian to the man’s receding back. He got no answer. “Uh, hello?” Nothing.

Fair enough! He shrugged, inspecting the necklace. Etched into it were glyphs for life and blood and healing, but these were only themes. They could be woven together in all kinds of wacky ways. It was near impossible to tell what they did with just a glance.

“Madame Eudora!” said the referee. “So sorry to keep you waiting.”

Huh? Dorian looked up. The Referee was stuck in a deep bow. He straightened, smiling. “Your health locket, at your leisure.” He held out a locket that was almost double the size of the one in Dorian’s hand.

Eudora’s smile was catlike. She purred. “Oh, Gao, you rogue! You shouldn’t have. The Prime locket? For me?”

“Father wished for all the competitors to have the same tier. But I insisted you ought to get the best—it took some weeks, but he relented.” Gao blushed. “We can’t have the Oasis’ only Princess injured in battle, can we?”

Seriously?! Dorian looked between them, speechless. Come on! She’s got the ref wrapped around her finger too?! He stared to the ceiling in exasperation, imagining he could see Fate somewhere high above, laughing at him. Hey. Cut it out, will you, you old bastard? She doesn’t need more advantages! Say, why don’t you hand some to me for a change?!

“So considerate.” Eudora brushed a lock of hair out of her eyes. “I’m touched! Though I doubt it’ll be necessary this round…”

Then she turned to Dorian, eyes narrowed. “Yes, I rather doubt this will last very long at all.”

“Uh-huh,” said Dorian slowly. Well, this is of awkward. What to do? He settled on what he hoped was a charming smile. “Eudora, was it? I sense we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot. I must apologize for that, ah, scene at the restaurant earlier…a regrettable thing, to be sure, but I assure you it’s all a misunderstanding—”

“Put on the treasure.” She said, idly inspected a nail.

“Excuse me?” said Dorian, blinking.

“You’ll need it.”

“I see.” Dorian smiled. “Thanks for the offer, but I think I’ll pass.”

It was out of an abundance of caution, maybe. Or maybe not. He’d been here ten minutes, and already he could tell this whole thing was rigged up-and-down. He half expected hired goons to come out of the walls to break his kneecaps before the match!

“Don’t be absurd,” snapped the ref. “You hold in your hands one of the most valuable treasures in the Oasis! It’s a life-saving treasure. Very expensive. Usually, only the Patriarchs and Matriarchs hold one on their persons! For events of greatimportance—like this tournament—we have these on loan.”

Dorian perked up. “So, this thing is meant to revive me?”

“No, idiot,” sighed Eudora. “It takes damage on your behalf. What? Did you truly believe the tournament would pit the Oasis’ youngest stars in brutal combat against each other, only for some to leave permanently injured, or dead?” She let out a peal of laughter.

“Wait.” Dorian’s eyes glinted. “So, if I strike your big toe with the force of ten thousand suns, I win the match?”

“Of course not! It corresponds to damage to your life force, not your physical body.” The ref looked increasingly annoyed. “The big toe contributes very little to a man’s life. Strike a man in the throat with half the force, on the other hand—” he cut himself off with frown. “No more questions!”

Huh. Neat gimmick!

Dorian hadn’t known they even had life magics down here. It was really quite an advanced field, and one most civilizations didn’t get to until at least demi-godhood. Shrugging, he locked it shut around his arm.

Eudora swept another lock of auburn hair out of her absurdly pretty face. Dorian blinked—he had the sudden, absurd urge to look away, as though he were staring at the sun. She smirked at him. “It’s amusing to see you squirm. Something like an oyster in a restaurant, shall we say—”

Yeah, she definitely still holds a grudge about the other day…

“—asking the chef how it’ll be cooked. Does it matter in the end?” She crossed her arms. Dorian squinted at her face, wondering if there was some arrangement of the muscles on her face that could possibly make her look even more smug. Huh. He came up blank. Nope. She really has squeezed every last ounce of smugness out of her face—that’s peak smug. It was almost impressive.

And Dorian, being who he was, just. Could not. Resist a little poke at her.

“How the oyster’s cooked does matter, actually,” he said with a grin. “Boiled tastes much better! Though—ah! Apologies. I suppose you wouldn’t know—you weren’t around to try it, were you?”

She flushed. “You—!”

“How’s your back feeling, by the way?”

For a few seconds she just gaped at him, as though she couldn’t process that he’d really just said that. To her. Dorian imagined not many dared mouth off at her. He kept grinning like an idiot.

Might as well, right? It’s not like she can dislike me more!

“Hmph!” She turned up her nose at him. “At first, I’ll admit I found you intriguing, Io of the Heilong. But you chose to disrespect me then, and you have the gall to do so now! For that you’ll pay in blood! Mark my words, you—you—you horrible little creep!” That last bit came out in a red-faced shriek.

Before Dorian could snap back a retort, a familiar blast of hot noise stifled him: the worn stone door at the end of the hall in which they stood was sliding back open. This was it. “AND NOW…” The announcer’s velvety, booming voice broke through the crowd, clamoring. “A MATCHUP YOU’VE BEEN WAITING FOR! INTRODUCING FIRST…REPRESENTING THE GOVERNOR’s PALACE…the FOURTH SEED OF THE TOURNAMENT…WITH A RECORD OF FORTY-SIX WINS, ONE LOSS, ONE DRAW…SIX-TIME WINNER OF THE AZCAN JUNIOR’S CUP…PRINCESS EUDORA OF AZCAN!”

The cheers were already ludicrously loud. Eudora shot Dorian one last glare. Then her face shifted in an instant: hard frown lines faded to a smoothed temple, pinched cheeks softened with dimples. Holding her smile, she strutted out into the light.

The roar of the crowd was so loud it rattled the steel walls, bouncing sediment off the ground like popcorn. Dorian winced—he could swear it’d triggered a minor earthquake! On and on Eudora walked, waving, nodding, blowing kisses, all the way down to her side of the circular arena. It was totally flat plain of packed sand, void of obstacles. Drat!

It was awfully boring, true, but that was not the main problem.

The main problem was that his Spirit Weapon ability—really his only hope to have a fighting chance at this thing—was the ability to shift through shadows. And there was not only no obstacles with to cast shadows, the flat lighting actively destroyed them!

He’d need to work around this. Somehow.

“Nervous?” Yelled the referee to Dorian. He wore an nasty grin.

Dorian thought for a second. Did he think he would win? Eh. But was he nervous?

He shrugged.

The referee frowned. “Don’t you know who she is?! You ought to be nervous! You ought to be nervous as hells!”

“Why?” Dorian shot him a quizzical look. “Would it help?”

The man didn’t know what to say to that.

“INTRODUCING NEXT…REPRESENTING THE HEILONG CLAN…IO, FATED HERO OF AZCAN!”

Thereafter followed the auditory equivalent of having a landfill worth of trash dumped directly on his head.

Nice.

Some of it was because he was fighting a fan favorite. Some part of it was probably the fact that he’d kind of accidentally destroyed quite a number of their houses. Whatever the case, as he strode out into open, flat space, lit up perfectly evenly by a row of obnoxiously bright, glaring lights streaming from the ceiling, he sure got absolutely drenched in jeers. There were a few supporters, to be sure—for instance, one nice young lady a few rows down held up a sign asking if she could have his babies. But it was clear which way public sentiment swayed. There really was no feeing quite like having the express hatred of thousands thrown at you at once!

He grinned right back at them. As he walked to his side he waved, and nodded, and blew kisses at the seething masses, making sure to exaggerate every little bit of Eudora’s shtick. He ended it all with a mocking bow. That last bit earned him a reaction even stronger than Eudora’s. He closed his eyes, sighing happily, letting the hate wash over him like a warm shower. Ahhh…this really is nice! I missed this. It also earned him a shower of half-eaten fruit and at least twelve pairs of shoes chucked at him, which bounced off the invisible force-field enveloping the arena—it’d been installed to stop fighters’ attacks from splashing onto the crowd, but it stopped fresh produce just as well.

Then it was like a lid had been put on the crowd, muffling them. Dorian opened an eye. Eh? The force field hummed to life, flexing its power all around them, closing the arena off to the world. Suddenly, it was just him, the referee, and a fuming, high Earth-Realm Princess alone in a very flat, big, well-lit ring.

It was time.

“Fighters!” cried the referee. “Summon your weapons!”

“Hmph!” Eudora jerked up her chin and waved her hand with a dancer’s grace.

Two sashes of pearly white swept into the air, curling around her like serpents. They were huge—spread out, each could’ve wrapped up a small house—and there was a menacing fluidity to the way they moved, like they had minds of their own as they slithered through air. Something told Dorian that being caught in the grips of those things would not end well for him.

The crowd’s oohs could be heard even through the muffling effect.

But I have a little something of my own, don’t I? Come out, my lovely!

And his Weapon answered his call.

A smudge of twilight forced its way into the daylight. Smoke poured out all around him—not the noxious fumes of a fire but that purplish, ethereal mist which always seem to drift about, winding and ominous, around ghastly things that revel in the dead of night.

There was a pinprick of white in the murky fog. Then the head of the Javelin emerged, trailing wisps of smoke: massive, wicked, spotless, bright as the crescent moon. Behind it, slow and orderly as funeral marchers, came the black links of its chain.

But the weapon brought more than just its physical form. It dispersed a mood. Even the boisterous crowd felt it: a dreadful, stifling gloom spread out, weighing down their hearts, silencing their voices. The shocked hush was even lovelier than their jeers.

Eudora, meanwhile, still had her arms crossed and her chin held high. The girl seemed determined not to be impressed. Just you wait and see, motherfucker! Said the expression on her face.

The referee raised a fist. “Let the battle commence!”

FORTY-NINE

SPLENDID WEAPONRY (XI)

“Let the battle commence!”

A projection of qi flickered to life mid-air, high above the arena. It had their faces, their names, and even two big red health bars. It must be synced to the life-treasures they wore.

Eudora’s health bar was nearly twice as long as Dorian’s own. He rolled his eyes. Of course it is.

The Princess in question stood idly, a lazy smile on her face—like a cat toying with a mouse.

I mean…she’s got a point. I’d think I was screwed too!

Dorian frowned, chewing on the thought. Actually, do I have a real shot? Skill was a power multiplier, after all. If an elite Earth-Realm fighter of this plane could efficiently use, say, 60% of their powers, Dorian could easily draw out 90% of his own.

The trouble was, Dorian wasn’t sure what his newfangled powers really amounted to. He hadn’t had a chance to test them against true competition. His estimates could be way off! Would they be enough to bridge that daunting one-and-a-half realm gap between him and the Princess?

Who knows? He licked his lips. I guess we’ll see, won’t we?

A battle plan dashed through his mind.

What was her archetype? Two strangling sashes, no sharp edges, drifting out from where they were tied neatly about her waist. Almost certainly she was a control-type fighter. She would try to latch onto him and squeeze the life out of him. He, on the other hand, was a glass cannon, an assassin-type. He’d skirt in and out of range, striking hard and fast, and flit away before she could grab ahold of him. Her weakpoints sprang to mind: the throat, the heart, the stomach, the tendons of the lower legs, the nerve-ridden ridges of the spine…it was a tough plan to hold to, and a dangerous one. He’d need to walk a tightrope. But it was the only plan he had, so he simply grinned. Here goes nothing!

Eudora saw his gaze and smirked at him, her gemlike eyes glimmering cruelly. She must’ve thought the fight was as good as over. She made a big show of her not being in a rush at all.

“Io, Io, Io. Our so-called Hero. So young and already on such a big stage—with all the Oasis’ eyes on your delicate little shoulders!” she purred.

Dorian blinked. Who knew? The true Io was but a jumble of ghostly memories now, shoved in some dusty drawer of the mind.

She seemed to take his silence for weakness. “What’s the matter?” She laughed, a trilling, airy sound. “Don’t tell me. Have you grown shy under such bright lights? Oh, I think I’ll take my sweet time with you, pretty little Io.”

She flicked out her hands and her two great sashes spread out to either side of her like an angel’s wings unfurling. She giggled. “You can’t know how many men would die to hear me say that. You should count yourself lucky! Only, I don’t mean it in the way you might wish, I fear…”

Wait. Is she trying to intimidate me? A corner of his lips quirked up. How adorable! Hey, I’m not complaining. Let her ramble on! Ll take all the extra time I can get.

He glanced at those billowing, floating sashes. May as well glean a few more clues before the dirty work begins…

Then he squinted. And sucked in a sharp breath.

A thought had struck him like a club over the head. It was so blindingly obvious—so stupidly blunt—that there had to be something wrong with it. …Right? He frowned. He couldn’t think of anything wrong. He frowned harder. Wait. So, why exactly can’t I just…?

Eudora saw the look on his face and snorted with laughter. “We’ve not even begun and you’re already this shaken? Oh, dear…”

But he hardly heard her. He was too busy reeling. In an instant a plan spun into being in his head—a plan ten thousand times better than the first! How could I possibly have missed this, all along?!

His problem all this time was that he had no shadows to travel to. Sure, he could cast his own shadows—his Spirit Weapon came with an aura of gloom, soaking the space about him in ample shade. But he had nowhere to send it to. No shadows to exit. So, it was useless.

Except—

Those two sashes were billowing sheets of silk, shifting through air, tied around her waist…

That one small detail, that one aspect of her Spirit Weapon changed everything. And somehow, he hadn’t clocked it until she literally waved it in front of his eyes!

Holy shit.

He had a real godsdamned chance after all. If he timed it just right…if he struck at just the right spot…his eyes flashed. The ghost of a fascinating idea shimmered in his mind, taking form…

Eudora, meanwhile, was still busy peacocking. She hadn’t registered his lips curling into a grin. “You’ve never fought in a formal duel before, have you?” She tutted. “Then you may consider this your first lesson! In a duel, seizing the initiative is paramount.”

Her eyes narrowed and her body language shifted in an instant, coiling up, tensing like a taught bow. Dorian braced for impact. “Rule number one: always strike first!”

And she lunged.

She came on so shockingly fast he nearly didn’t have the time to react—even though he’d been ready for it. He hardly had time to blink! All he saw was a blur, a flicker of violent motion. By the time he got mustered a response she’d halved the space between them. The sheer burst speed was absurd, even for an Earth Realm fighter. It was abnormal eve for a Sky Realm fighter! Saints! Around them the crowd let out a scattering of sharp gasps.

His instincts reacted before he did. He barely leapt out the way before her sashes lay waste to the sands. The ground quaked with the impact, sending shockwaves rippling up Dorian’s legs, chattering his teeth. Geysers of sand shot up, splashing back down in vast, dusty waves.

The grin vanished from Dorian’s face. In its place was a dawning horror. The girl liked her cringey smack talk, sure, but she had good reason—she was a godsdamned physical freak of nature! What the hells has the Governor’s palace been feeding this girl?! She must’ve been munching top-tier physique treasures since she was out of the womb!

Dorian dashed off, keen to put some distance between them.

Then he saw a shadow in the dust and the air seemed to flee before it, shrieking, desperate to get out of the way as something monstrously fast whipped through it, a sonic boom flaring in its wake. Dorian kicked off hard as he could, dodging left, his heart sinking. Fuck.

He had made a horrible miscalculation, one that might prove fatal. He felt all of his assumptions, all of his plans, all his brilliant, well-laid strategies crashing down around his ears like a sand castle swept up in a cresting wave.

She was a tank, a grappler—that much was true. But she was also faster than him! Her specialty was not qi techniques at all. Looking at her tall, supple yet well-muscled form, he’d made a best-guess assumption. He’d bet on his speed as his sole advantage. Now, he had literally nothing.

As she drew closer to him, moving so fast it was like he was standing still, there was nothing he could do but laugh at his own misfortune. She’s a fucking body cultivator. Just my damned luck! Body Cultivators were a rare but deadly class of fighter who focused heavily on their bodies over their techniques. Rather than a Spirit Sea they made Spirit Veins: dispersed through their bodies, so that their qi fed their muscles directly.

Which meant that physically, the gap between Profound and Earth was a gap between Heaven and Earth!

Come on. Are you serious?! Dorian saw it now. This was stupid. He demanded a godsdamend refund. This whole setup was rigged—he was screwed from the start! It was like trying to fight water with fire. No, more than that—it was like trying to fight an ocean with a candle!

He had no hope of hitting her with a technique or Spirit Weapon. She was way too fast for that. He had no hope of running. She was too fast for that too. He had no hope at hand-to-hand combat. If he had to guess, she was tiers stronger than him too! And there was no terrain to hide behind. His entire gameplay was flipped on his head in an instant. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!

In short, Body Cultivators were the single worst class of fighter to have a cultivation deficit against. If it was a gap of qi he had a chance. But no amount of skill could overcome one-and-a-half realms of dumb brute power!

He knew this. He tried anyway. The Javelin scythed through the air, a stream of fierce shadows so fast he only saw its after-image. It was fast as all hells—faster than any Profound Realm-powered weapon had any right to be. At such close range most Earth Realm fighters would’ve been skewered on the spot!

It was his shitty luck that he was not fighting most Earth Realm fighters.

This was how Eudora Azcan dodged: she was there one moment. And then it was like she had simply stopped existing. The Javelin went through the space where she was. Then she flickered back into place. Dorian was frankly disgusted. That’s fucking unfair!

Nine-hundred and ninety-nine times of a thousand, pampered young masters and mistresses who boasted like she did were rubes fluffing up themselves up. They might have some power, sure, but their overinflated egos vastly dwarfed their true abilities.

Then there was a one-in-a-thousand who was the real deal.

He tried to kick away. He knew it was in vain. She was already upon him.

Her sash snatched his left arm before he even registered its presence. He tried tugging it free, but it was impossible: it was not his arm anymore. It felt like it’d been cast in hardened steel.

The other sash curled tight around his right leg.

And just like that the chase was done. Dorian felt dizzy, like he’d gotten whiplash. It was honestly sort of anti-climactic. It all happened too fast. He hadn’t even gotten a chance to test out his new techniques!

Well—not yet, at least…

That one idea, that one fascinating, obvious idea, still simmered at the back of his mind.

It was the one thing that might save him now.

“I would say it was a good effort,” mused Eudora, slowly stalking up to him. Her smile was cold and thin as a crack in a glacier. “But it wasn’t really, was it? I would end it here…but for you?”

Dorian heard the muffled jeers of the crowd leak in from outside.

The crack grew wider. “I’ll take my time.”

The sashes tightened around his limbs, and Dorian hissed. All bloodflow—even qi flow— was cut off. He couldn’t feel his fingers, nor his toes.

Then the sashes started to pull. And pull. And pull, with agonizing slowness, the way a psychopath child yanks the wings off a mayfly. Dorian could literally feel his tendons and sinews and muscles crying out, powerless to resist, torn up, straining and stretched beyond their limits with each passing inch. Soon he had to bite down his tongue to force back the howl rising in his throat—the force on either side was monstrous. He clenched his teeth. It could’ve torn plate metal in half!

Above, his health bar dwindled with heart-quickening speed. The life-saving treasure on Dorian’s arm worked furiously to shore up the damage to his life-force but still the stress poured in, the sashes tightening about him, clamped onto him like a vise—

A little more. Just a little more…

And Dorian started to laugh. Eyes veined with red and bulging with pain, his body literally falling apart at the seams, he started to laugh Unbridled. Hysterical. He was shaking all over with it.

“What?” Eudora looked unimpressed. “Broken already? Aww. I really did hope you’d—”

Then, with all his willpower, he tugged. Now!

The Javelin lanced at her from straight behind. He’d never recalled it. Silently he’d let it sit there in the back as she tied herself to him, latching her sashes to him, locking him in place, sure—

But also locking her two most powerful tools to his body. And cutting off her movement, too, in one fell swoop!

The Javelin slashed straight into her. Through her. Clean, like she was made of air.

No—not through her. Through her after-image. For she’d dodged as though she had eyes in the back of her head! The Javelin careened on through, swerving around in a wide arc. Miss.

Awed cries sprang up from the crowd.

Eudora’s face was ever more bored. “Really?” She snorted. “Silly boy. You truly thought that’d work?”

And Dorian grinned. Nope.

But this might.

It dove at her again from the front, a massive burst of vicious shadow and light. One clean hit from this thing would prove deadly to nearly anyone in the Oasis.

The problem was, of course, landing that one clean hit. It blistered the air as it bolted at her.

Eudora stared at it with naked contempt. “You never learn, do y—”

Her words caught in her throat. Because his Javelin wasn’t aimed at her.

It was aimed at the shadow.

The shadow made by the two sashes which clamped tight to Dorian’s arms. It dove straight into the darkness at Dorian’s feet—now!

There was a sharp tearing sensation in Dorian’s gut as a glut of qi was fed to the technique. What happened next went very fast.

The Javelin’s head emerged at the other end of the shadow, seething with speed, not two arm-lengths from Eudora’s unguarded heart.

Her face was a mask of naked shock. He drank it in with glee. The best part? She was caught so off-guard that she had no time to react!

Or rather, she should’ve had no time to react. But to his horror, she somehow did.

In that shard of a second, by some miracle of mind-bending reflexes, she managed to twist her waist, leaping back, contorting her body to its limits, a horrifyingly good try at a dodge.

For all its athleticism, it was still not enough.

She managed to shift herself a foot off-center. Then the Javelin speared her clean in the liver, sheared through her silken armor with ease and carving deep into the flesh beyond.

FIFTY

SPLENDID WEAPONRY (XII)

It was like she’d been struck by a wrecking ball. But the crushing force of the Heilong Javelin wasn’t the worst of it. The worst of it was that force spearing her through a point tinier than a needle’s head.

The Heilong Javelin was so sharp that even its holding case, forged of twice-smelted brightsteel, was designed to leave an air pocket around its tip—for a mere touch from that cruel, gleaming fang could carve grievous wounds into the toughest of metals.

Now it drilled into a human body. A human body of astonishing make, to be sure, a marvel of flesh and blood—but still, in the end, flesh and blood.

Eudora let out a choked gasp as she was thrown backward, crumpled over, her eyes jolted wide with disbelief, arms splayed about her as she was flung into the sands. There was a flash of scarlet as her life-saving treasure pulsed sharply with qi, sending the Javelin careening halfway across the arena—but the damage was done.

If this was a real fight, that might well have been a fatal blow!

Wincing, Dorian struggled to his feet and glanced up to the ceiling, where the their health bars lay in bold projections. He hardly dared to hope.

In an instant, hers was slashed down by more than two-thirds. Just like that. It seemed impossible. A goddess-like figure, a machine of brute force who’d had him at her mercy mere seconds prior, cut down with such ease?

The Heilong Javelin lived up to its title. It was the most feared weapon in the Oasis for a hell of a good reason.

Silence. Wonderful, stunned, gaping silence gripped the arena.

Then there was an uproar so frenzied, so explosive not even the arena’s force fields could dampen it. There wasn’t a person in the crowd not on their feet, screaming, hollering, jumping up and down or plain gaping. There was a wholesale losing of shits: everywhere Dorian looked were Oasis-dwellers faces, hung slack with shock. Nobody seemed to know what to think.

Nobody except Dorian, that was, who was grinning ear-to-ear. It really godsdamned worked! And it did so much better than he’d thought it would. The thing handled so well it felt like flexing yet another muscle! There was no bright line between thought and action, no gap between the motion and the will to motion. He wanted, and it did. It was everything a Spirit Weapons ought to be.

And he was only making use of maybe a tenth of its true potential—if that! [Shadow-Strike] was all he could draw out at Profound. One technique. Lucky it’s a damned good one, eh?

Then Dorian winced as a crackle of pain spiked up his shoulder, searing the joint between arm and torso. He wiggling his fingers and feet, keen to coax some blood into them. This Eudora was stupid strong. She’d nearly yanked his arm straight out the socket. If she caught ahold of him again he suspected there would be no slow burn, no drawn-out torture. No—she’d be ripping limbs right off him with a vengeance.

Vengeance. Yes, that was certainly a good word for it. There was a great deal of vengeance in her eyes as she picked herself back up, coughing blood, her face flush from top-to-bottom. She took in the grin on Dorian’s face and flushed harder.

“What?!” she snapped, still coughing, wiping blood off her lips with the back of her hand. It was hard to keep an air of dignity when you could hardly stand upright. Still, she made a valiant effort. “You think one lucky shot means you’ve won?!”

It was music to Dorian’s ears. He didn’t think he’d won. Not by a long shot. But by her tone, her attitude had done a heel turn. He saw it in the way she stood, the way she shifted on the balls of her feet: that cagey, wounded-animal look.

It’s like you said, isn’t it? The initiative is paramount!

She’d gotten him by rushing at him full bore, catching him floundering on the back foot. But now she’d lost that first strike advantage. If she caught hold of him again he had no doubt she’d tear him limb from limb, but now he’d gotten a feel for her, now that he’d found the chink in her armor and cut her down to size, he felt almost—dare he think it?—assured. Like he had seized the upper hand! She had seemed, at the start, an unsolvable puzzle. It’d seemed like he’d be slaughtered without so much as a chance to fight back!

Now that he only needed to land one more clean hit to win, now that he’d wounded her for more than half her health, now that he saw how badly his tricks could wound her? It was like the last puzzle-piece had clicked into place, and he saw the full picture of her being. Everything that was once blurry resolved into sharp focus.

Was this cockiness? Or was it simply confidence?

He frowned at himself. Don’t get ahead of yourself, now! He had to keep his head screwed on. No rushing in. No over-extending. He needed her to do that so he could counter with his little tricks.

So, he made a show of checking out their health bars. He made a show of acting surprised. “Wait, really?” he said. “I nearly finished you with just one shot?”

He frowned. “Weren’t you supposed to be tough? By the way you were acting, I thought you were [x!]”

The look on her face was priceless.

“Why, you little—!”

She pounced at him, snarling, her hands arching to seize his throat. Her sashes whipped through the air. She was but a blur in his vision.

But even blurs cast shadows, and this time he was ready for her.

He timed the throw of his Javelin to match her. He’d goaded her, after all! He’d thrown his Javelin before she’d moved—as soon as he sensed in her body the intention he’d already begun his own strike.

They met halfway. Her sashes, his Javelin. One sash looped over the top, arching for his throat. The other dove for the Javelin, fanning out like a net—intent on wrapping up his weapon and stifling it.

And once more his Javelin dove into the shadow like a fish slipping into water. This time, however, Eudora tracked it like a hawk. She reacted in an instant—she would not make the same mistake twice. Dorian saw her crouch as the Javelin dove. Then she sprung up in a leap that almost touched the ceiling, putting a huge chunk of distance between herself and the ground. She scoured her own shadows for the threat. Wherever his Javelin emerged, she’d be ready.

Folish girl. Dorian snorted. In a game of tactics, you’re trying to out-wit me?! He bared his teeth in a grin. You’re a thousand years too young for that!

Shadow-Strike was a costly technique. Most of its cost came in that in-between space: when it slipped out from reality and into the darkness. It didn’t re-emerge instantly. No—it traversed some parallel dimension, a shadow realm, and then slipped back into this reality. Holding it in shadow was what cost Dorian vast chunks of his qi. But sometimes that cost was worth it.

Eudora was in the air, brow furrowed, leaping in an arc. In a blink she’d neared the top of the leap. Her own attack was quickly forgotten. All her focus was on the defensive—she would not let him get off another clean hit!

Only it wasn’t quite the same setup, and that made all the difference. Dorian held.

In the space of the shadow he waited, patient, feeling his newly made qi drained from his Spirit Sea in swathes. The seconds passed with agonizing slowness but his qi went shockingly fast. Three-quarters. He grimaced, feeling the harsh wrench in his gut. One-half. Not yet—not yet! He let the wrenching grow to a spiking tug and still he held tight. This needed to be godsdamned perfect!

And then, just when his qi was dipping below a third, the chance presented itself.

At the start of the leap, Eudora had put on a defiant snarl.

By the top she reached the top it’d become a triumphant grin. Here, she knew she was far enough away that she could block any bolt from her shadows.

But no bolt came. And then came the dawning realization, the shock, the [horror], as gravity grabbed her by the ankles and dragged her down, down, down, speeding up into those very same shadows, those shadows she was trying so desperately to avoid—

She braced herself as she dropped. Both sashes whipped back before her in defensive posture, one stacked atop the other, shortening the shadows they cast to a dark puddle. She was falling fast, and the Javelin would come out faster, but if she wrapped herself well enough she could blunt most of it—if not swallow the strike whole in the folds of her sashes. Dorian could practically see the thoughts flash across her face. If Dorian was smart, she deduced, he’d wait until she was mere feet from the ground, when her downward speed and the Javelin’s upward speed was greatest, when the distance was least. That was when he’d have the best shot at her. So, that was what she braced herself for.

But, of course, Dorian knew that was exactly what she was expecting. He cackled to himself. A thousand years too young, girl! A thousand years too young!

There was one more thing here. One thing she failed to consider.

When she stood on the ground, she cast no shadow. The lighting, streaming from a string of huge lamps, was too flooding for that.

When she was up high, blocking only a few light sources, the others voided her shadows. At the top of her leap, she was still safe.

But there was a point—a sliver of time when she was but a dozen feet from the ground—when she hit a sweet spot. Far enough away that she still blocked out a chunk of light, but close enough that her body stopped the others from covering for it. And in that sliver there was a shadow. A small but very present shadow. Just behind her. Barely visible, and certainly invisible to her.

Dorian smirked. Got you!

Carefully, ruthlessly, he threaded the eye of the needle.

Here’s the thing about dodging. If you were caught off guard but your feet were still planted on the ground, with sufficient reflexes you could still manage a decent attempt at it. Kick off. Twist. Leap. You could still move out the way.

Here’s the thing about blocking. If you were caught off guard but your shield was still nearby, you only needed but a glimpse of the strike before it hit you— and good enough reflexes, of course—to manage a solid try at a block.

But what happened when you were in the air and you needed in a split-second to shift directions but you had nothing to kick off of, no terrain to latch onto, nothing to move yourself with? What if your blocking instruments were literally on the opposite side of your body, far too slow to whip around?

What if the strike came from underneath and behind you, so you couldn’t even see it coming?

And what if—the nail in the coffin—it came a half-second earlier, and from a different place, than you’d been led to believe?

Well.

Then even if you were a superhuman Princess whose whole body a treasure of the highest caliber, even if you had a one-and-a-half-realm advantage, even if by every single objective measure this fight should’ve been an easy sweep for you—

Dorian had to believe she was finished.

Even so, as he saw the Javelin peek out from the darkness he tensed, bracing for yet another miracle. Bracing for her to defy all laws of physics, whirl around mid-air, and block. Perhaps she’d catch it between two fingers . Perhaps she’d wiggle her whole upper body out the way like a snake!

But she didn’t react at all.

The Javelin struck her in the small of the back. In the very same spot Dorian had kicked in the oyster restaurant just a few days prior. Dorian saw the force ripple up and down her body. He saw her face go from flush red to stark white. He saw the life-saving treasure crackle with sharp scarlet light and wink out, saw her eyes roll back, saw blood spurting from her mouth as she was flung rag-doll limp into the force-field, bouncing off, flipping head-over-heels once, twice, and skidding to a stop at last in an unmoving, twisted-up heap in the sands, her limbs strewn carelessly about her. A cloud of dust and sand bloomed in her wake.

Dorian held his breath, scarcely daring to believe it. The entire arena seemed to hold its breath too. No fucking way. He kept expecting her to spring up in a rage. Kept expecting her head to snap back up, spitting sand out of her mouth and raring for another go at him. It seemed somehow wrong, obscene, even, that he could finish off such a creature in but two well-placed, well-timed strikes!

But Dorian had been in enough fights to know that this was no impossibility. Nowhere near it. With a well-timed blow, struck at the picture-perfect spot, even the sling of a peasant-boy could down a giant.

And he’d struck her twice with something far heavier, and harder, and sharper than a mere sling.

He looked up at the health bars. The red in hers dropped until it was but a thin, glowing rectangle, filling but a tiny fraction of the full bar.

Then it was a line.

And then nothing at all.

FIFTY-ONE

SPLENDID WEAPONRY (XIII)

“HEAVENS! HE’S DONE IT! HE’S DONE IT!”

Even the announcer’s voice was trembling. “THE HERO IO DOWNS THE FOURTH-SEEDED PRINCESS IN THE FIRST ROUND!! JUST. LIKE. THAT!”

If Dorian thought the crowd had been crazy before?

They might as well have been monks in a monastery compared to what happened now.

It was like Dorian was some divine savior descended—it was like he truly was the so-called ‘Hero’ they made him out to be! The crowd hollering and screaming and chanting his name. They weren’t just on their feet. Some madness had taken them—men and women were climbing over one another, shoving down the stands, At first Dorian did his usual stuff—bowing, waving, soaking in the win. He was quite pleased with it, all told. He was surprised at himself, frankly.

How silly of me, he chided. He felt way too smug about the whole ordeal. Have I forgotten who I am?

Then his eyes widened.

The crowd wasn’t only shoving past one another. They were trying to rush the stage! Waves of men and women, taken in by some kind of hysteria, were cramming up to the very front and bowling over the hapless security guards. “Hero! Hero!” Prying hands reached out from all directions. There was a shuddering, a creaking of steel, then a low, ominous groan from somewhere high above. Oh shit—

Time to get the hells out!

As he scampered back, still smiling, he sensed a sharp aura drill into his back. Killing intent?!

His head whipped around.

There, standing at the edge of the arena, was the Rat-King. His eyes shivered in their sockets. He was staring straight at Dorian, fists clenched, lips set in a seething snarl.

What? Dorian blinked. What’s his deal?

Their eyes met for a split-second.

Then he dashed into the tunnels below the arena and vanished into the darkness.

* * *

Kaya was the first to rush up to him as he re-entered the competitors’ grounds. “How’d it go?!” she gasped.

Dorian shrugged. “Solidly, I’d say. Rough start, but I recovered well. I’d give myself about an eight out of ten.”

“I mean—did you win?!”

“Of course!” Dorian snorted, smiling. He ruffled her hair. “Don’t ask silly questions.”

Then he noticed that everyone in the room was staring at him. More than a few open-mouthed.

“You,” said Young Master Fang, one pencil-drawn brow raised. “You claim you beat Eudora Azcan? As a fighter of the mid Profound Realm? Really, now.”

“Impossible!” cried a young master behind him.

Ma Yun was slowly chewing on a big ball of dough. He turned his big head slowly to Dorian, still chewing, and blinked. “Huh,” was all he said.

Then the door opened up behind Dorian and in stalked the Rat-King. Dorian was frowned but the man didn’t look at him once—he just walked by, head held high, and the other fighters parted easily before him like water before the prow of a ship. …all righty then?

Pebble stumbled up behind him. “Spec-tacular!” he cried. “Why, I’ve never seen the Princess humiliated so brutally!”

He clapped his tiny hands. “You’ve outdone yourself.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Dorian absently. “Say—what’s up with your boss?”

“Huh?” Pebble scratched his head. “Oh! Right. So, you seem to not know anything—not your fault!—and I shall from now on assume that some of the sillier things you do are due in part to ignorance rather than merely boneheadedness!”

“Very charitable of you,” said Dorian dryly.

Pebble brightened. “I know, isn’t it? Anywho. That was his girlfriend you just beat up!”

“…”

“So in one fell swoop you managed to offend both the lord of the Oasis and its second-most-powerful man!”

“…”

“Don’t worry,” laughed Pebble. “He was real mad for a bit, but I managed to talk him out of killing you. He’ll be fine! He just needs some time to cool off. He can get this way sometimes.

…my plans of arming the Outskirters appears to be going up in smoke.

Dorian didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

How was he supposed to know some random girl in an oyster shop was the daughter of the Oasis lord?!

And of course she was tied to the Rat-King too. Of damned course!

Well, thought Dorian a tad miserably. If I had to offend both the Rat-King and the Oasis lord at once…at least I got my money’s worth?

A smile was creeping back on his face. That was quite a nice shot, if he did say so himself. Weaving into the shadow, then holding it there—the timing? Frankly that was exquisite, even for him. That shot really ought to be sang about. There should be an epic poem written about it. At least a mural.

“Kaya Rust?” Called a gruff referee. To Dorian’s side, she perked up. “Leo Ouyang? Sorry for the wait. We had—how shall I put this—a situation out there that had to be resolved. Now, we’re good. You’re up!”

“Good luck!” said Dorian with a thumbs-up.

Kaya chewed her lip, her eyes darting between him and the doorway. “Thanks…”

Across the room, Leo Ouyang smirked at them with the casual confidence of a man assured of his victory—Dorian could tell the only thing in his mind was how he’d go about it. He made a throat-slitting gesture at Dorian. Dorian mimed sloppy licking in response. Leo reddened. He mouthed something back—something like Just you watch, asshole! I’m going to @#($c her! Dorian didn’t catch that last bit, but he could imagine.

Then, they were off.

* * *

Kaya came back not five minutes later, positively glowing. Literally glowing. Streams of golden light rose off her skin like steam, like she was a well-cooked crab.

Her knuckles were bloody, and she grinned from ear-to-ear. Dorian cocked his head. Oh?

“I won, Io I won! I really did it!!” she cried, bouncing about with childlike glee. “Only…” She pouted. “I really hoped he’d last longer. He was no fun!”

Honestly, Dorian didn’t see this coming. That Leo fellow must be weaker than I thought…

Ah well. It’s nice she’s had a win.

She’d almost certainly be knocked out next round—it was a miracle she’d made it this far, given she was a transplant from the backwater of all backwaters!—but at least this way she’d feel she gave it a valiant effort. Losing in the first or the second really made no difference at all results-wise, but he knew mortals needed these little things.

The door to the arena opened, and out streamed a referee and two workers with a stretcher. On the stretcher lay a whimpering boy who had more bruise than skin on his body—he was one big lump of swollen, bleeding purple, cringing head-to-toe. Goodness me. Dorian blinked. The boy would’ve been done long ago, but whoever he fought hadn’t let him quit. That life-saving treasure must’ve been stretched to its breaking point. Dorian was no stranger to playing with his food, but even to him this seemed a bit much…

Wait. Dorian squinted. Is that Leo Ouyang? …Surely not.

He glanced at his sister with a frown. “Um. Did you—”

“Next up!” said the referee. “Io of the Heilong!”

Whatever. Shrugging, he climbed to his feet and stretched himself out. This round he’d been given a more sensible pairing: some young master he’d never heard of. Which was a relief, since he still felt the phantom pains of those steely silks ripping at his joints.

He grinned. Let’s get this done with!

* * *

The terrain this time was an ‘icy tundra.’ Before the fight they’d used artifacts to coat the floor in a layer of ice. Then they’d studded the grounds with icicles.

The crowd was much warmer to Dorian now. A cheery chant even rose up, spreading across the arena, thundering “IO! IO! IO!” Things were growing rowdy before the fight had even begun. People like a winner, I guess? He wasn’t complaining.

“Begin!” cried the referee.

The young master—Young Master Yun, apparently—sneered at him. He opened his mouth to spit an insult.

Then, Dorian fed him the Heilong Javelin.

As it turned out, not everyone was Eudora Azcan! In fact, most people didn’t have the wherewithal to so much as flinch before the Javelin carved them up. And this poor boy was only in the early Earth Realm. It was almost sad.

The fight lasted less than three seconds.

It took them longer to prepare the arena.

His next round went much the same. This time it was in a mountain terrain, with shadows everywhere.

This round lasted less than one.

And just like that, he was through to the second and final day!

* * *

Now this was shocking.

“I won!!” cried Kaya, sweeping him up in a hug.

“You did?” Dorian hmm’d as she wheeled him about. Must be that contract. I thought it was a communications thing—some way for Nijo to contact me through her and give me an offer. I guess he’s actually investing some power in her, too.

But why? It didn’t make much sense to him. Is he trying to get on my good side?

He wouldn’t know until Nijo finally decided to get off his ass and arranged a meeting, he supposed.

Then the door opened, and her opponent, a dazed-looking, scarred, massive hulk of a man stumbled out. He took one look at her, shrieked like a baby, and ran off.

“Um. Sorry!” cried Kaya after him. “No hard feelings?”

Dorian blinked. …Okay. Weird. But not weird enough for me to care! Moving on.

“I’ve got some meetings to get to,” said Dorian. He wriggled free of her with a wink. “See you back at camp, all right? We’re moving tonight!”

“Huh? With who?”

“The Grand General Bin Heilong and the Head of the Artificing Guild. If all goes well, we’ll be in mass production before the day’s through!”

In other words—we’ll finally start manufacturing the most important weapons we have against the Ugoc en masse. And I’ll be raking in a sweet per-Stick commission too, of course!

Just imagining how filthy rich he was about to be had Dorian’s mouth watering.

The words seemed to float right over Kaya’s head. “Oh,” she said in a daze. “Okay—we’ll talk soon?”

“Good luck on your third round!”

He left.

* * *

“Remarkable,” whispered Father Zacharias, peering at the crystal globe. “Simply remarkable.” It showed a battle scene: a girl wreathed in gold beating down a fiery spearman, laughing hysterically all the while.

“I’ve seldom seen an initiate draw so much from the Mark.” A bald man in Priest’s garb, stroking the thin white wisps of a beard. These were the two highest-ranking officials in the Azcan Branch of the Church of Jez.

“I agree,” said Father Zacharias. “It’s unearthed such a ravenousness to her soul…by Jez’s light!”

“Of course. It is the persona, not the body, that matters,” said the Priest. “The simpler the mind, the purer the desires, the better—and she…well.”

He winced as she ate a spear to the gut, laughed, yanked the spear to her and delivered a nasty headbutt to its wielder in one fluid motion. “Say what you will—it’s pure. Pure sadism, perhaps. But that is for Jez to judge, not I.”

“Mm.” Father Zacharias swallowed. “Perhaps it is time to bring her into the fold. There is so much she has yet to learn, and there are hardly two moons before the Great One arrives…”

The Priest nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.”

FIFTY-TWO

SPLENDID WEAPONRY (XIV)

“It’s sexy. Sexy as hells! I get hard just looking at it!” Chuckled Thon, the Artificing Head, as he marched down the hall. “Your Stick. I fuckin’ love it!”

“Yeah, I get that a lot,” said Dorian.

“Excuse me?” said Bin, reddening.

“He means the weapon I’m about to show you—my Wizard’s Stick,” said Dorian with a grin. He paused. “Or so I hope.”

It was Thon, him, and Bin going down a windowless hall made wholly of sheet metal. Two light-sources ran in thick white lines down its length. They were inside the Artificer’s Guild Headquarters once more, but today’s journey was special. Today the guild Head was taking them deep into the heart of the guild, where it stored its top-secret experiments and its most state-of-the-art forges.

Ever since they’d gotten models of Dorian’s Wizard Sticks, and detailed blueprints besides, the Sticks had been the talk of the guild. It had sparked a fervor among its members—everywhere Dorian passed he heard chatter of modifying, adapting, upgrading the Sticks, talk of expanding their runesets, making rune-stacks—on and on. Walking by some of the forge stations, Dorian saw a huddle gray-bearded artificers squinting at Stick prototypes with gazes fierce enough to melt steel.

These things tended to happen when you advance a civilization’s technology by centuries in a matter of days!

They arrived at the end of the hall, where two hunks of black, spiny metal were bolted together, making a locked door. Thon tapped his Interspatial Ring, extracting a hammer: a hunk of gleaming silver with a handle of worn leather, half the size of a man. But its weight was considerably more than a man’s, judging by the way the steel flexed and creaked under Thon’s feet when he brought the thing out. It was his personal hammer, engraved with his name—and more, his very Spirit. At a high enough Tier, artificers formed tool-bonds much as fighters formed bonds with Spirit Weapons.

“Not just anyone can get in here!” said Thon, grinning two rows of chipped yellow teeth. “You’ll need more than a key! You’ve got to prove yourself a damned good artificer, too.”

He tapped the hammer to the lock. Instantly scalding heat bloomed at the door’s edges, and the lock deformed. Strands of qi ran down its surface—the influence of an array. A puzzle. This door was made of blacksteel: the hardest steel known to Azcan artificers. Most anyone under the mid-Earth Realm couldn’t dream of forging it. Even worse, the harder one tried to mold it, the harder it resisted. An artificer’s paradox.

Thon began to forge. Dorian could feel the air warble with heat, with will, as he set his mind fully to the task. The metal was coaxed open, gently yet firmly, with the sort of precision one might expect from a sculptor or a painter, not a seven-foot-tall unkempt giant. The doors folded quietly open. It wasn’t that they moved. The arrays holding them in place seemed to explicitly prevent swiveling. They were simply unmade, then remade in an altered form. Dorian got the weird sense that they hadn’t even been forced by Thon’s will. He’d simply convinced the metals that they wanted to change, and they bent of their own accords. The thought seemed nonsensical, of course—

—unless you were of a high enough level. Then you knew exactly what just happened.

Dorian’s eyes flashed. That might be the first time in this run I’ve seen a man touch on a Law.

It was faint, to be sure, but unmistakable. A feat few managed until at least the Sky Realm. It was so obscure that Dorian bet they didn’t even have a name for its kind here—they probably knew it as just another technique! Albeit a very advanced one.

They couldn’t possibly know that what Thon just shown was the foundation for all Godhood. It was named the Gap Between Heaven and Earth: the thing that set the [Demigod] realm apart from the [Sky] realm, the most brutal bottleneck of all cultivation, save for the jump to Godking itself!

Thon finished up the forging with a satisfied grunt. “Come now, friends!” he waved them through. There was a flare of qi as the doors sealed behind them.

They came to a conelike room swathed in shadow, with one bright spot at its center. There was a pedestal under bright lights, and on the pedestal lay a Wizard’s Stick.

“Behold!” Boomed Thon. “Our very own prototype!”

Amused, Dorian went up to it, taking it in from all angles. A few seconds went by as he squinted at it.

“Huh,” he said at last. “I’ve got a few notes, but all told—you’ve done pretty well! You’ve followed my blueprints nearly to the letter.”

“That we did,” said Thon proudly. “It’ll need some refining, mind you. We’ll have a few more goes at it. But we’re close ‘nuff that it’ll do just fine—we even remade one of those funky glyphs of yours! Try it out. Go on!”

He snapped his fingers, and a second set of spotlights flickered on, lighting up the far wall. They shone down on a firing range: an array of targets like an archery range. Each had on it a face of a plain-looking woman. “This is our testing range for all weaponry!” he said with a hearty grin. “It’s what we use to make sure the cannons we ship out actually hurt things well and good. To leave a mark on any of them targets is the same as penetrating the scales of an Earth-Realm drake!”

“What’s with the face?” asked Dorian.

Thon waved a breezy hand. “Oh, don’t you mind that. It’s the default we use for all our weapons tests.”

Bin squinted. “Isn’t that your ex-wife?”

“…” Thon coughed uncomfortably. Then he rounded at Dorian, suddenly impatient. “Say. Weren’t you about to demonstrate your Stick? What’s with the holdup?”

“On it!” Dorian snatched up the rune sitting on the pedestal and fitted it into the Wizard’s Stick replica. It lit up on the spot, buzzing electric-yellow—it’d been charged with Spirit Stones already, clearly. This was its one great advantage: it could draw qi from the user as fuel, true. But it could also take in Spirit Stones as batteries! Which meant even an Origin-Realm numbskull could down an Earth-Realm beast if they knew how to point and click.

Dorian pointed at the target, and clicked.

A mothball of electricity charged out of the staff and zoomed out at the target. When it struck its crackling reached a feverish pitch. There was a flash of blinding light—then it was all gone, leaving behind a field of sizzling black.

“Aha!” Thon cackled. “Never gets old! Take that, Petra, you dumb bitch! Who’s ‘immature’ and ‘unable to grapple with his feelings in a healthy way’ now, huh?!”

“…Hmm,” mused Bin, inspecting the target. “That is very nice.”

He glanced to Thon. “You and your artificers have given this weapon a rigorous assessment, I trust?

Thon nearly seemed offended. “‘Course! Who you think we are?! The whole guild’s been testing the thing for days! Hells—I couldn’t stop them from tinkering with it if I tried! It’s a tight, beautiful piece of machinery. Really is. It’s got my highest commend—commer—commanda—” He frowned. Then he tried again, backing up in the sentence as though he could break through the mental block with sheer verbal momentum. “It’s got my highest communication—no, that’s not right—shut up, don’t tell me, I’ve got it!” he scrunched his eyes shut. Then he grunted. “Fuck. Whatever. You get the gist.”

“Yes, I think I do.” Bin turned gaze on Dorian. But his stone demeanor twitched, betraying a little of the eagerness hidden beneath. He, more than anyone, could imagine the sort of damage a whole army’s worth of Stick wielders could do. “Very well! You were right. This is quite interesting. We’ll make a preliminary batch and reassess afterwards. This first batch should have enough to arm a squadron. Fifty Sticks, shall we say? Should they prove effective, the army will strongly consider ordering more en masse. Though…if they’re all as simple and potent as this, a bulk order is all but a guarantee.”

“Great!” Thus far Dorian felt very pleased with this whole thing. Things were going exactly as planned.

“Great!” Echoed Thon. He rubbed his hands together. “I’ve prepped for just this moment, truth be told. Come on out, crew!”

A square of light slid open to their left, and in stepped a row of six artificers dressed in thick flame-retardant coats. They all looked very serious.

“This is my crack team, at your service! These are six of our very best men—and I don’t say that lightly, you know! They’ll do you right.”

Dorian nodded, matching Thon’s grin. “So this is team one?”

“Eh?” Thon blinked. “What do you mean, team one? Is there ‘sposed to be more than one?”

Dorian paused. “Yeah? I mean. How fast can they make these sticks?”

“Very fast, I’ll have you know! Five Sticks per week! We’ll have the order done in a mere three moons’ time!”

…Three moons?! Dorian gaped at him. This place won’t exist in three moons’ time!

“Ooookay. Wonderful presentation,” said Dorian. “Thank you, guild Head. But you’ll notice I designed the Staff as a modular weapon, split in five distinct parts. They’re meant to be made separately, then put together at the end. You’ll find it’s much faster this way, I think.”

The guild Head frowned. “You can’t mean…each artificer’s only meant to make one part?”

“That’s the idea!”

“You would have us be rote laborers?” Thon gasped. “But…where’s the artistry? The mastery?! No, no. This won’t do, not at all!”

Dorian hesitated.

“If you had trouble swallowing that, you might not like this next bit. We’ll need a lot more than six high-Tier artificers.”

“How many you thinking?”

“Try…a hundred? Split in teams of twenty, one per part?”

“Huh?!” Thon had his hands on his head. “That’s half guild’s best artificers!” he cried. “Impossible! I can’t just make ‘em drop their projects and take this on! They wouldn’t stand for it!”

“Wait. That’s only half ? Thirty per team, then.”

“WHAT?!”

As Thon gaped at him, Dorian turned to Bin with a frown. “Wait. I see what’s going on here. You haven’t told him, have you?”

The general had the decency to look embarrassed. He looked down at his feet. Dorian pinched the bridge of his nose. Really?

“Say,” he said to Thon. “How would you say the Heilong Patriarch and his army—the same army that makes up the bulk of our defenses against the Ugoc invasion sweeping the Desert and toppling Oases—how would you say they’re faring, right about now?”

“Damned well!” said Thon, puffing out his chest. “Smashing those savages back to the north, they are! And good riddance, too!”

“I see,” said Dorian. “Boy, do I have some news for you…”

* * *

Five minutes later, an unusually disheveled-looking Guild Head Thon burst out with a thunderous BANG into the main chamber of the higher-Tier artificers, eyes wild and bloodshot.

Nearly all the room looked up, stupefied.

“LISTEN UP, FUCKOS!” Thon roared. “DROP WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU’RE DOING THIS SECOND! YOU’VE GOT A NEW JOB!”

From the corridor behind him, Dorian looked on with a sly grin. So, it begins.

FIFTY-THREE

SPLENDID WEAPONRY (XV)

Manufacturing was only step one.

Step two was recruitment.

Dorian nodded to Bin. “Assuming this all works out—let’s operate on the assumption it does, shall we? We’ll need some soldiers. The army has, what, five hundred left?”

“Something like that,” grunted Bin.

“If we’re to deal with a full-on Beast Horde—and find wielders for all these Sticks—we’re gonna need a lot more men. As in, several times more. This is where you come in!”

Bin squinted at him. “How, precisely?” “You’ll help fill the ranks with Oasis-dwellers! Hells, even Outskirters will do. Think of them as meat shields, so we don’t need to exhaust the bulk of our armies early. You’ll need to do some recruiting, I fear.” Dorian shot him a sorry smile. “At the moment, my relationship with the Azcan lord and the Rat King is, shall we say, not the greatest. Can I count on you to speak to them? Secure some kind of…deal?”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, boy.” Bin crossed his arms, frowning mightily. “Remember: I have yet to agree to anything more than a test batch! And don’t you presume to order me around. I am the general here—not you!”

“Sorry, sorry! You know me! My foolish tongue runs out on me at times. Treat everything I said as a humble, well-meaning suggestion!”

He grinned.

“Oops. I mean—please kindly consider treating everything I said as a humble, well-meaning suggestion?”

“Still a mite irreverent for my liking. But fine.” They crossed out of the secret lab into the long steel hallway leading out. “It is a good idea,” admitted Bin. “Perhaps because it is the only choice. We need all the numbers we can get. But to go through with this means heeding your bidding, which somehow makes the whole thing…unseemly.”

“See, now you’re getting it!” Laughed Dorian. “You don’t like taking advice from my smug face? Imagine how the Oasis lord would feel if I went to him! As for the Rat-King—what’s that guy’s deal, by the way?—don’t even think about it.”

“He’s a nonstarter for me too,” said Bin gruffly. “I run the military, in case you forgot. He’ll take no orders from me. He does as he likes. The lord, at least, can see reason. I’ll speak to him. Perhaps we can institute a draft.”

“Great.”

There it was. That inaudible clink-clink-clinking, that heaving engine of human misesery sputtering to life: the war machine. Dorian would soon have his weaponry. He’d soon have his men too.

All he could do now was hope it’d be enough!

Well that, and figure out some other heavier-duty ways to prep the Oasis for war. He and Bin donned their cloaks as they neared a discreet backdoor exit. There they bade farewells—he a cheery wave, Bin a curt nod—and they went their separate ways.

And Dorian got to thinking. His big project was set in motion. What would he do now?

The Sticks would be the basis of his ‘Alchemy for the masses’ side gig, but that’d come after they were in high supply. He’d probably whip up some rote recipe for mass production then, something that’d really give the war effort a hearty boost. Like a life sacrifice elixir that’d halve a soldier’s vitality in return for a few hours of turbocharged qi. He’d feed them to the Stick-wielders at the front lines, maybe.

He scratched his chin. It was an efficient idea, maybe, but wasn’t this a little too cruel? Not to him, obviously. But it’d matter to public opinion. What if they got protesters, those most heinous of all killjoys?

In Dorian’s mind the rubes weren’t long for the world anyway, statistically speaking! Why not let them give it all they had? Meh. He’d figure out that nonsense later.

For now Dorian thought of his ‘projects to take on’ in two groups. In one was ‘stuff that’ll bolster the Oasis’ war effort.’ In the other was ‘stuff that’ll bolster myself.’ There was a pleasant sliver of space in the middle there, and that was where he’d shoot for.

Was there some way to ratchet up his own cultivation? Or perhaps he’d invent a new, deadline twist on his Spirit Weapon—a technique, perhaps, or even a mod?

Dorian tapped his chin, yawning. Hm. He looked up at the sky, where the sun had drifted halfway down the horizon. It hardly felt like sunset, and yet…

It has been quite a day, hasn’t it?

Dorian stretched out his back and sighed, satisfied. He was not often sore, nor exhausted. But his body seldom got abused like it did today either. Even gods needed rest, to say nothing of mortals.

I’ll sleep on it.

He sauntered back to camp, warmed with satisfaction.

* * *

High Priest Talen stood in the crowd chunked outside the entrance to the arena, hemmed in so close on all sides that if he opened his mouth he’d taste the salt on the sweaty hairs of the man in front of him. He grimaced. Not his preferred way to spend a lovely afternoon. In his position, another man might’ve been indignant—he, the venerated second-in-command of Azcan’s Church of Jez, reduced to this? But he’d been given a task, and he would see it through. He was a hand of Jez. A good hand does not complain when it is told to grasp, no matter how sore it feels. It does as it was made to do.

Nearly all of this crowd were here to see the Hero’s Sister—or, as he heard the teenage boy beside him refer to her—”that crazy savage girl, y’know? Yeah, the super hot one from this morning—the one who nearly bit off Leo Ouyang’s nose!” Talen snorted. The Church of Jez was not the only ones to take note of her peculiar antics, evidently. Though Talen suspected his reasons for being here differed from the rest of this rowdy crowd.

…differed by a substantial degree, judging by his neighbor’s comments. Come to think of it—

Why were nearly all of them teenaged boys?

…

Disgusting. He wrinkled his nose.

No—his motives were at once purer and much less pure. He was here to recruit her. And he had an offer he knew she would not be able to resist.

At this time she was battling some low-seeded Young Mistress of the Yun Clan. The Church of Jez were By Talen’s calculations the battle should be finishing up by now…

Aha!

The crowd thundered, there was hooting, and cheering, and a glut of noise pouring out—the fight was done.

“Passing through!” Talen shouted, squeezing between the boys before him. “Make way!”

A few let out annoyed cries, but he was very tall, and very old-looking, and no one wanted to be the one to brawl with an old man merely for bumping them. He did earn his fair share of stink-eye. He sneered. Believe me, children, the feeling is mutual.

At last he’d cut his way to the front. Here, right in front of the entrance, right as Kaya emerged from the entryway to a blast of hormonal cheers—

—He flipped up his hood. On it, unmistakable and shining and set in huge embroidery, was Jez’s golden hoops against the pale white cloth. He straightened his back, huffed, adopted a suitably wise-looking, pious posture—head downturned, brows drawn together, hands folded neatly—and waited for her to come.

The golden infinity caught the sunlight so well it drew hisses from the boys around him. It couldn’t have been more gauche if it had the words “NOTICE ME!” Written there in glowing red print. It was nearly impossible to miss—especially for her.

…yet nearly impossible was an apt, apparently, since happily she barreled right past him.

He blinked. What?

Frowning, he picked up his robes and rushed off, mowing down more of the crowd as he did.

He had a backup plan, thank Jez. He dashed all the way down the busy street, beating her to a spot two intersections down the road. There he stood, gasping horribly for breath, at the street corner, and flipped up his hood, striking a pose that he dearly hoped signaled ‘mysterious and very wise-looking old man who has the answers to all your burning questions about your new powers’—or at least, something like it. There he waited. A few seconds later, she was skipping up the road. She’d pass his spot in seconds! She could not possibly miss him.

And then she did.

Talen’s jaw literally dropped. He stared at her, eyes white and wide as bird eggs, as she barreled straight past him, happily humming along. By Jez’s light—she’s the single most oblivious person I’ve ever seen!

Huffing mightily, he picked up the skirts of his robes again and got to running. His wrinkles weren’t for show—he was nearing his four hundredth year! Things that were four hundred years old weren’t meant to run. They mostly lay still. Under heaps of dirt.

Sometimes he had dreams death had finally claimed him. It happened nearly every night now. And yet every morning he’d wake up, look about his gaudy gold-lined room, pinch himself, sigh, and put on his Priest’s clothes, thinking …drat. Still alive.

And it was moments like these—panting down the street, feeling the sun beating its hot fists up and down his backside, feeling the sweat slaking off him in sheets, his skin shriveling like a dried grape as it was wrung for its last drop of moisture—it was times like this that he wished his one remaining working lung would finally give up the good fight, and he could at last have a nice, long—if slightly eternal—rest.

Alas it didn’t happen. Damn you, Kaya Rust!

He’d seen grapes less shriveled by the time he got in front of her again.

This time she could not miss him if she tried.

He stood smack-dab in the middle of the road. Right in front of her. Hood on. Golden infinity pointed straight at her face, not twenty paces away.

She got distracted by an axe in a display case. So distracted, she bumped into him as he was in the middle of chugging in a gasp of air for dear life.

That nearly did his poor lung in, then and there. He felt his heart literally stop beating.

At least he got her attention. She looked to him, wide-eyed. “Oops! Didn’t seeya there, bud! My bad!”

Then, she stepped around him, gave him a slap on the back so shocking it re-started his heart, and kept walking.

His knees buckled. He nearly passed out. His last shred of dignity fled his body.

“HALT! GIRL!” She didn’t turn. “KAYA RUST!” he cried, pointing a quivering, gnarled finger at her.

“I—am—Talen—High—Priest—ofthechurchofjez!” he wheezed.

“Huh. Good for you!”

She turned back around.

“WAIT!” he shrieked, pointing at his cowl desperately. “Don’t you—want to know the—origins of—your powers?! How to—to—control them? Get even stronger?! There’s—so much—you’ve yet to learn!”

She finally clocked the symbol on his cowl. “Oh, nice! You’ve got a contract too?”

He stared. “How do you know about contracts? Actually, never—nevermind that. Do you know who your contract is with?”

She cocked her head. “Huh. Nope. I guess I don’t.”

“Well, then!” Talen drew himself up to his full height. Even bedraggled, he still managed a dignified air. “Would you care to know?”

“Nope!”

“…”

“Really?” He couldn’t keep the shock from his voice. “You’re not even a little curious?”

“Nah.” She shrugged, smiling. “I’m having a good time. That’s all that matters, right?” Now he was gaping at her in earnest.

What in the thirty-three realms is wrong with this girl?! Is she truly so simple? Is she an idiot?!

As though in response, she wrinkled her nose. “Actually, it’s probably more fun if I don’t know! Lately I’ve been following a new kinda thinking.” She leaned in, as though about to whisper a precious secret. “Knowing things is overrated. Life’s easier if you let things come as they are.”

“Hum,” said Talen slowly. “Pardon, miss. But that makes absolutely no sense at all.”

“I know, right?” she said. “That’s the best part about it!”

Then she scampered off.

“Ah! Halt! Halt, I say!” cried the High Priest. He had one last desperate try, one card he hoped he wouldn’t need to pull until they had her on the hook. “One more thing! Your brother! He isn’t who you think—”

But she was already gone.

FIFTY-FOUR

A DIVINE WARNING (I)

The moons rose high over the Azcan Oasis, where qi-lamps winked softly over empty, forgotten streets. A sheen of sleepy quiet settled in like a winter’s first snow, blanketing high-rises and guild halls and boarded-up stores alike. Far above, the waters of the aqueducts streamed swiftly, silently, down their buffed steel tubes. The night was thick with dreams.

It was the Second Solstice. The white moon and the red rose high in the sky, looming huge and bright. Tonight, their powers neared their peaks. It was not like that first Red Solstice, when they’d crossed paths—where qi streamed down to the sands, and the supernatural grew tangible. But it was still a time when the planes grew close to one another. So close they could almost touch.

* * *

Dorian sat, cross-legged, in a room he hadn’t seen in months.

It was the tearoom in his grand estate, all the way in the Zenith Realm. It was a simple room. Walls and floors of thick, pristine bamboo. A straw mat in the middle, a humble table atop it.

In truth there was nothing humble about the room. Each of these trinkets cost a kingdom’s ransom. This mat, for instance, was woven of ten thousand straws. Each of these straws was of the Sheiko plant: a super-medicine, a life-extender which not only cured its user of all illness, but also granted eternal life! All it took was a pinch of the stuff: one straw, ground into a fine powder, could serve hundreds. No matter the cultivation level, no matter the sickness, the Sheiko was the cure. Gods devoted their lives to scouring for a stalk of the stuff.

And this mat was woven of tens of thousands of strands of Sheiko straw.

Which meant that this mat—if ground up, and made into vials, and given to the needy—could grant millions of people hundreds of millions of years of human life. The amount of suffering this one little thing could alleviate? Truly astronomical.

Dorian, of course, had no plans of doing such a silly thing! He used it as a place to rest his ass.

The rest of the room—the table, the bamboo walls—were like this too: valuable beyond measure, yet used for the mundane. Dorian didn’t consider it a waste. They served their true purposes very well: to show off! Dorian smiled as he took it in. Such was the way of a Godking! One didn’t grasp this much power by caring excessively for the needs of others. Not unless they also helped you.

Unless you’re Fate, I guess. Dorian scratched his chin. That god was a nut Dorian never managed to crack. He was one of the few men Dorian met in his many, many lives who, deep-deep-deep-down at the core of their being, really wanted to help people.

Of course some people thought such altruism was their deepest motivation, rather than a very pleasant lie they tell themselves. They thought themselves ‘good people,’ whatever the hells that meant. They might’ve believed it wholeheartedly, and even wound it into their identities. And yet put them through enough suffering, hold it across a long enough span—on the order of centuries, or millennia—and every such delusion cracks. At the base of every man is human nature. The same could be said of every beast, too: everything that thinks is but an animal, in the end! Even Houyi, the Eternal Sentinel—long called the noblest of the Godkings, purest of heart—knew that he was, in his heart of hearts, only human. Dorian had seen the frankly ludicrous lengths that man went to to keep himself in check.

But Fate—deep-deep-deep-down, to his essence, really was good, so far as Dorian could tell. It baffled him.

“I’m sorry that I must interrupt your run, my liege,” said a mild and familiar voice cut through his thoughts. “But I think you’ll soon agree this is necessary.”

A section of wall slid open. In stepped Gerard, his butler, in a trim black suit. His hair was gray, his posture straight, looking as any butler would. But he was very much like the rest of the things in this room. One would never guess this creature had once been the Golden Roc g’xyn, who had carved a trail of bloody destruction across the middle planes until a god was desperate enough to pay Salas Godhunter—one of Dorian’s incarnations—to hunt him down.

That was two thousand years ago. He’d been here ever since, acting as Dorian’s faithful servant. His faith was mostly assured by an ironclad soul contract on pains of death—but still. Faith was faith!

“Don’t apologize,” said Dorian, smiling. He poked the floor. “This is a dreamscape, isn’t it? If you’d actually pulled me out I might be irked. As it is, I only feel glad to see you! What’s it been? Two, three months?”

“Something like that,” said Gerard, blinking heavily as he spoke—scrunching up his nose and eyes with each time, as though he were about to sneeze. It gave him a suddenly avian impression. It was an old tic from his Roc form, and it grew worse when he was nervous.

Gerard almost never got nervous.

“My, my,” said Dorian. “For you to contact me mid run, and not even offer me tea before we chat? This must be some problem.”

“Quite.” Gerard took a seat opposite Dorian. He looked nearly manic by his standards—in that he looked very slightly frazzled, the way one might look upon discovering they’d forgotten their purse at home. But Dorian knew that look. He instantly sobered up.

“I’ve not much time,” said Gerard.” Please, my liege, none of your asides. The Godking Fabro—he is dead. More precisely: he has been assassinated. And his kingdoms across the Middle Realms have fallen.”

“Huh. That is surprising.” Fabro was slippery as hells, and a wily fighter to boot. He had all sorts of dimension-magic space-time-portal nonsense to slip into. The man could find a hiding spot in an opening the space of a fingernail. Not even Dorian could wipe him out clean, and Dorian was a top ranker—not one of the Saints, perhaps, but easily in the top hundred-ish fighters in all the Multiverse on a good day!

“Who killed him?” asked Dorian.

“A strange new talent,” muttered Gerard. “He has risen from seemingly nowhere, and his forces are spreading at an utterly absurd pace. In a flash his followers have snatched up nearly a third of the Lower Realms. Already he and his followers—all ascended mortals—have encroached upon two of the twelve middle Realms. He’s taken the rest of us utterly off guard. They call him Jez.”

“Interesting.” There had been would-be multiverses conquerors, of course. Those seemed to crop up every few centuries. Of course none of them ever got very far. But as far as Dorian knew, such a speed of advancement had never been achieved. “Never heard of him. Give me a rundown, will you?”

“That is the trouble, my liege. We don’t know anything about him. His origins…shrouded, vague. Centuries ago, at least. Perhaps millennia. That much is clear. This network was not made overnight—he has been biding his time.” Gerard blinked heavy again. “All we know is this. He and his followers seem to have some symbiotic effect. He empowers them. In return as they cultivate and grow, they feed him a fraction of their qi. His qi is theirs to use, and theirs his.”

Dorian perked up. “Oh?”

“He’s found some kind of loophole which no one else has still managed to uncover. He draws his powers from everywhere—every realm, every follower—and gives of it freely, akin to planting seeds. Multiply those followers by a thousand, a million, a billionfold…” He sucked in a breath. “You see the danger. Such a creature could grow monstrously powerful! Unchecked? Why—I hardly dare to fathom what chaos he could wreak on the rest of us.”

“Isn’t this overblown?” Dorian scratched his head. “Good for him! Kid’s made progress. But all you’ve described is a church. Hells, I’ve done this path. It’s not that uncommon.”

“My liege, I ought to be clear. The mechanism of a church is to receive qi in return for communion, granting wishes, what have you. Some may form soul bonds with the central diety. But the hierarchy is distinct: they service a god, and for good reason: that god has a vested interest in keeping power. What Jez does is fundamentally different. The relationship is symbiotic. To each of his followers he sacrifices a piece of himself, and in so doing links them to him, true, but him to them also, inextricably. Their pain is his pain, their joy his joy. They draw from the same ever-expanding power pool, each giving of themselves to the whole.” Gerard drew a sharp breath. “What he is forming is a collective. He is only the central node.”

A silence drew over the dreamscape as Dorian took all that in, chewing on it.

“So let me get this clear,” he said slowly. “It’s not a hivemind. When he gives this…‘seed’ of his power—he’s not taking control. It’s a gift, no-strings-attached? Truly?”

“Correct.”

“And if they die?”

“Then that piece dies along with them.”

Dorian was getting the picture. “So. Guy goes around breaking off little bits of his soul, implanting it in followers--most of them much weaker than he. If they grow, this ‘soul piece’ grows. If they die, it dies too. And they all share their qi in one big pool.”

“You have it, my liege,” said Gerard gravely.

On the surface, this seems like a very low-reward, high-risk idea. You’re a god. Why bother? You’d probably make far more progress cultivating normally!” Dorian frowned. “These mortals--they’ll all die in a blink, whether by each other or by time. There’s thousands of soul-bits gone, like that. Hells, even most gods don’t live past two millennia. It’s a fool’s gamble. You may as well throw away chunks of your very precious, very non-renewable soul!

“Correct.”

“And doesn’t this benefit them much more than Jez? By the way you put it they share a collective qi pool. He’s a Godking. His techniques would take large chunks of his pool to cast. His followers are ants by comparison! They could draw endlessly, only limited by how much stress their body could take! While he gets whatever tiny contribution they muster, which barely makes a dent to a Godking! He’s inviting parasites.”

“Mhm.”

“And isn’t the bottleneck in this whole scheme to size of his soul? Souls are not self-replenishing resources! Surely if he shears it out ten thousand times, he can hardly afford more cuts—ah. No. I see.” Dorian blinked. The solution was obvious. If it was anything like a religion…“I’ll bet there’s some self-propagation mechanism. His seed can use his follower’s soul to spawn more seeds. Make a derivative network linked to the main. And in this way it spreads. Only he’d need to convince people to take the same ridiculous, self-sacrificial gamble he has!”

“Why, I hardly need to explain anything, it seems,” said Gerard. He steepled his fingers. “Tell me, then, my liege—since you seem to have all the answers. How did he get so powerful, so fast? And how in the Nine Hells is he on the verge of conquering a quarter of the Middle Planes?”

FIFTY-FIVE

A DIVINE WARNING (II)

“I mean…”

Dorian made a sour face. “Pooling qi shouldn’t be possible. Qi is individual—one creature’s qi shouldn’t be compatible with any other’s! Even I can’t pool qi between bodies, and I’m me. But if you’ve found some way to do it…it’s kind of genius.”

Gerard nodded. “One may vastly increase one’s qi reserves and recovery rate.”

“Yeah. You’ll have to share, true, but the benefits far outweigh the costs.” Dorian was frowning in earnest now. “Get a pool big enough, and, well…you’re pretty much unbeatable one on one. You’ve got limitless ammunition.”

“Therein lies the issue,” sighed Gerard. “Any one of them can easily overpower their peers. And if the head of the snake is as strong as one of the Saints? …It concerns me deeply, if I may speak truly. Our neighbors on Zenith feel the same.”

To which Dorian snorted. “Paranoia has served them well! It’s gotten them this far. But it’s also made fools of them. They can’t truly think he’ll make it anywhere near the Upper Realms, can they? At this rate he’ll unite all the Middle Realms against him. He’ll fizzle out, like all the other would-be conquerers.”

“Not according to Old Man Fate.” Gerard put his hands on the table, leaning over it. He looked Dorian square in the eyes. “Fate has been going door-to-door, clamoring about it for the past year. And each of his warnings, without fail, has come to pass. I think…it is time to take him seriously.”

“Fate?” Dorian said with a light laugh. “He’s still at it?”

“I’m afraid so. He dropped by just yesterday to see if you were home. Something about recruitment for a resistance. I turned him away, of course.”

“As you should.” Dorian was growing rather bored of this whole thing. “All right. So, some new shiny would-be conqueror has cropped up with grand plans, makes early gains and stirs up panic. This kind of things seems to happen every millennium. The Multiverse is massive! no one serious can possibly think one man and his band can run it over. We simply need to weather the storm, lay low. Keep our wits about us, eh?”

Dorian found this Jez creature a curiosity, but that was about where his interest ended. Really, he was getting a little miffed at this whole dreamscape, now that he knew what it was about. “Was all this—” he gestured to the scene about them—”really necessary?”

“If I may, sir…” Gerard blinked heavily. “I surprise myself to hear myself agreeing with our friend Fate. This threat is unlike any other. It has shown itself capable of killing a Godking —and not any mere Godking! It has slain Fabro himself. If Fabro can fall, the rest of us can. It grows far too fast. If keeps this up there is a very distinct chance it threatens the Upper Realms. Perhaps even Zenith itself!”

He paused. “And it may come on much faster than you expect, My liege. I implore you, this once, though I know it is against your nature—please. Deign to take the matter seriously.”

“All right, all right, I hear you,” said Dorian, wrinkling his nose. “You don’t need to lecture me, of all people, about the unpredictability of speed and timing. And if you’re this concerned…hm. I’ll give this another think. Is this what this meeting is about? Spinning up an emergency plan?”

“Precisely right.”

“Bah.” Dorian closed his eyes, rubbing his brows.

Fate was wrong all the time.

It was almost certain that Jez and his force would sputter out.

And yet…the greater evil here, above all else, would be a blithe blindness to the state of affairs.

In his runs Dorian threw caution to the wind. In his main life, on the other hand…things were different. Dorian didn’t ascend to godhood by acting as he did in his runs. Acting as he did in his runs got him killed. A lot.

He grew powerful because, for all his risk-taking, he knew there was a place for temperance.

Gerard’s instincts were seldom wrong. If the rest of the Godkings thought so too, well.

It wouldn’t hurt to take precautions.

But first—

“What about my insufferable brother?” said Dorian with a sigh. “What’s he think, perched on his sad little rock at the edge of the multiverse? Isn’t his whole shtick shooting down rabble-rousers like this Jez?”

“Houyi refuses to act,” sighed Gerard.

“Oh?”

“He shoots down creatures powerful enough to threaten the whole of the multiverse. But only if they are evil. But in his eyes…Jez and his followers are in the moral right.”

“You can’t be serious.” Dorian leaned back, gazing flatly at the ceiling of the dreamscape. “Are you in one of your pedantic moods again?” He called to nothing and nowhere in particular. “At a time like this?”

“There is no help coming,” snapped Gerard. “We must make a decision. Time fades fast—I will not be able to reach you for another moon-cycle yet! I must have your word now. Would you have me do, my liege?”

In through the nose, out through the mouth: a long, slow breath. Dorian closed his eyes, running through choices in his mind in rapid succession. Four slow heartbeats passed. The space shrank further, the edges of the tea-room shimmering, distorting. Gerard glanced about nervously. “My liege—?”

“Fine. Out of, really, a severe overabundance of caution—here’s some drastic steps.” Dorian’s eyes snapped open. “If—big, big if—a shitstorm makes landfall, let’s guarantee that I, at least, shall be safe.”

He stood. “Gather up all my valuables. Take this whole estate-treasure and shrink it, then stuff it in my galactic-scale Interspatial Ring.”

Gerard’s eyes bulged. “Sire. You can’t mean—”

“I do,” Dorian said. “You, and the rest of my belongings, will go into deep hiding for just this little stretch. I grant you permission to access the Unstuck Space.”

A long silence drew over them. Gerard looked suddenly unsure. “Are you certain?”

The Unstuck Space was a distortion zone at the center of the plane of Zenith. More precisely, it was where the Planar Core was: the thing which held up the whole plane, an indestructible mass of unnatural law which not even most Godking could go near, much less touch. Only a Godking of Dorian’s peculiar talents of Time—and, by extension, a very good knack for Space too—could carve out his own little niche in the region.

It was where he housed his main bodies.

To hide there was to house an invisible needle in a haystack that seemed to change size and shape each time you looked at it. Except finding it was the easy part—since when you got there, you had to get in, and Dorian was stepping through a door which should not exist, closing it behind him, and locking it shut behind him.

Utterly impregnable. It was probably the single least traversable space in the whole Multiverse.

“Do it,” said Dorian. “Ride out this kerfuffle in there, and we’ll both come out untouched.”

“As you wish,” said Gerard, nodding. He hesitated. “It’s only—entering isolation, at this precise moment? I worry that Fate won’t be happy about this…”

“Oh, that’s for certain. I’ll bet he thinks I ought to come to his aid. Defend the multiversal order or whatever?” Dorian sighed. “Bless his senile old heart. Listen, I’m glad he’s happy bumbling about the multiverse, helping out the downtrodden and such. It’s where he tries to enforce his blubbery on me that I grow irked. I have no obligation to anyone except myself.” He shrugged. “Call it selfish if he likes. Judge me by whatever moral frame he fancies. It simply is what it is, and I am who I am. Such is life.”

Then he yawned. He didn’t feel tired, of course. He did it for the effect. “Release me, will you? I’ve got a run to get through, and things are just getting interesting!”

“Very well. Until our next meeting, then. Take care, my liege.” Gerard stood, bowing, and the scene rippled everywhere like the surface of a lake peppered by light rains. Then it all went white.

* * *

Dorian woke to the sound of blaring sirens. Not in their campgrounds, but very closeby. They seemed to be coming from within the city limits.

He bolted upright. A few feet away Kaya groaned, propping herself up on an elbow. “Wha?—”

“Attention all citizens of Azcan,” said a voice. “All non-military citizens, report to the Main Square presently.”

It took a half-second for Dorian’s brain to click. “So Bin came through after all!”

“‘s’cuse me?” Kaya was still wiping the sleep from her eyes. “We’ve gotta report? What?”

“They’re instituting a draft,” said Dorian. Like I’d suggested! The ranks of Stick-wielders will soon swell drastically, I expect. Lovely news to wake up to. “We’re military. So, we don’t need to go anywhere.”

Kaya looked at him, wide-eyed. “We are?”

“Oh, right, right. So much happens, hard to keep track who knows what!” Dorian snatched her up by the wrist. “Come on—let’s claim our new housing. It’s high time we cleared out of this shithole anyway.”

“We have new—?”

“No more questions!” he tugged her behind, and they went stumbling into the light. “I’ll catch you up on the way, all right?”

* * *

Their new housing was near the market district, in the penthouse of a towering high-rise. It overlooked the whole of the city. Kaya was quite pleased about the whole thing—and also remarkably uncurious once he’d unfolded the whole story of his Heilong ties to her. She mostly nodded and grinned. She was far more fascinated by the space than his story. She went about oo-ing and ahh-ing at each little thing, which Dorian found endlessly amusing.

There were separate bedrooms. Working plumbing filled with qi-rich water freshly drawn from the sinkhole. Three baths, one of them the size of a small swimming pool. And a living room fully stocked with plush pastel furniture tastefully arrayed, with two of its walls as giant glass panels overlooking the whole of the city. And to top it off—a pantry, restocked daily, with all the sweets Kaya could ask for. There was other food too, of course, but she’d taken to clearing out the candy shelves first with a vengeance.

“Why’s everything so—so spiffy?” She gasped between mouthfuls of a creampuff dessert.

“The word you’re looking for is clean,” said Dorian. He sensed it was a bit of a foreign concept to her. “You know. The things you use the bathtubs for?”

“Bath…tubs?”

He pointed them out.

“You use those to clean yourself?” She stopped chewing, eyes popping. Dorian saw her mind blown in slow motion. “I thought those were giant pots! Like—for making stew out of really big fishes!”

And on and on.

“Say…” he said, once they’d really settled into the space. “I didn’t catch your last fight. How’d it go?”

She wiped some blue jelly off her mouth and grinned. “I won!”

“You did?”

“Hey! You don’t need to sound so surprised.” She pouted at him, but he could see she wasn’t really angry. That was another thing about her—it was like a switch had flipped. She’d gone back to her happy old self. It was almost bizarre.

“I’m sorry,” laughed Dorian. “It’s just—you’ve really gotten a long stronger in the past month, huh? I saw what you did to that Ouyang boy.”

“I sure have!” She rapped her chest proudly with a fist. “And I’ll only get stronger, too —you just watch! This contract thing, it’s so much more awesome than you made it out to be. For the first time, I really feel like me!”

“Oh?”

“It’s all thanks to this—what did that old man call it?” Her brows drew together. “Oh, yeah. Mark of Jez!”

…

Dorian went very still.

“Wait. Say that again. Slowly,” he said. “The Mark of who?”

FIFTY-SIX

THE TOURNAMENT (I)

“The name was Jez,” said Kaya again, licking a puff of cream from her upper lip. “‘Least, that’s what the priest said…”

She paused between munches, then squinted. “Um. Why’re you staring at me like that?”

Dorian was lightheaded. Hells, this Jez guy is fast! How many Lower Realms did Gerard say he’d run over? A third of them?

The chance that Dorian ended up in one such world was one in three. A fact that seemed blatantly obvious now, of course—but somehow he’d assumed he’d gotten lucky, and skirted this mess. Jez seemed like an issue that Dorian could treat much like he treated every other so-called multiversal threat: that was—point and laugh at the idiots who had to deal with it, and then go about his business as usual.

Even still Dorian was still a little incredulous. In his head the Jez ordeal was still filed as a headache meant for people very far away. All he wanted to do was go about his runs, screw around, and all was dandy. All he asked of the world was to be left alone! Was that really too much?

He sighed.

Absurdly, it seemed unfair. It would’ve been more absurd to expect fairness from the multiverse, but still!

This changed everything. Again.

“Uh…” said Kaya. “Are you okay? You look like you just shit yourself.”

Dorian grinned sardonically. Well, I’ve just found out this mysterious force coming to kill me is not only much faster and stronger than I’d once thought—it’s also backed by a Godking-level power! Forgive me for feeling a little miffed.

What he said aloud was, “I’ve just remembered I’ve got some errands to run, actually. I may not be back until very late. See you tomorrow for tournament day 2, all right?”

“Oh. Okay!” Kaya went back to happily munching.

A weird thought struck him. The fact that she’d become a node of Jez’s network…he might even find a whiff of conspiracy in it. The coincidence wasn’t that she was branded—Dorian strongly suspected Nijo—who he now knew as an agent of Jez—was behind it—the conspiracy would be the full picture of the facts: that Dorian got put on a plane Jez was active on, and that he’d interacted with one of the man’s agents early, and that his sister had now been drawn into the network…did he have grounds to suspect some kind of divine interference? That it was no coincidence that he—not Io, but rather Dorian the Godking of Time—was put in this position?

…Nah. That’s a stretch. It was stretching things just to consider this string of events as anything more than chance. Dorian shook his head. Let’s not be paranoid. In isolation none of those things were that unlikely, and look hard enough and you could find suspicion in anything. The fact was this: she’d gotten a dormant soul fragment. That was all. It’d give her some strength, sure, but it made her like Pearl, another grunt-level shard among possibly millions. Dorian would keep an eye on her—there were things he might like to test now that he had a free sample of Jez’s methods on hand. But first…

He had to get stronger. And much faster than he’d anticipated.

* * *

Dorian remembered how, a month ago, he’d chanced upon an elixir formula during the festival. It was called the Devil’s Promise. Its premise was simple: self-immolate. Trade your lifespan and bloodline for quick qi gains. It was stupidly wasteful, and wreaked havoc on a cultivator’s foundation.

He’d given the formula some tweaking, optimizing it, stripping out the chaff, and made a brew of it.

Then, naturally, he’d given it to Kaya to test it. He’d seen her burn up with qi. He’d seen her make a quick advance. And then he’d sworn off it. It wasn’t worth it. A speedrun was primed for speed, of course, but it was still a marathon. Abusing this thing meant you’d sprint until you couldn’t move your legs anymore! Kaya’s advancements were likely something around 10% slower ever since she’d taken it.

Dorian was certain he would never resort to it. At least, nowhere near this early.

Then the last twelve hours happened.

Dorian was not up against just any God. He was up against a Godking-level threat! He had to get stronger, as fast as humanly possible—even if that meant screwing up some of his future. Even if that meant burning up his lifespan.

And here was the hardest pill to swallow. Even if it meant burning his ridiculously hard-won Scales.

To go this route would mean dropping his bloodline density. The mere thought of it left him squeamish. Yet…

It was seeming more and more necessary. Dorian’s resolve was firming with each step as he strode briskly down Main Street, making for a Heilong barracks.

There was one more matter of great concern.

He needed all the help he could get. This meant he had to win whatever ‘Relic of the Old Gods’ was the tournament’s prize. If they’d fished that thing out of deep storage, Dorian had to believe it served some use. Was it Dweller Blood Essence that gave him a glimpse of the future? Or something else entirely? Whichever, there were two things that were true.

First. It’d probably serve him well to nab it.

Second. He was almost certainly not getting it.

Standing in his way were some absolute chunkers. There was Ma Yun, who by virtue of sheer durability might just steamroll Dorian in his current state. There was Young Master Fang, ranked third—one above Eudora Azcan’s fourth. If she’d almost wasted him, and he’d only won because of a highly favorable matchup—since his Spirit Weapon basically nullified her own—

How screwed was he against them?

To say nothing of the Rat-King, who Dorian had never seen fight. But the man was, he gathered, a threat on the level of Bin Heilong.

Dorian was not winning a battle against Bin Heilong. Early Profound to Peak Earth was far too big a power gap.

Which was all to say that desperate times called for desperate measures. And it was quite lucky, he supposed, that he’d asked for bloodline scales as his payment.

The Barracks stood before him, a squat, ugly, nearly windowless stone building streaming with soldiers. Dorian merely had to nod to gain entrance.

Mere minutes later he’d settled into a cultivation room, and locked the door shut behind him. Outside, Heilong Guards were positioned to ensure his privacy.

Cauldron. Ladle. An assortment of gnarly, bruised-looking plants, a noxious root, and bottles of qi-rich waters lay scattered on the floor.

With a fierce light in his eyes, Dorian grimly picked up the ladle.

Time to get to work.

* * *

A few hours later it was done. The brew, at his current power and skill level, was a simple affair.

He held the lip of the vial between two fingers, swirling it about and squinting at the dark liquid.

guild and Family heads alike might weep to see him here, contemplating an act tantamount to heresy. This was the Oasis’ heritage! These Scales were jealously guarded, even more jealously won, and each seldom passed hands without a storm of Blood. They were enormously useful, enormously powerful. What he was about to do was the equivalent of burning a priceless manuscript to warm his hands.

Dorian mulled it over one last time.

Was he really about to do this?

There’s only one salient point here, isn’t there? Foundations could be mended. bloodlines could be replenished. It’d be tough as hells, perhaps, but it was doable.

Dead was dead.

And if he didn’t act—and fast—dead was what he would be when Jez’s army came knocking.

Besides. I can think of quite a few places in this Oasis from where I can snatch some more Scales. It was time, not his bloodline, that couldn’t be replaced.

He downed the liquid.

It went down like hot coals slithering down his throat. He hissed, felt them crawl down each inch of his body, leaving in their wakes a stinging, throbbing burning feeling.

It coiled up in his Spirit Sea, seeking the mouth. There it found its target: the Evernight Basilisk’s bloodline.

Already Dorian’s skin was slicking with sweat, his hands clammy. It took all his mental effort just to keep his bloodline from rebelling, from shucking off the Elixir, as it went about its nasty work. Then the burning sharpened like a white-hot needle wedging itself inch-by-inch into his brain. He hissed.

[Bloodline Density]

[8% -> 7%]

[7% -> 6%]

[6% -> 5%]

It hurt like hells to see it drop—not literally, though that definitely hurt something vicious, but also mentally. It went against every fiber of his being to go back.

Yet he wasn’t really going back.

A few seconds later, the deluge struck.

Qi. The Earth and the Heavens had opened up, and all the world inside was a thundering of qi, an outpouring so vast he could hardly keep hold of it all. He gnashed his teeth, making sure to hold shut the exit to the rest of his body as the flood rushed out. His body wasn’t under stress, only the Sea, which was crying out with it—it felt like he was holding a storm in his core.

It was a dense, thick qi, with that regal heaviness and moody darkness which were signatures of the Evernight Basilisk, and, to Dorian’s vast relief, it followed the path of least resistance. Straight into Dorian’s stores.

[Spirit Sea Saturation]

[23% -> 36%]

Just like that—his qi stores grew by 50%.

But it wasn’t done. The Scales were still dissolving. And with each bit the Sea was flooded anew.

[Spirit Sea Saturation]

[36% -> 49%]

Still it kept coming. Dorian felt a sizzling deep within him as a huge chunk dissolved all at once—

[Spirit Sea Saturation]

[49% -> 73%]

In sum, Dorian had had five Scales’ worth of qi within him. Three of them, which roughly made 5%, could not be dissolved. They were fixtures of his Spirit Weapon.

Now he had four—soon to be three, as the last big glob of Scale fizzed out.

[Spirit Sea Saturation]

[73 -> 98%]

There it was. Peak Profound, in all its glory. He now stood but a half-step from the Earth Realm. With one elixir he’d more than quadrupled his qi reserves. And more, his Javelin was powered by his qi. If it was fast before, with the amount he could stuff in it now? He wasn’t sure there was a thing in Azcan that would match him for speed.

Dorian took a moment to bask in it all. The simple feeling of fullness humming through his Spirit Sea. It was bliss.

Peak Vigor to Peak Profound in the space of days. Done, like that.

He smiled a guilty smile, the sort of smile an addict might have upon relapsing. He knew he’d done something naughty. But hells if this didn’t feel good in the here-and-now!

He felt for his Spirit Sea, and now it truly was a sea, a great, churning, viscous mass. There was so much of it little whirlpools formed along its breadth. So, this is a filled Perfect-Grade Spirit Sea. There was so much qi he could’ve filled ten early Profound-Realm cultivators, and then some—there was more qi than he knew what to do with! It was as though he were a lean mortal, who, in a blink, transformed into a mass monster so burly his muscles could hardly fit on his frame. Qi was, at its most base level, power. It let you hit harder, move faster, last longer. And Dorian would easily bet his raw, brute power was now top five in all the Oasis, including the Earth-Realms with their Golden Cores. He had a hunch it was even higher than that.

There was so much qi it nearly overflowed the bounds of the Sea.

But that was for the Earth Realm. Next time.

For now…he breathed out, exhaling a silvery mist of qi, and stood, grinning with an assurance he felt to his very core. He had a tournament to win.

FIFTY-SEVEN

THE TOURNAMENT (II)

The artificers were nothing if not efficient. In a day they’d rearranged the main floor of their forge. Now, Dorian and Artificer Head Thon strolled on a catwalk above clusters of forges, each clanging and smoking and bursting with sparks. Gruff shouts rose up in spurts.

“We’ve done sixty already!” said Oasis Head Thon. He rubbed his hands. “The first ten came out all deformed and shitty. Kinda like my first two kids. And just like with child-making, it took a fair few tries to get it right. But once we did, it’s all been smooth as steel!”

Dorian glanced down at a long steel table at the end of the assembly line where all the finished products were stacked. He gave it a quick once-over. He’d made the Sticks simple and modular on purpose, and it paid off: these things were shiny clones of one another. It hadn’t taken long for Thon and his crew to bring his blueprints to life—which he’d expected, of course, but seeing things going to plan still scratched an itch deep in his mind. His grin was catlike. “Well done! These will do quite nicely.”

One by one workers in heat-suits hauled them off and strapped them wagons. In batches of five, the wagons trundled out of the room, flanked by Heilong guards. Headed for the Heilong military base, where new recruits and army vets alike would get their hands on these within the hour.

And though money wasn’t a great concern at this stage, the fact that Dorian got a 20% commission per Stick still made that tiny goblin of undying greed at the core of his being cackle with glee.

* * *

Tournament day 2 started with an announcement. One Dorian was itching to hear.

The Oasis lord was set to reveal the prize they all fought for.

What would it be? Pebble had hinted it would be a relic of the Dweller. But Dorian had other hopes.

One thought had stuck in the back of his mind as he took the gamble and burned his bloodline. For the grand prize, the Oasis lord had drudged up great treasures from its vaults—and what in the Oasis were of more value than Scales? Or, even better—an even greater bloodline relic, akin to the Heilong Javelin’s fang? There seemed to be no shortage of basilisk parts scattered about these lands, after all…

With a little luck, his bloodline would soon be replenished!

The Oasis lord took center field. He cleared his throat, and the vibrations rattled about the whole arena, made louder a hundredfold by qi. The crowd’s chatter died down.

“The final day of the tournament is upon us,” said the Oasis lord, “Those who remain are the finest young talents of the Oasis. They shall lead us to a glorious tomorrow, true. But recent matters have made it clear that they must also lead us today. I am sure you have all heard by now of the fall of the Oasis Stronghold at Kal-Dur.”

Scattered murmuring. A subtle tension swept the crowd.

“Fear not!” said the lord. “Though our enemies advance fast, our fighters grow faster. And the Prizess for which they fight on this day shall only boost them to new heights.”

There it is. At his seat on the sidelines, Dorian sat up straighter.

“Behold! The Black Tear!”

The lord held out a hand, and a treasure whirled to the center of his palm, bobbing peacefully.

Damn! Not a Scale. Dorian shrugged. Ah, well. I suppose I’ll have to snatch some of the nobles’ instead.

The treasure was a glass sphere. In it, suspended in a strange white solution, was a teardrop of sheer black. There was black, and there was this black. It would make the night sky seem pale. Dorian got the distinct impression that any light that went into the thing never came out. It was like a hole poked in the fabric of the plane.

Dorian frowned. That thick sheen of glass—it must be enchanted—was doing a marvelous job at stopping any of its aura from leaking out. But even from afar, that teardrop called to something deep within Dorian, within his very sea. Like a massive hunk of metal drawing on a compass. It was unmistakable.

Hold on. He froze. A resonance?!

And not just any resonance.

If that glass didn’t keep that aura sealed, it might drive everyone in this whole arena to their knees! Dorian could tell by instinct. Whatever was in there was dense as hells.

The Oasis lord chuckled. “I call it a tear, but this is a misnomer. In truth this is a drop of suspended Blood. More than that: is the Blood Essence of the Dweller itself. It is one of three such Tears ever collected. The first was consumed by the Moondragon Knight, the second by myself. Today’s champion, Fate willing, shall be the third! The powers it grants are most fearsome, I can attest…”

Then he put it away with a casual flick of his wrist, as though he hadn’t just dropped that absolute bomb in the middle of the arena.

Stunned silence.

So Pebble was right. It is the Dweller’s Blood!

And more—Dorian had resonated with it. Which meant the Dweller, this god rumored to be hidden in the depths of the sinkhole, must be an Evernight Basilisk! Dorian was dumbstruck.

This meant even one drop of his Blood essence would not only be enough to replenish Dorian’s bloodline. That much was guaranteed. It would also boost him tremendously. Perhaps even enough to unlock another Spirit Weapon ability! Or even its second Form?

Not to mention it’d push him into the Earth Realm, too.

Nine hells! He was salivating already. He had to have it. It wasn’t even a question. This thing—

It was all he’d hoped for, and then some! It might be the missing piece. A leap in his cultivation, a boost to his bloodline, and possibly an upgrade for his Spirit Weapon?! If he ate that thing he’d be invincible in all Azcan.

There was something else, too.

The Scales. The Fang. The Javelin. The Blood.

The dots were fast connecting in Dorian’s mind. Of course. They all fit together like puzzle pieces, humming to a resonance. A resonance so pure it could only mean they’d come from the same source. Everything here, on this Oasis if not the whole of the Desert, was built on remnants of the Dweller. These Scales must’ve been Scales that the Dweller had shed, lo those years ago! The Javelin within him, Fang and all, must’ve been one of its lesser teeth.

All this only made him all the more curious about the sinkhole, and the creature that might’ve been hiding at its very bottom…Was it worth paying a visit? Intriguing…

Then the Oasis lord’s voice snapped him back. Right, right—the tournament. He was getting ahead of himself. He could daydream all he liked, but he had to actually win it first!

“Enough dilly-dally!” The Oasis lord smiled. “Let us begin the first round. Young Master Fang! Io of the Heilong! To the stage!”

The crowd went wild. There came a florid blast of cheering and hooting and chanting as Dorian got to his feet, eyes shining. I’ve invested three percent of all my bloodline density into this. His blood was hot with fighting spirit. Time to see just how much of a difference it makes!

* * *

Young Master Fang smiled nastily at Dorian.

“I am not Eudora Azcan,” he said in a hoarse whisper. He licked his lips. “A word of advice: do not let me get ahold of you! You’ll find that I offer no second chances.”

He unfurled his unnaturally long, spidery limbs, and unwrapped his whip from around his tiny waist. Where it passed, the air crackled with frost. A frigid mist trailed the weapon, tip-to-handle, stinging the sands it touched. Dorian could see how this creature was a nuisance to deal with. Every inch of the man was pointy and jagged—and with his whip, his reach swallowed half the battlefield!

But Dorian only snorted.

Seeded number three, eh? Maybe it was due to the astounding glut of aura within him, but he was still brimming with confidence. Irrational confidence, sure, but it brought a smile to his lips just the same. “Funny! You claim you’re unlike her, but Miss Azcan said the very same thing to me. Then I squashed her.” Dorian grinned. “All you Oasis young masters sound the same! All hot air and bluster till it’s time to perform. Then…sadly flaccid.” He sighed. “I finished off Miss Azcan in two strokes. Try to last longer, will you?”

“Hmph!” Young Master Fang’s face reddened. “You think such—such juvenile taunts would bother me?! Fool!”

Oh, my. I’m in his head already? This might be easier than I thought.

Dorian’s own aura flaring to life. Tufts of noxious smoke wafted about him, and the gleaming head of the Heilong Javelin rose above him like a scorpion’s tail.

He had a very simple plan.

The referee raised a hand to the high heavens. “Let the battle commence!”

He charged.

So did Young Master Fang.

By the look on his face the young master hadn’t expected it —this Profound Realm brat, dashing straight at him? His grin grew sharklike as his whip lashed out, making a vicious arc for Dorian’s head.

Truth be told, if he was still the Dorian of a few hours ago, this would be the end of him.

But now—with a Perfect-Grade Spirit Sea filled to the brim—Dorian could make a brutally simple gamble.

A smidge after Young Master Fang threw, the Heilong Javelin shot forth. The timing was intentional. Dorian wanted to get the young master to fully commit to his strike before he threw out his own. No backing out now!

He grinned.

There was one glaring issue with this whole arrangement. For Dorian, that was.

He was too slow. Fast as the Heilong Javelin was, he’d intentionally mistimed it. Which meant the whip would land first!

And it did, in brutal fashion.

Young Master Fang was seeded third for a reason. His whip could cleave steel blocks in half. It slashed a molten line across Dorian’s torso, at once scalding hot and freezing cold, and his chest blossomed in exquisite agony. He hissed, his tunic shredded at its seams.

But pain was all it was.

Above, his health bar was slashed to 30% in an instant. Young Master Fang’s face lit up in shock—how?! It should’ve been zero! He was but a Profound Realm runt, taking the full, unblocked force of an Earth-Realm slash!

Except…on a pure qi-for-qi basis Dorian gambled that his Perfect-grade pool outstripped Young Master Fang’s—even with the young master’s Earth core. He was right. His qi let him straight-up eat the blow.

His eyes glinted. My turn.

Young Master Fang shrieked as the Heilong Javelin, backed by the full force of Dorian’s Spirit Sea, crushed his life-saving treasure like tissue paper and skewered him to the sands in one smooth stroke.

There was a beat. A beat where everyone in the arena processed just what the hells had just happened.

The announcer found his wits first.

“THE WINNER IS—IO OF THE HEILONG!” he croaked.

* * *

Once the clamor had died down—and it took a while for the crowd to go from utterly ballistic to some semblance of calm—the Oasis lord took center stage once more.

“Kaya Rust!”

Dorian squeezed her arm. “Good luck!” he said with a wink.

She was nervous, but she hid it well with a brave smile. “Pssh!” She puffed out her chest. “Won’t need it!”

The Oasis lord cleared his throat. “Versus…Feiyang Shen, Rat-King of Azcan!”

…Ah, shit.

FIFTY-EIGHT

THE TOURNAMENT (III)

Kaya and the Rat-King took center stage.

Kaya bounced back and forth, loose and limber and grinning. The Rat-King, meanwhile, wore an expression that could’ve belonged to a rock face. He looked bored at an existential level.

“Begin!” cried the referee.

Kaya burst out with a lively cry, fists smoldering gold. The Rat-King didn’t move. She halved the distance between them, then halved it again in a bound. The Rat-King didn’t move. Screaming, she smashed a heavy fist gilded with goldlight straight into the Rat-King’s face.

And still the Rat-King didn’t move.

It was as though she’d tapped him lightly with her knuckles. All her force had gone straight into his head with no backlash at all—he didn’t so much as stumble. Her energy had been swallowed whole, gone elsewhere, made void, like that. The only indication she’d done anything at all was a tinge of light red on the man’s face.

He stared at her with flat eyes, utterly unimpressed.

Then that redness moved. It went from his face to his cheek to his neck to his shoulder, arching down the arms, into a hand—all in the space of a heartbeat.

And then that hand smashed straight into Kaya’s gut. Dorian saw her midsection sink in, saw her splutter and choke, face stark white.

It was like she’d been struck by a charging bull. There was a first CRACK! As her life-saving treasure shattered in an instant. Then she was blasted straight into the force-field, splattered against it with a loud THUD, and collapsed spread-eagled in the sands. The gold sputtered out.

Instant knockout!

Dorian winced. She seemed to be okay. Alive, at least? The Life-saving treasure had taken the brunt of the damage. She was groaning and dry-heaving.

It all happened so fast nobody seemed to know what to make of it. Even the announcer was caught off guard, apparently, since there was no declaring of the winner. Only a long stretch where the only sounds that filled the stunned silence were the sound of Kaya’s retching.

At last—

“And the winner is—”

“WAIT!”

The strangled gasp came from Kaya. She’d had propped herself back up to her knees, smiling through a mouthful of blood. “Is th-that all you got? C-come back here!” Shuddering all over, she stumbled to her feet. “I’m—not—done—”

The she coughed up a mouthful of blood—and a small chunk of meat. Her own meat. An internal organ, struck so hard it’d dislodged.

She stared at it for a second.

Then she blacked out. She landed face-first in the sand. This time she didn’t get back up.

“…”

“…”

“And the winner is…the Rat-King!” cried the announcer.

As the Rat-King stalked off, as the crowd roared and bellowed, Dorian frowned at the huddle of medics carrying Kaya off on a stretcher. She’ll be fine! I think. A noteworthy weakness of Jez’s powers: unlimited ammunition was great! But all the quivers of arrows in the world were useless if your bowstring was snapped.

This Rat-King’s power seemed to be energy transfer. The redness where Kaya had struck went into his fist, which went back into her—a redirection, but with much amplified force. Something told Dorian, though, that this little display only scratched the surface of what he could do. Hmm…he’d need to take special care with this one.

* * *

Matches went by without incident. Ma Yun squished his opponent. Lin Zhang had made it to the Top 16 too—she scalded her enemy in an blitzing inferno. The semifinals drew near.

Kaya, mostly recovered and back at his side, was chipper as ever. Weirdly so. She was humming and grinning like nothing had happened. Which was so unlike her that Dorian was slightly concerned. Did she get hit so hard she’s gone loopy?

“Uh…are you okay?” He asked.

“Hells yeah!” she said with a grin. One of her teeth was missing. “I got to beat up a buncha people, and I had a great time doing it! What else could I ask for?”

Then she squinted. “Urgh— Yeah, that Rat fellow. He wasn’t even hurt when I hit him! No fun.”

She hmphed. “I gotta learn to hit harder. Way harder. But the rest was awesome! I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat.”

Dorian blinked. “Uh…sure. Good for you, sis.”

Yeah, she’s lost it. But hey—if it made her happy, who was he to judge?

* * *

The other fights passed in a blink. The only fight of note to Dorian was the Rat-King’s fight with Ma Yun.

Young Master Yun advanced on the Rat-King with frightening speed for a man of his sheer girth. Each step drove a deep imprint in the sandstone terrain. This time the Rat-King’s lips were pursed, his posture hunched, hands high in a boxing guard.

Young Master Yun struck out with a roar. His whole left arm had taken on a strange metallic sheen, shimmering with swirling gray qi—and he lurched as it did, as though the limb had suddenly gotten a great deal heavier.

The Rat-King blocked the blow on his arms. But not even he could absorb that monstrous force. There was a sharp CLANG! And he was tossed into the air. Nimbly he landed on his feet, wincing. Where it struck his forearms flared a bruising purplish-red.

Above, his health bar was docked ten percent. And that was a shot he’d blocked!

In came Young Master Yun again, not a hint of gloating on his face, placid as ever. It must’ve been a hell of a mindfuck: seeing this massive meatball of a man blitz you at lightning speeds with fists that could shatter a man’s spine to fine powder with but a touch—all while wearing the dullest expression imaginable, like he was taking out the garbage.

But by the look on his face, the Rat-King’s mind was still distinctly unfucked. In came Young Master Yun, grunting as his fist went metal-form. Up came the Rat-King’s arms—again! Dorian frowned. One would think he’d learned to dodge this time.

Except Young Master Yun struck, and this time the Rat-King didn’t budge under his block. There was a furious CLANG! —but this was not steel on bone. This rang much higher: the sound of steel striking steel.

The crowd gasped. The Rat-King’s forearms were the same metallic shade as Ma Yun’s. They were as shiny as Young Master Yun’s too. The king hadn’t merely stolen his momentum, and his energy—he’d ripped the man’s technique.

The king’s eyes narrowed, even as Ma Yun’s widened. Then the king struck back.

Hook to the stomach, quick as quick, then up-top when the big man blocked low. There was a sharp CRACK! And Ma Yun groaned, clutching at his nose. Then the blows rained down again. Blindly the big man struck out but the Rat-King slipped with ease. A punishing one-two—BANG-BANG!S shivered the grounds, rattling the stands—and Ma Yun was sent stumbling over himself.

Not bad. Dorian stroked his chin. His fisticuffs are fine. Good fundamentals. That wasn’t what gave Dorian pause, obviously. That ability. What were its limits? Did he need to be struck to use it?

Surely he couldn’t steal the Javelin itself—but could he rip its ability, shadow-strike?

As far as Dorian was concerned this was the one man between him and that sweet, sweet Tear of the Dweller…a treasure that, Dorian dearly hoped, would grant him the time-dilation boost Pebble had speculated on. Good gods would that be useful!

The rest of the fight was one-way. The Rat-King butchered Young Master Yun, whose shocking durability was still, in the end, tenderized via sheer brute force. Each strike the Rat-King landed would’ve easily done Dorian for half his health—if not more. Young Master Yun simply bellowed, desperately grasping, finding nothing, cringing as qi-hardened fists sent new shockwaves up his mangled flesh.

It didn’t look like a fight between two Peak Earth-Realm experts, among the most deadly of the Oasis’s fighters. It was simple bullying. The poor Young Master was left a bleeding mess by the end of it—so swollen in the end that he simply collapsed under the weight of his own bruises, dry-heaving blood, and blacked out.

The Rat-King didn’t celebrate, even as the crowd roared his name, even as the announcer heaped mounds of praise on him—”Through to the finals! A spectacular performance!”

Instead the Rat-King whirled around. His eyes found Dorian’s, his lips curling into a seething snarl.

Dorian simply cocked his head.

Why did he get that same feeling from the man’s fight against Kaya?

The sense that he was still holding abilities back?

Come to think of it, not once had he summoned a Spirit Weapon—and at this level Spirit Weapons were the lifeblood of combat!

Hmm. This might prove trickier than he thought…

* * *

It was soon his turn again. The Semifinals. Things were getting serious.

The announcer called out, “Io of the Heilong! Miss Lin of the Zhang family! To the stage!”

Dorian strode up. He wasn’t at all nervous. Lin Zhang had gotten favorable seeding—she hadn’t had to fight one of the top-five once, and he’d run through two already. Plus, she knew him, and he gathered—wincing—that she rather liked him. At least in a fight that’d serve him well.

Across the arena, a bare sandy basin like a drained lake, Lin waved at him, smiling.

…Huh? Ah, well. Why not? He waved back with a grin of his own. She lit up.

The referee called out, “Begin!”

Almost at the same time, Lin cried out, “I forfeit!”

“…”

“…”

She shrugged. “What? I couldn’t beat you anyway. I’m not even a top ten seed! This’ll save me the pain of getting beat up, right?” She winked at him. “Best of luck in the finals! Come visit me at the guild sometime, mmkay?”

Then, she skipped away.

“…”

The Rat-King, standing on the sidelines, looked on with a mix of horror, shock, and utter disgust. Dorian could guess what was running through the man’s head—I had to take down Ma Yun! This motherfucker gets to the finals with a godsdamned wave?! He found it far funnier than he should have.

* * *

“A little sweetener before our final match of the tournament,” said Oasis Lord Zhang with a wry smile. “Think of it as an incentive. The Tear of the Dweller is perhaps the single greatest treasure I have had the pleasure of consuming or owning. It contains within it the essence of the Dweller’s perception.”

He glanced about the arena, then at Dorian and the Rat-King. “You may have heard rumors that it has to do with time. This is only partly true. It dilates subjective time: for the Dweller can slow his own mind’s perception of time so drastically that one second can seem as ten!”

Yes! Pebble, you beautiful little gnome. You were right!

The crowd ooh’d, but Lord Zhang was not done. “But time is not the only element of perception. So is vision. So is smell. These senses are all transplanted: from the body of a godbeast to your own.”

He took a moment to let that sink in. “Forgive me my immodesty, but it is nearly Oasis legend that I have not been struck by a single enemy blow in the past century. If any of you have wondered why, now you know.”

By this point not even the Rat-King could feign disinterest. His pitch-black eyes were fixed on Lord Zhang, unblinking.

“Of course…the fighter who wins this Tear”—he gave a clear side-eye to the Rat-King—”shall have to swear allegiance to the Oasis, and to wield its powers to the Oasis’ defense!”

The implication was not lost on Dorian. Yeah, I’m guessing the lord thinks I’m about to be crushed.

Which meant just about nothing to Dorian. The opinions of lesser men meant very little to him.

Which also meant that the only opinion he valued was his own.

He felt a brash hotness rising up in his chest, a fighting spirit.

He smirked. He was of the opinion that he was about to win himself a lovely little Tear.

“Fighters!” said the Oasis lord. “To the stage!”

FIFTY-NINE

THE TOURNAMENT (IV)

This time, the terrain was like the Outside: a field of dunes, rising and falling like humps on a herd of camels. Not a shadow in sight.

Already Dorian was off to a rough start.

He eyed the Rat-King, who stood idly on the other side of the arena. His arms were crossed, his eyes narrowed to brooding, angry slits.

And here—in the brief span of the referee’s stroll from ringside into the arena, in the few seconds he got before the battle began—Dorian cast out his mind, scrambling for a plan.

There were two things any great fighter had to keep in mind.

The first was an utter, irrational confidence in himself. Each time Dorian fought he didn’t only know he would win. He believed it.

The second was a sober assessment of reality.

Which, in this case, was that he was likely screwed to all hells!

The truly great fighters were very good at holding those two thoughts side-by-side. Especially when they directly contradicted each other.

So here, Dorian believed he would win. He also knew that to bridge a gap between the current him and a fighter of the caliber of Bin Heilong?

Suffice it to say, he didn’t blame the Oasis lord for betting on the Rat-King.

He’d need a plan. A really, really good plan. And he really only had two things he could possibly exploit. They were the first two things he’d noticed.

The terrain—a field of dunes, chock-full of sands…and the brooding Rat-King, who had a tendency to let his opponents come to him.

The plan seemed to suggest itself. It was simple. It was obvious. That was how Dorian knew it was good. Good enough to bridge the gap?

I guess we’ll see!

The referee made it to his post at last. “Begin!” he cried.

As expected, the Rat-King didn’t make a move. Instead, he simply stood, eyes locked on Dorian. An unspoken challenge hung between them.

And Dorian, baring his teeth, took the bait. He cried out and the Heilong Javelin blasted through the air, scattering sands in its wake—

—and, at the last moment, swerved. Making one big loop around the Rat-King, almost gloating, between curling back at Dorian’s side. A little tease.

The Rat-King frowned. Snickers rained down from the crowd.

By now Dorian knew his enemy was a counter-striker. He liked to use his enemy’s powers against them. So, of course Dorian wouldn’t feed him!

But he did loop the Javelin around again for another run.

And, just like last time, swerved around the Rat-King, making a lazy loop about the perimeter.

Two harsh black lines marred the Rat-King’s temple.

“Hmph! Have you come to fight, boy? “ he growled. “Or are you merely here to waste my time?”

Dorian pretended to consider it. The Javelin made another fake-dip, then curled out the way again. Then again. And a third time, zipping by—this time not even making an effort to go anywhere near the Rat-King!

By now even the crowd was getting restless.

“Do something!” Came a shout.

“Booo!”

“Fight, damn you! What the hells is this?!”

The Rat-King’s hands clenched to fists. Dorian could nearly see the blood boiling in his veins. “You have not been taught respect. Life, to you, is but a playground! You have not a care for honor not tradition! You would spit on our way of life!”

Zip-zip went the Javelin again.

“Eh.” Dorian grinned. “Are you sure you’re not just mad ‘cause I spanked your girlfriend? Twice?”

“Knave!” A vein stood out in the Rat-King’s neck. He took a deep breath, closing his eyes. When he opened them his face had hardened back up. “Pebble has spoken well of you,” he said softly. “He thinks you can one day make a good business partner. He thinks you can learn respect.”

He heaved a long, rattling breath. “I am not so optimistic. I see now that the only way you shall be taught such a lesson is if I carve it into your flesh.”

Zip-zip went the Javelin, playing along the perimeter. It was all but a background hum as the Rat-King held out his hand.

A blood-red handle dropped into his palm. At its end, gleaming wickedly, was the slick blade of a huge, hideous axe. It was soaking wet—wet with a viscous, crimson qi that dripped endlessly from its tip.

Where it fell the sands hissed, as though scalded by acid. But Dorian got the sneaking suspicion that thing would do a lot more than merely burn him if it touched him…

“Halt!” he cried, throwing up both hands. Zip-zip-zip. “You want honor from me? Fine! Here’s my try at respecting you Oasis-dwellers’ customs: as a representative of the venerable Heilong Family, speaking to the great Rat-King of the Oasis, I demand you give me the face of hearing me out! Before we begin this final showdown, it is of immense importance that you listen to what I am about to say. The fate of the Oasis could depend on it!”

“What? Why are you speaking like that?” snapped the Rat-King, frowning. “Fine. I shall grant you some face—this once. Speak!”

Dorian nodded. “Thank you, senior Rat-King. In times of great distress—indeed, in times of battle, or even war, as in the one in which we currently find ourselves—you must know your enemy’s strategy, indeed, his very intent!” said Dorian seriously. He looked the Rat-King dead in the eyes so the man could see just how serious he was. “Indeed, if your enemy is speaking at length nonsensically and without a clear and discernible point, it may simply be because he is in the process of creating, formulating, and otherwise installing a veritable stalling tactic! He could even be setting up a trap—and using his words as a buffer, a way of filibustering, mayhaps— Ee! Wait—wait, I said! I’m not done—!”

But the Rat-King had already launched himself at Dorian.

And good gods the man was fast! As fast as Eudora—maybe even faster!

Dorian turned tail and ran.

Which worked for about two seconds, and then the Rat-King was upon him, and he was forced to whirl around and face the threat head-on. The axe carved for Dorian’s skull. He only managed to dodged it via a desperate limbo. Even so the thing dripped on him. Right on the forearm.

It felt like a chunk of flesh had been carved right off him. It wasn’t only the impact, which felt like burning coals on tender skin. It was the aftermath. The thing was a parasite! It ate away at the wound, and only after stumbling back and willing his qi to shuck the damned thing off did it stop. Just a drop had to have shaved off a solid chunk of his health. A drop!

Then the whole thing carved straight into him.

He screamed.

* * *

What the hells was her brother doing?!

He ran around like he’d lost his head!

Kaya was almost indignant as she watched him stumble over himself. He was just too small, too weak, too slow—and it showed. The axe nearly missed him once.

Then it came back around and sliced him clean across the stomach.

His scream curdled her blood. He fell to his knees. In the same instant, high above, his health bar fell so low she almost thought he’d been killed on the spot. No—it hovered somewhere just above ten percent.

Was it over? Her heart dropped. That fast?

Then she squinted.

A gust of wind buffeted her, sending her hair streaking in all directions. Her sight was suddenly grainy. She squinted, confused—the gusts were picking up, the sands rising steadily. A sandstorm? Indoors?!

Neither of the competitors seemed to notice.

Underneath it all went the subtle zip-zip-zip, the Javelin swerving gently around the arena. Kaya gaped at it. It’d seemed nonsensical to her, at first—her brother’s typical taunting—but suddenly it all clicked into place.

The air in the arena had changed. It would be imperceptible to those within, but outside, she felt it tearing at her skin like stormwinds, all flowing in one direction, spurred on by one whirring Spirit Weapon going round, and round, and round…

The sands rose with it. A chill went up her spine.

“A pitiful performance. A deceiver until the end—and where has that gotten you? Trickery will only work for so long. Then you find there are some who tricks alone cannot defeat. What is left of you then?” Sighed the Rat-King. “You would’ve done better to give fighting me honestly a try. Alas.”

He held raised the axe high above his head like an executioner’s blade.

Then Io started to laugh—a keening, mad, hysterical sound. There were tears in his eyes. His shoulders shook. “I can’t—” he gasped through snorts. “I can’t believe this actually worked!”

The Rat-King paused, frowning. For only now did he notice that he was utterly surrounded.

The whole crowd had been blocked off by a whirlwind of sands, whipped into a rising frenzy, by the slow, patient build-up of gust, to wind, to current, to full-blown tornado, cresting on its own momentum, rising to ceiling and smothering the lights above.

And what happened in the absence of lights?

Too late the Rat-King realized that he, too, was drenched in shadow.

There was the shadow of the sand-cloud all over him. There was the shadow of his own scythe on his face.

Then there was the shadow that the sand-cloud high above cast on his axe. Its head was covered in shadow. A blade which, held above him, hung less than an arm’s length from his face.

Some part of him, some primal warning, didn’t even need to see it. He felt it happen. But even still in moments like these, that urge, so natural, so instinctive, overcame him.

He looked up.

All he saw was white.

For a gleaming white fang had emerged at mach speed—from the shadow cast on the blade of his very own weapon. And in that infinitesimal moment, he saw it in its entirety, filling up his field of view: the wide, conelike end, tapering down to broad, curved sides of pale bone, all the way to that devilishly sharp, the tip gleaming wickedly despite the gloom. He’d had but one tiny fraction of a second to react. He’d wasted it by looking up. Now, the Javelin was less than an inch from the watery film of his left eyeball.

There was something sublime about the whole thing, in the throes of the sandstorm, the man staring down the point of this massive Fang: the instant before the reckoning. If only time could stop, and an artist could be shuttled in to paint a fresco of the scene! But alas—the loveliness only lasted a moment. Time went on, relentlessly, brutally. Something very sharp and hard and heavy, moving at lightning speed, met something very soft and squishy.

Then the screaming began.

SIXTY

ALL THAT POWER (I)

Every god in the Multiverse knew HouyI’s Three Principles by heart. If they hadn’t had it drummed into their heads growing up, they found the Principles on the martial path. They were one of the first things any ascended Martial Artist learned—for they were the fundamental theorem of all combat.

These three principles propelled the Godking Houyi to his title as the most powerful being in the Multiverse. With the three principles, the weakest rat could down the mightiest dragon. They could be summed up in six words.

Right place. Right time. Right force.

That’s it. All fighting, reducible to three simple things. What were movement techniques? They were simply the act of positioning oneself to the right place. What was an offensive technique, but an application of the right force? And this force would work best if done at the right time. With all three in perfect conjunction, a fight could be won in a stroke.

In this instant Dorian followed HouyI’s Three Principles to the letter.

What was the right place to strike but the weakest point of the enemy’s body? What was the right time but when he was caught off-guard, without so much as a prayer of dodging? And the right force—well.

The Heilong Javelin was enough by itself. Powered by the full thrust of Dorian’s newly enhanced cultivation base? It was too much. Dorian almost felt sorry for the Rat-King.

The man howled. His life-saving treasure shattered in a blink. There was a gut-wrenching squelch, a thudding, as the Javelin drove inward, cracking bone, at last coming to a halt lodged squarely in the socket.

Then the Rat-King’s howling grew truly, horribly piercing. He was driven to his knees. He clutched at the ruined half of his face, at the place where an eye had been. Half his face drooped with mutilated flesh. It was like it’d been blown apart from the inside-out.

Dorian winced as he recalled the Javelin. On the bright side—had it not been for the life-saving treasure the Javelin would’ve driven straight through to his brain! That was something, right…?

The icing on the cake:

[Level-up!]

[Shadow-Strike] Lv. 1 -> 2

Lovely!

And that was, in the end, how Dorian won the tournament. Somewhat anticlimactically. Dorian was certain the Rat-King had techniques upon techniques loaded up, ready for use. Many of them undoubtedly fearsome. It was, in a way, a pity! A stupider fighter might’ve sought to prove himself by engaging his enemy at his best. But Dorian was more of a ‘sucker-punch-the-guy-when-he’s-not-paying-attention’ type of guy. Ideally, he’d never put himself in a position where he had to face a greater foe’s full-strength head-on! Anything else was a failure of strategy or ego.

A huddle of healers escorted the still yowling Rat-King off the field. Even the Oasis lord looked a little perturbed as the man was led off. The crowd was mute.

“Your winner of this year’s edition of the Azcan Tournament,” he declared. “Is Io of the Heilong!”

To Io—”Congratulations,” he said with a wan smile. “A well-deserved, if slightly startling, win.”

The cheering was less enthusiastic than Dorian would’ve liked, but he got how a gnarly scene like that could put a dampener on the mood. Still, he smiled to the lord and held out a hand.

“The Tear, if you please?”

The lord paused, mouth half-open. “Ah. Yes. One moment.”

He tapped his Interspatial Ring. Out came that mote of transcendent black, frozen in the glass.

“Remember,” said the Oasis lord gravely. “To gain this Tear is to gain also a great responsibility. You, young Io, are bound to wield your powers for the good of all—”

“Will do! I promise! Good of all! Yup, for sure!” Dorian beckoned, licking his lips. “Give it over, would you? Now?”

“Here? In front of…” The Oasis lord looked uncertain. “Very well—”

He held it out. Dorian snatched it from his open palm, cracked the glass with two fingers, and swallowed the thing in a gulp.

Then, without ceremony, he sat on his ass and started to meditate.

The lord looked around awkwardly. “Your winner, citizens of Azcan!” he said. “Thus concludes the tournament—the festivities commence outside! The Hero shall join me for the closing ceremony on the parade float—err, Hero?”

Dorian felt something poke him in the side, but he was way too far gone to notice. One black spot, a lake of qi and bloodline essence squeezed into a teensy point, sinking deep into his Spirit Sea. Slowly starting to unravel…

“Very well, then,” said the lord with a cough. “Onward, my brethren! Show’s over! Good day!”

* * *

The world swirled about him, a blur of muted sounds, men shouting, chattering, metals clanking…Dorian paid none of it any heed. He was far more interested in what happened within.

It was like he was a man dying of thirst in the desert, cooking alive under the sun—and all of a sudden he’d been thrust into a freshwater lake.

Ever since he’d made his bloodline sacrifice his Spirit had ached. His life-force had cringed. There was this persistent soreness at the base of his skull, a sense of soulful deprivation.

Then the black dot buried itself in his Spirit Sea. It was not explosive. Its contents leaked out slowly, in a steady rhythm, like water through a hole in a dam. Eagerly he lapped it up. Qi, thick viscous oily black qi drenched in the essence of his bloodline, spilled into him. In mere minutes he felt that ache starting to settle.

[Bloodline Density]

[5% -> 7%]

Ahhh…Like a back scratch for the soul! A tide of good feeling washed over him, a bubbling warmth in his chest, and arms, dribbling into the spots between his eyes. He was being made whole again.

And still that thick bloodline essence sloshed into the mouth of his Spirit Sea, filling the spots left empty—and then some…

[Bloodline Density]

[7% -> 9%]

It struck him how the Tear worked. To others without the bloodline of the basilisk, it merely granted the basilisk’s senses. Unable to assimilate into the Spirit Sea, the bloodline Essence seeped into its consumer’s body—the eyes, the nose, the muscles. This was what happened to the Oasis lord. Dorian got this effect too. But he drew far more than merely that out of the Tear, for his body was kin to this hyper-potent Blood!

And there was so damned much of it. It just kept coming!

[Bloodline Density]

[9% -> 11%]

Dorian grinned ear-to-ear.

But the Tear was not done. Not by a longshot.

[Spirit Sea Saturation]

[98% -> 100%]

Oh, shit—

[Spirit Sea Saturation]

[100% -> 102%]

A rumbling was happening deep inside. The walls of his Perfect Spirit Sea were straining to keep hold of all that qi, which sat heavy in him like a reservoir of leaden tar. It’s time!

From the Sea rises the land. Dorian had left his cultivation a mere day ago on the doorstep to the Earth Realm. Now, the door stood wide open—and all he had to do was step through.

He honed in on the center of the Sea, until all of his focus was drilled down on that one point. This next bit was not like the step between Vigor and Profound. This was a subtler change, a condensing, a hardening.

Gather!

His qi almost seemed relieved to take the command. It drew at the point, squeezing tighter and tighter, that heavy tar pack into something compact, nearly solid.

A minuscule mass firmed at the center of his being. It was solid and liquid at once, spinning like a star, sucking in the qi about it in a widening whirlpool. Dorian held it there, pouring all of his will into it. Firming it into the shape of the core it was meant to be.

A tense minute passed as it struggled and spasmed, unable to decide between states of being.

Then it settled into a placid, spinning orb.

[Rank-up!]

[Peak Profound] -> [Early Earth]

[Core Saturation: 3%]

The Core was like an island amid the Spirit Sea, churning with qi. Its grade was the same as that of the Spirit Sea in which it lay. A peak Earth-Realm cultivator could not only hold double as much qi as a Peak Profound, his qi was also twice as dense—meaning it was twice as powerful.

That was all it was to the rubes of this realm. But it meant something else entirely to Dorian.

The Earth Realm would be the place where he’d make his greatest leap in strength. For it would be a leap of a different kind. Sure, he’d fill his Core to its peak saturation, but he cared far more about the Core’s other property.

The Core was the locus of the Natural Laws!

The Earth Realm was a seismic shift from all the realms which came before it. Here, a cultivator could first gain a Spiritual Sense. And with it he could touch upon the Laws: the rules which bound the Multiverse itself. Thon, the guild Head, had sought the natural laws to remake that the lock to the Artificing Guild’s secret chambers. It was these same laws that delivered a cultivator to Godhood—and beyond.

Dorian’s first Law, or Dao, was Time.

Here was the trouble. The Laws were jealous. Though a cultivator might gain insight into many laws, his Core would only tolerate one. Which would Dorian choose this run? He was getting giddy just thinking about it. Time was a tried-and-true option—so was space, or darkness, or poison, or earth…

[Bloodline Density]

[11% -> 13%]

The missive jarred Dorian out of his thoughts. It’s still going?!

The Tear had only shrunk by half! It still pumped out qi thick with bloodline Essence at that same steady rate.

[Bloodline Density]

[13% -> 15%]

[Core Saturation]

[3% -> 5%]

Dorian’s head swam. Heavens!

With each pulse of Essence it was like a fog was lifting from his mind. His thoughts grew sharper, crisper, faster. Sounds that were once a muddle of noise filtered in distinctly from near and far—he could suddenly pinpoint the sounds of footsteps ringing out from hundreds of feet out—eight row, the muted thud of leather on steel bleachers. His senses were swelling with crispness with each passing second. He awaited a pop-up—some signal that it had at last bestowed upon him that gorgeous time dilation technique.

A status did pop up. But it was something else—something that had him panting regardless.

[Bloodline Density]

[15% -> 17%]

[Level-up!]

[Weapon Technique: Blacken the Sky] Lv. 0 -> 1

[Allows the user to control all shadows in a given radius. The user may extend, retract, move, or erase them. Degree of manipulation and radius of influence scale with level.]

Dorian could nearly cry.

This Tear just kept on giving!

SIXTY-ONE

ALL THAT POWER (II)

[Bloodline Density]

[17% -> 19%]

[Core Saturation]

[5% -> 11%]

At last, the Tear’s gifts were slowing. What was a torrent was now a stream, and fast winnowing to a trickle. But before it petered out it bestowed upon Dorian one last gift.

[Bloodline Density]

[19% -> 21%]

[Level-Up!]

[Bloodline Technique: Serpent’s Senses] Lv. 0 -> 1

There it was. If the Oasis lord was to be believed, this marvelous little technique would let him slow subjective time to a truly astonishing degree.

This, plus that new shadow manipulation technique—whatever that was—plus his burgeoning Earth Realm core, meant the Dorian who now opened his eyes was not merely stronger than the Dorian who’d sat down to meditate. He was nearly a different creature entirely. Now, there might not be a being in the Oasis who could touch him!

Not a human being, in any case. Whatever lay coiled in the depths of the sinkhole was yet to be determined…

Hmm.

With his new bloodline Essence coursing through his veins Dorian felt his bloodline more clearly and viscerally than ever. In the distance he could sense resonances glowing weakly all around: other bloodline Scales stashed away by various noble families. But there was a bloodline resonance that cast a long shadow over them all: a fathomless aura rising from the depths of the sinkhole…

It seemed to hum in tune with the Tear. Fascinating. An investigation for another time

For now, Dorian eyed the Tear. Nothing else seemed forthcoming. That was that.

He opened his eyes an gazed out at a new world of color. The darks seemed darker, bringing out new gloomy textures in the shadows pooling over the sands. The lights were lighter, and as he glanced up at the fixtures above he could see each tiny white fiber of light-qi sizzling. As he glanced about he could make out every scuff and scratch on the metal stands. What he noticed most was the sheer precision of his senses: it wasn’t merely that he could hear farther than ever. He could also pinpoint where in exact space each sound came from. In the distance, hidden in the tunnels, there was a heartbeat approaching. Fifty steps away. Forty-five. Thirty. Ten…

These were all but appetizers to the Serpent’s Senses, of course! He got up slowly, like a lazy cat stretching after a long nap. Soon—as soon as he got a chance—he had to get some testing done on all these wonderful new toys…

“You’re awake.” The owner of the heartbeat, a bearded man wearing tournament official’s robes, bowed to him. He seemed rather unkempt for his station—he was missing a finger, and his teeth were yellowed and his breath reeked something rancid. Even his hair was straggly and oily.

“May I congratulate you once more on your victory? It was quite the marvel. Everywhere I go I hear chattering about that final maneuver. A masterstroke, truly.”

“Why, thank you.”

“Of course. May I escort you to the exit?”

Only now did Dorian realize how late it’d gotten. The sky was washed with dull orange. Dusk. He really should be heading back.

A thought did cross the back of his mind—is this guy really a tournament official? He seemed like he’d been dragged out of a sewer…But hey. Who was he to judge a man by his choice of hygiene?

“Lead the way!”

* * *

The path they went down was not where Dorian had come in. In fact this went through a maze of corridors, emerging at a dingy exit at the butt end of the arena. It seemed to be an exit for maintenance workers—one hidden from polite view.

Dorian smirked. Yeah. Thought so.

Outside that door were a half-dozen heartbeats. Tense, fast heartbeats, spread out in a tight semicircle.

“Good day, sir,” said the so-called official softly. He’d shifted to put himself behind Dorian and the door. Prepping to lock it when Dorian stepped out, no doubt.

Dorian could guess what this was about.

He’d come anyway because he frankly didn’t care.

They’ve gone through all the trouble of setting up this trap. The least I can do is step into it!

“How’s your boss doing, by the way?” he said offhandedly.

The man frowned. “Pardon?”

“You know, the Rat-King. Is his eye okay?”

The man froze. Horror crept over his features. He schooled himself as fast as he could, but the damage was done. “I am but a humble servant of the governor, sir. I’m afraid—I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

“Oh, relax.” Dorian snorted. “I’ll cooperate! See?”

He grabbed the handle, yanked open the door, and stepped out.

As predicted, it was promptly rammed shut behind him.

He’d emerged in a loading zone where workers might shuttle to and fro, hauling everything from construction to condiments into the belly of the arena. But right now it was deserted—save for a ring of mean-looking men with their mean-looking knives, that was.

And also one blond boy who looked distinctly uncomfortable.

“Pebble?” said Dorian. He raised a brow as he scanned the tightening circle of men. “Oh, come on. This is beneath you.”

“I’m really sorry about this!” cried Pebble. He shuffled his feet. “Gah! But orders are orders…erm. I—I’ll have to make a serious go of killing you. It’s nothing personal, I swear!”

He nodded to the men beside him. “These fine gentlemen are the Rat’s Fang. They’re the best fighters the Mischief’s got—they’re all well in the Earth Realm, and handy with moon-knives besides.” Pebble bit his lip. “And I’ll have to join in on the action too, I think…”

Glittering silvery claws burst out where his nails had been. He winced. “I am sorry it’s got to end this way, but, well. Erm. How about this—if you’ll stick your neck out I can make it quick as can be! I’m really very good at popping people’s heads off. I’ve had a lot of practice, you see—it’s easier than bottle-caps for me! It’ll be painless. Promise!”

“A generous offer,” mused Dorian. He squinted at the horizon, where the setting sun cast its waning light over the skyline, crisscrossing the grounds with the long shadows of street buildings. All of the men—Pebble included—had shadows. “I must say, though. To ambush me in particular, you’ve picked a poor time of day.”

“Right. Yes! Your shadow tricks. You are very strong, but, I mean…We are seven men, and you can only come at one of us at once,” said Pebble. “I don’t think it’ll work out well for you, if I might be a little blunt…” He paused, looking hopeful. “Could you maybe just not resist? Pretty please?”

“Hmm.” Dorian scratched his chin. As it happened, he was rather keen to try out his new techniques anyway. A happy coincidence. “I’m afraid I can’t do that,” he sighed.

“Ah.” Pebble looked sad. “Well. We’ll be coming at you then, okay?”

“Okay.”

Pebble paused, brows furrowing. “No hard feelings?”

“None whatsoever.”

“Great!” Pebble beamed. He nodded to his men. “Kill him, please!”

The Fang crouched as one, ready to pounce.

Then Dorian raised a hand, eyeing the swathes of shadows draped across the land. He felt a certain kinship to them—as though they were tied to his mind by some invisible rope, and all he had to do was tug.

[Blacken the Sky]!

The darkness answered Dorian’s call.

One by one shadows fled their makers, stripped from buildings and stalls and even the Rat-Fang themselves, racing to pool at Dorian’s feet. The members of the Rat Fang flinched back, hissing, as shadows streamed in from all directions, joining the widening black swamp. The drain on Dorian’s reserves was monstrous. It was a lucky thing his reserves were monstrous to match.

The Fang knew as well as he did what it meant. The space of shadow was his domain! To step within was to gamble with their lives. They all scrambled back, gasping. They’d seen what he’d done to their boss, after all…

Curious how with his newly honed senses, Dorian picked up on such subtle things: the tangy scent of sweat on palms, the quickening of breaths, of hearts, a trembling of the eyes. The delicious smell of fear. He licked his lips. “Well? Who’s first?”

“Fools!” Growled a scarred Rat. His face was hard, yet still pale. “It’s but a trick of the light! Charge the fucker!”

Then the Javelin rose lazily from the shadows at Dorian’s feet like the head of some massive snake. It settled above his head, where the fine point of its tip—still flecked with the Rat-King’s blood—hung still and silent in the air.

None of them volunteered. Dorian sighed.

His qi was down to three-quarters now, in the space of mere heartbeats! “I’m not chasing down all of you,” he said. “You’ll have to come to me.”

He frowned. “Is it the shadows that’s got you all hung up? Here! I’ll make the choice easy.”

The Stadium cast a shadow so large it covered vast swathes of the street.

Dorian grabbed at as much as he could, and yanked.

Instantly all of them were enveloped in a huge domain of darkness. They were all up to their ankles in the stuff, a swathe of blackness that stretched far down either end of the street, smothering the whole of the loading zone. No escape. The Rats looked to one another in horror.

Then, screeching and hissing, they leapt for Dorian’s throat.

Which was lucky, since this little trick by itself vanished nearly a third of Dorian’s qi!

If they’d all scattered in different directions tracking them one-by-one might’ve been a hassle. How nice of these Mischief elites to present themselves to me one by one, in one tight-knit group! He’d been anticipating some drawn-out blood feud between him and the Rat-King’s forces, full of sniping and assassination attempts and all kinds of messy nonsense. Instead…

[Serpent’s Senses]!

Six blurs of motion took on sudden definition. Their arms, thrusting out, could’ve been moving through oil. Their bodies all hung in mid-air, their heads drifting toward Dorian like angry, snarling balloons. He easily twirled around, tracking their trajectories in his mind. Balloons of flesh and blood—that’s all those plump heads were!

Dorian thrust all of the rest of his qi into his Fang, charging it to its maximum speed and power. Then, carefully, quickly, he strung his needle through that loop of balloons. One by one they went pop-pop-pop-pop-pop!

Ah…

He grinned, basking in the shower of blood and brain matter, in the sight of six bodies going limp at once, knives falling from nerveless fingers. They made a lovely thump-thump-thump-thump-thump as they slouched into the sands.

Dorian surveyed his handiwork with satisfaction.

There was still one Mischief fighter left.

Pebble. He—perhaps sensing the danger—was the sole Rat who’d held back. He blinked two huge eyes at Dorian. “Huh.”

For once he seemed at a loss for words.

SIXTY-TWO

ALL THAT POWER (III)

It was a shame, but it had to be done.

The Javelin swerved around, angling for its newest victim.

Then Dorian paused. A neat idea had come to him.

“How about this?” he said gently. “You seem like the honest sort, Pebble. And you’ve been of great help to me. Renounce the Rat-King! Join me.”

“Hum,” said Pebble, wide-eyed. “I can do that?”

“Sure! Hells—your boss is crippled. His best fighters are dead! There’s a power vacuum there, isn’t it?” Dorian shrugged. “Why don’t you fill it? We get along pretty well—with you in charge of the Outskirts and me working inside, I’m sure we can come to a deal that’ll help the both of us. What do you say?”

And all of a sudden, my plan of conscripting all those Outskirters for the war effort is resuscitated. The Outskirter-to-citizen ration was nearly one-to-one, and any moron with a working set of thumbs could wield Dorian’s stick. This might double his meat shield count in a stroke!

Pebble, meanwhile, looked to be struggling mightily with the idea. He hemmed and hawed, gnawing on his lip. “I dunno,” he said at last. He shook his head quickly, as though to clear it. “I gave him my word I’d kill you, and bring him one of your eyes as proof! Once you’ve given your word, you can’t get it back,” he said sadly. “You’re gonna have to kill me, I think…”

“Ah. Shame,” sighed Dorian. He tapped his lip. “Maybe there’s a way around this. Here’s a thought: what if we pretend you’re already dead?”

Pebble blinked. “Huh?”

“Let’s think this through. This is how our battle ends: you’ll run at me. I’ll stab you. Then you’ll die. This is what will most certainly happen in the next, oh, five seconds or so. Right?”

Pebble nodded. “Yeah. Almost certainly!”

“What a hassle,” sighed Dorian. “I’ve got to go through the trouble of using my qi and my bloodline powers. Then I’ve got to wipe your brain juice off my Javelin—do you know how hard that stuff is to clean? And you’ve got togo through the trouble of dying, possibly in great pain. Neither of us wins out here.”

“I guess…but what else can we do?” said Pebble, scratching his head.

“Simply this.” Dorian pointed an imperious finger at Pebble. “You’ve said that you must fight me. And you and I both know that when you do, very soon, you’ll die! Let’s skip all the muck in the middle, shall we? I hereby declare that you, Pebble, are now deceased! I have killed you.”

“Um,” said Pebble. “Pardon, but I don’t feel very dead?”

“Yes, yes, of course,” said Dorian patiently. “But if both of us agree that you, Pebble, will die very, very soon, your actual status in the present is but a quibble. A technicality, really, a mere difference of a few seconds! Let’s not wring our hands over this. Why don’t you simply agree to act as though the entity known as Pebble is now dead? It’ll save us both the hassle of going through with it! And you would no longer be bound by whatever vows that Pebble person made. That person’s dead, after all. Or rather, he might as well be, which is basically the same thing.”

“Uhhhhhh…” Pebble squinted at him. “Are you sure that makes sense?”

“Yes. I am absolutely certain. I swear it on my honor,” said Dorian, tapping his chest. “Would I lie to you?”

“No way,” said Pebble. His eyes shone. “You’d never. You’re honest as honest come—I could tell the first time I saw you!”

…You might need glasses, bud. In any case—

“Great! Then we’re in agreement?”

Dorian was getting a little antsy. Every second that went by, his grip on his shadow domain slipped a smidge farther. Holding all this in place was a hellish drain on his qi reserves. They’d dwindled to less than a fifth!

“Well, there is one thing. If Pebble’s dead,” said Pebble, mystified. “Who would I be?”

Dorian shrugged. “Whoever you want to be. From now on, you’re a blank slate. Take a new name! Be a new man—er—boy? Join my side and leave your past behind.”

“Hmm.” Then Pebble brightened. “New name…what about Crag? Ooh. I quite like the sound of that.”

“Sounds good to me!” Decide, child! Dorian was down to only a sixth of his qi now.

Pebble smiled. “Okay! I’ll go along, friend Io! But first, you’ll need to prove to me that Pebble really would be dead. You need to show me you can kill me for sure!”

“Wait,” said Dorian, frowning. “What are you—”

Pebble pounced, claws flashing.

Whoa!

On instinct Dorian threw up a hand. [Blacken the Sky!]

A swathe of shadow before him took his will as an order. It rose in an oily wave from the ground, blocking the way. It hung there, shimmering, devouring Dorian’s qi at a truly absurd rate—but still he stared at it, gaping.

I can do that?!

Then his lips curved into a wicked grin.

Pebble skidded to a halt. “Whoa! That’s neat—hey!”

All about him, shadows shot up. He tried turning, skidding around, but shadows met him there too—left, right, front, behind—one even slunk over the top, making a cage of sorts. Pebble stood there, frozen. Dorian saw the realization flit across his stunned little face.

Every single shadow was a portal. Dorian could’ve skewered him two dozen times over.

“Need I send my trusty Javelin through, or is this enough?”

Pebble made a face. “Okay, fine! You’re right. From now, on, Pebble is dead. Dead and gone!”

He let his claws subside with a little huff. Dorian let out a breath as he, too, let loose his grip on the shadow domain. It was hardly a choice. All his playing around meant qi reserves, great as they were, were shot. Darknesses fled instantly, zipping across the floor in messy streams, snapping back to the spots nature intended them to be.

Smiling brightly, Pebble held out a hand. “Hello, friend! The name’s Crag—I’m new around these parts. It’s so very nice to meet you!”

Dorian shook it with a grin of his own. “Welcome, Crag. I have a feeling we’ll get along just fine.”

* * *

Halfway across the Oasis, sitting in a high spire of the Church of Jez, High Priest Talen cradled his head in his hands. Father Zacharias paced back and forth before him, his whiskers flaring.

“You had but one task!” he said. “One. How were you incapable of luring his sister here?! The girl’s an idiot!”

“I know,” moaned High Priest Talen.

“By Jez, you could’ve tied an ice pop to a fishing rod and she would’ve come bounding after you!” Zacharias squeezed his eyes shut. It was his task by day to play the kindly priest. Kindness was Jez’s chief virtue, after all. But all that smiling and bowing and pretending to care about, say, some moron’s problems with his increasingly distant wife, who Zacharias had to pretend he was not sleeping with—all that piousness—it wore on a man.

“Restrain and renounce, Zac,” he whispered, kneading his temple. “Restrain and renounce. Yes, yes…all right. I am calm. Calm-er. I am fine.”

He sighed. “Perhaps it is not, in the grand calculus, so important. Lord Jez’s followers already have sound purchase here. When the reckoning comes we shall be ready regardless. Only—she did have quite the affinity for Jez’s blood. It’s a pity…”

“Um,” said High Priest Talen.

“The Ugoc branch heads did seem quite insistent she be recruited. I wonder why.”

“Um,” said High Priest Talen, louder.

“What?” Zacharias whirled on him. “Spit it out, fool!”

Talen pointed one trembling finger out the stained-glass window.

Two stories below, standing and grinning and waving in the street, was Kaya Rust.

“Hi!” she shouted.

Zacharias poked his head out the window, rubbing his eyes.

“It’s me!” Kaya continued. “The girl you gave that gold card to? That thing that gave me powers, right? Something about, um, a contract?”

“Yes! Yes, exactly right!” Spluttered Zacharias.

“Great!” said Kaya. “I just got my spleen punched out of my stomach! See, this is an issue, ‘cause I want to be the one punching the spleens out of other people’s stomachs. Which means I need to get stronger. Way stronger!”

She grinned up at them. “Can you help me?”

* * *

With that little detour sorted, Dorian strolled back home. Home, nowadays, was the penthouse suite that the Heilong Family had given him in one of their swankiest high-rises. A balding doorman bowed to him as he neared.

“Good evening,” he said. “This is for you.”

He thrust a scroll in Dorian’s hands.

“Oh?”

The doorman promptly turned tail and left. At which point Dorian realized this was no doorman at all.

He frowned. Then, shrugging, he unfurled the scroll. Its surface was blank: like the surface of a pool of bronze.

Then a familiar face resolved in the parchment. It smiled.

“Hello,” said High Prince Nijo of the Ugoc Tribe. “How have you been?”

SIXTY-THREE

ALL THAT POWER (IV)

Really? It’s been nearly a month! What took you so long?!

Dorian stared deadpan at Nijo’s smiling face.

And this is how you choose to do it? No face-to-face meeting? No secret lair? A scroll in the middle of the damned street?

“I’m fine, thank you,” Dorian said evenly. “And you?”

“Lovely,” sighed Nijo. “It is, as ever, a joy to be alive. I’m sorry to have kept you waiting. My life has been rather hectic of late, you see.”

His voice was warbled and his long tufts of black hair fluttered behind him, as though buffeted by strong winds. A fleet of clouds whipped by his head—was he mid-flight? It was hard to tell through the scroll, but that clear backdrop behind him seemed studded with the subtle light of a waking starscape. Dorian squinted at it.

“Are you curious where I am?” said Nijo with a soft laugh. Somewhere far beneath him there was a grating shriek, like sandstone grinding against sheet metal, then a thundering crash. “Here. I shall spare you the suspense.”

He angled the scroll down.

Half of Dorian’s view was now filled by the a scaly back ridden with jagged, icy-blue spines: the back of some strange dragon whose webbed, batlike wing puffed out to either side. Nijo sat crisscross atop it.

Beneath him, an Oasis burned.

It wasn’t any old burning. There were the hungry red-and-white tongues of fire pouring through ranks of sandstone houses, melting girders and bringing towers to their knees, sure. But there was also fires of a blue sort: raging infernos of deathly cold qi, spreading like thick swathes of frostbite across the land. And there were black flames too. Flames who left not even ash where they burned. Dorian saw a whole squadron of soldiers screaming, throwing techniques, swallowed up by the black-flame. Their bodies, bones and all, went up in smoke. No remains.

The owner of the flame was a dragon. A small, black-scaled spiky dragon, but no less vicious for it: it was at the Peak of the Earth Realm. Its powers went further than that. And it was not alone.

The sky was teeming with dozens of dragons and Vordors and huge wyrmlike creatures hung on six pairs of wings, drenching the city in acid rains, a dismal cloud of chaos whose outpouring showed no signs of stopping. Atop them, barking orders, were Ugoc Beast Tamers: Peak Earth-Realm warriors all. Their mounts might’ve been beyond that.

Dorian hissed a sharp breath.

By now the razing was nearly complete. The city was deformed, like a wax model left out too long in the sun, sloshing over itself.

“A tragedy, isn’t it?” said Nijo. The scene focused on his childlike face again. He sighed. “This is—or rather, was—the Shimen Oasis. A stronghold filled with delightful flora, and one of the greater powers on the northern border. They are feared and respected across the Desert for their mastery over the lightning magics.”

He frowned. “One moment—”

Then he closed his eyes. The scene swerved as his mount swerved to the side, screeching furiously.

Standing atop a high steel spire—some kind of artifact, a wizard’s tower, by the looks of it—one man was fending off three Peak Earth-Realm dragons, a ferocious look on his weathered old face.

By sheer cultivation he might’ve been the highest Dorian had seen in this plane. He was at least a half-step into the Sky Realm. Maybe higher! And by the looks of it he knew how to wield his powers, too. Blue lightning crackled at his fingertips, stinging the dragons and forcing them back. One took a direct hit to the nose and bellowed, half its face charred black.

“Hear me, savages of the north!” cried the old man. “So long as I, Oasis Lord Yuran, live, you shall never take this Oasis! We Shimen folk know not the meaning of surrender! If you think you’ve got us with but one air raid, you are sorely mistaken! Back with you!”

Then Nijo’s mount opened its mouth. The air around him ran with bleeding colors, distorting, like a fabric suddenly and viciously stretched beyond its breaking point.

The presence of a Law.

White fire poured from its mouth, a fire made of colors in the cores of stars. But this was no mere qi technique. This fire was infused with a will—the hungry, angry will of the dragon, a will which bent the very fabric of the universe to its bidding. This Law had merely grazed the tip of the vastness of the Laws of Fire—Laws which held within them Rage, and Destruction, and Consumption, and Burning, and Heat, and Endlessness, and even Rebirth…this dragon’s Law was to Dorian’s eye crude, like a child that’d only learned the first letter of an alphabet. It held within it merely a trace of Heat.

The old man thrust out his hands, defiance written in the lines of his face. Blue lightning shimmered in a web before him, ready to catch and bind up the attack.

Then the old man’s mouth hung open.

The fire didn’t seem by itself extraordinary. It was not especially big. It was not even particularly fast. It was but a stream of blinding white.

A stream so hot the airs about it howled in agony. Not from the flame itself—but because of the gaping voids it left in its wake, jagged black tears in the fabric of the plane. For the powers of the heavens—even crude and shallow as they were—were intolerable to a lower plane. Their mere presence bent this universe.

It tore through the old man’s web like it wasn’t even there. The man didn’t have time to scream before he was taken by the white. It went through him, too, like he wasn’t there. Went straight through his magic tower, not slowing in the slightest, burned a gaping hole through a steel pillar and vanished, still sizzling, into the sands. All it left behind was the shape of its path, burned into the things it’d gone through: a clean, perfect cylinder of smoldering black.

Dorian had gone very still. A twitching had overcome his left cheek.

“You seem to be lost in thought, friend Io,” said Nijo. “Would you care to share?”

“What the fuck.”

“Mhm.”

“How—” Dorian caught his voice cracking. He cleared his throat and tried again, but still couldn’t keep his tone fully even. “How many Sky Realm beasts do you have, precisely?”

“Oh—” Nijo shrugged. “A dozen in total, perhaps—”

“A DOZEN?!”

Dorian thought about the Heilong Family’s forces, still working on mastering the point-and-click feature of his first batch of Wizard’s Sticks. He thought about the grand total of zero Sky-Realm warriors in the Oasis.

His head was starting to pound.

“You needn’t worry about them,” laughed Nijo. “If this meeting ends as I’d like, you shall never have to feel their wrath.”

Dorian twitched again. “Yeah, uh, I’d like that, too.”

“Besides—it is not they you ought to worry about. Our ground forces are far more formidable.” Nijo paused. “And—if you may permit me a moment of hubris—it is not our ground forces you ought to worry about either. You should be worried about me.”

“Hmm.” Dorian breathed out. “None of that sounds very appetizing. Is worrying about none of those an option? I’m assuming this isn’t a social call. You have an offer for me, don’t you?”

“I do!” Nijo lit up with a smile. It was unsettling. Every expression he made was so deeply genuine, so innocent, that it bothered Dorian in a way he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Like the smile of a toddler untouched by the horrors of the world. Except he’d just finished wiping a man out of existence so thoroughly not even a shadow of his being was left.

“Here it is, then,” said Nijo. “I’ve heard that you’ve ingratiated yourself well into the upper echelons of the Azcan military—well done. When we arrive, I shall need you to dismantle its most troublesome defenses from the inside. Do that and you and your sister shall be spared.”

“And you need me to do this because you can’t take Azcan on your own?” said Dorian hopefully.

“That would be nice, wouldn’t it? Sadly I fear this is not the case. It makes no difference in the final calculus. I only wish to limit whatever preventable deaths I can.” He frowned. “The Shimen…it is truly awful, what had to be done here. Awful, but alas necessary. This need not happen to you.”

“Uh-huh. Or,” said Dorian slowly. “Hear me out—this need not happen at all! You seem like a reasonable fellow. I’m sure we can work out a peaceful deal, eh?”

“Mm. I wish that were the case.” A watery smile graced Nijo’s face. “It is among the saddest and most painful truths that I have had to learn that one must raze the old to grow into the new. To bring about a world of infinite love the order of Jez must first weed out hate. Killing is sometimes a kindness.”

His smile turned wistful. “It’s funny. You taught me that, actually.”

“right.” Of course, Dorian hadn’t the faintest clue what Nijo was talking about! He was pretty sure there was something deeply wrong with the man. “Anyway, I’m afraid I can’t take your offer as is, sadly! I’ve been bound by Soul Contract to defend this Oasis.”

“Oh?” In that moment an immense sadness sagged Nico’s features. It was as though he’d aged decades in a second. “Then I suppose there is nothing left to say, is there? I shall greet you in less than two weeks. On less hospitable terms, I fear.”

Wait. You’ll greet me in less than what now?!

“Whoa!” Dorian said with a slightly nervous laugh. “It needn’t come to that, surely!”

“Needn’t it? It is the objective of the Church of Jez to conquer this and all planes. To bring them under our stewardship. It is your objective to resist. Neither objective is negotiable. The matter is simple, then. Either you fall, or we do.”

“…”

Fuck. He’s right.

“Okay. Fine. Maybe it does. But, err—at least give us the rest of the moon cycle!”

“Why?”

Dorian searched his butt for excuses to pull out. “Why, it’s the Azcan Oasis’ midsummer festival, its most precious annual tradition! You wouldn’t deprive us this last bit of joy before the end, would you? Come on—it’s but a few more weeks. Hardly anything!”

Nijo smiled. “Why do I get the feeling you made all of that up?”

“…”

“Listen, friend. I think this may do you some good. I hope you shall treat what is coming less as an end, and more as…” Nijo put a finger to his lip as he thought. “A liberation.”

Dorian was faintly amused. The more Nijo said, the less sense he made. “A liberation from what, exactly?”

“From the thing you love the most in all the world! The only thing you love at all. Yourself.” Nijo tapped his chin. “Put another way—your ego?”

Dorian had no clue where to begin with that.

Then Nijo waved. “Good-night!”

The scene vanished, leaving Dorian holding a blank scroll, staring at the reflection of his own bewildered face.

What the hells just happened?

SIXTY-FOUR

ALL THAT POWER (V)

That night, Dorian climbed into his cot in a foul mood. Lots to deal with. Lots to think about. And he only had two weeks of prep time?! But all this was fodder for tomorrow. For now, sleep.

He’d put his body under an immense amount of stress. First there was the tournament, then the breakthroughs, then the total qi depletion…his brain felt like it was about to leak out of his ears. Thinking felt like wading through mud. Even gods needed rest, to say nothing of mortals.

Sleep came for him slowly, fitfully.

His dreams were more fitful still.

Cultivators rarely dreamed of their own accord, especially as they grew stronger. Gods almost never did. To a god, a dream was always a sign. Something had disturbed Fate—or someone was sending a signal when all other means of contact failed them. To the high-level cultivator, were usually bad news indeed.

So, when Dorian found himself staring at a void of crackling static, he groaned. What now?

An image, ghostly and shimmering, flickered in the air before him. Is that…Old Man Fate? Dorian frowned. It was! That bone face, the wispy, straggly white beard—but why were his eyes so wide? His mouth hung open, as though mid-shout?

“Orian!” cried Fate. He sounded like he was shouting from very far away. “Listen…fully! You m—”

His voice cut off. In its place was a burst of high-pitched noise.”What is it?” said Dorian with a frown. “What’s happened?” Fate was a fool, but he was no idiot. Fate wouldn’t contact him like if something wasn’t up. This had to be serious.

And given Gerard’s message and Nijo’s threat—you could forgive a man for being a little on edge.

“—you to return! Now!” Fate shook his fist. “—need—fallen—retreat—”

The breaks were growing wider, his figure lighter, his voice farther and farther with each syllable. Now, Dorian could hardly distinguish him amid the noise.

“Is it that Jez fellow?” snapped Dorian, frowning. Come on—give me something!

Alas, with one last incoherent cry Fate faded out, and Dorian was left in the dark once more.

Shite.

* * *

Dorian sat bolt upright, blinking starlight out of his eyes. Shit! He had to assume the worst.

The worst being that this Jez fellow was making far more progress than anyone—even Fate—had expected.

Could this blip on the multiversal map really devour the middle Realms? Or was this even worse? Of Fate’s contacts of the elite Godkings, Dorian ranked among the last he’d call. He knew Dorian’s nature. If he was reaching out now…was Jez on the verge of threatening the Upper Realms?

Dorian frowned. It hardly seemed conceivable! Not since Thurin the Conquerer millennia ago had he heard of such a thing. And Thurin’s factions were plagued by infighting—this was what happened when one empire tried to govern something as wide as the entirety of the Middle Realms. By the time he reached the doorsteps to the Upper Realms he was all but spent!

It was—if only logistically, if for nothing else—nigh impossible for Jez to really pull of something actually threatening.

…Right?

Dorian got to his feet. Whatever. If something that truly concerns me occurs, Gerard will find a way to notify me.

So Fate and company were having a tough time holding back Jez. And by Fate and company, Dorian assumed Fate and five other Godkings. Godkings were by their natures a very individual sort. They were empires unto themselves. Getting them to work together —especially under the direction of another—was a fantasy.

Come to think of it, even five might’ve been optimistic…

The Godkings might not be swayed individually. But if anything really threatened them as a collective?

Jez would find himself staring down dozens of the most powerful creatures ever to exist in the Multiverse. To conquer that great mass was something even Thurin dared not imagine.

Which was all to say that, all things considered, Dorian didn’t really need to worry.

He shrugged. Sorry, Fate! But I won’t be dragged into your petty disputes. You understand.

Besides. Even if, by some mad miracle, Jez did reach Zenith—

Dorian’s precautions made him maybe the most impregnable Godking in the Multiverse at present. The Unstuck Space was tied to the very core of the Zenith Realm itself! Forget the hordes of Godkings standing in Jez’s way. Forget the nightmare of managing a huge inter-universe Empire, and keeping all the factions within in line. On the basis of the Unstuck Space alone, Dorian wasn’t sure it was even possible to threaten him right now. Even Dorian wouldn’t know where to start.

He blinked. Nice! I seem to have talked myself into not giving a shit.

Humming, Dorian slipped into a sleek wyrmskin coat, pulled on some gloves, and made for the door.

Fate could deal with that nonsense on his own. Dorian had more pressing matters to attend to.

* * *

“Behold!” said General Bin Heilong, sweeping his arms out grandly. “The newly formed Stick Unit One. As of now, the most elite battle unit in the Azcan military!”

He turned to Dorian, his thin mouth pressed in a satisfied line. Not quite a smile, but by Bin’s standards this was ecstatic.

Before them, drilling in a training field of flat sand and stone dummy targets, was two dozen Heilong Soldiers. Each of them held a Stick. Each of them was mean, fit, and eager. Each of them was at least Peak Profound.

“Not bad,” mused Dorian. “If they’re to stand up to the Ugoc, they’ll need to be quite proficient with my Sticks.” And that’s only to stand up to the Ugoc’s basic forces! Their Sky Realm beasts I’ll have to deal with personally.

Dorian winced at the thought. It was absurd to even think about in his current state. But he had two weeks—and he was himself, after all! If anyone could pull this off, frankly it was him.

First things first, though, the footsoldiers. It’d make his life a hells of a lot easier if these soldiers could fend off—even drive back—the Ugoc ground troops.

“How far have hey come?”

“Hmph! Don’t you worry. On that front we are well covered indeed!” Bin cleared his throat.

“Attention!” Roared Bin. The soldiers went stock-still. “A demonstration is in order! Show Io here the fruits of your training.”

“Aye!” Boomed the soldiers as one.

“See that target?” Bin thrust a gnarly finger at a stone pillar in the distance. “Strike it with a Thunderbolt!”

“AYE!”

Dozens of thumbs hit dozens of buttons. A storm of lightning shattered the stillness of the air, crackling in a giant web of blistering yellow across the field. Dorian had to duck to avoid being struck. There was a screeching, a chorus of yelps, the smell of burning and smoke. And then a silence.

Half the soldiers were twitching on the ground. The sands of the training ground were streaked black all over, sizzling with flimsy wisps of smoke.

The stone target, meanwhile—not a spot on that craggy pillar! It might’ve been the only thing on the field left untouched.

“…”

Dorian looked over the scene once, end-to-end. Then he looked it over again, just to make sure he was seeing correctly.

…Oh, Saints. We’re all going to die, aren’t we?

Bin coughed. Dorian glanced at him, and nearly fell over. The general’s face was totally black with soot and singed hair. He blinked slowly, mouth half open.”That…hm!” he coughed again. “Err. As you can see, we still have some ground to cover. But I assure you, we shall be more than ready when those bestial scum call on our doorstep!”

He thumped his chest. “In two moons’ time, they’ll be in fighting shape. I promise you that!”

“Two weeks.”

“Pardon?”

Dorian felt a little queasy. “I have it on very good authority that they shall be here in two weeks.”

“Will they, now?” Bin wiped his face with a forearm. Under all that soot, he’d gone deathly pale. “Hm. Hm! That is rather…inconvenient.”

Dorian was already walking away wide-eyed, as though in a stupor.

“Halt! We’re not done here!” cried Bin. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Dorian glanced over his shoulder. “It has just occurred to me,” he said slowly, shaking a little, “That I’ll need to grow, ah, an order of magnitude or two stronger if we are to survive this thing…”

He paused.

“So I’m going—how should I put it?—fishing.”

* * *

Father Zacharias dropped a heavy tome on the table. “This is the Ten Thousand Holy Words of Jez. It is of critical importance you study them, for they form the foundation of our faith! Only with a deep understanding of each Word can you be truly ready to—”

“Nope.” Kaya yawned. “No reading. Get to the punching!”

“Ah, yes. A common reaction among new recruits.” Father Zacharias smiled patiently. “You shall soon learn, I fear, that in order to run you must first walk. Here, that means making reading a priority. Nay, a habit! For only by learning Jez’s teachings can you accept his powers in full.”

Kaya frowned. “Can’t read. Don’t know the letters.”

“Then I shall teach you.”

“Do you want me to beat you up?”

“…”

She yawned. “Fists. Now! Or I’m leaving.”

“Impudent girl!” Sneered an acolyte nearby. “I was much like you when I first joined. Impatient. Hot-headed. Foolish. But soon I learned that— Hrrngnggh!”

That last bit came when Kaya gave him a hearty kick to the nuts. He fell over, whimpering. She gave Zacharias a side-eyed look. “I’m getting bored! We doing this or not?”

The father swallowed. “Very well,” he said. “To the training rooms, then—”

* * *

The training rooms floors were made of some tightly bound straw, the walls a deceptively firm gold foam. Strange bone pillars were scattered about, holding up a low ceiling.

Kaya had been here an hour and had gotten one punch in. All that fighting spirit, no way to let it out! She felt like her head was about to pop. “She’s not a complete neophyte. She’s touched on Jez before,” said Zacharias, standing to the side. “Treat this as a review. I’d like her to ground her instincts in theory.”

“She’s in good hands, Father. I’ll do her right!” The trainer was dark-haired, handsome, tall, about her age, and far too handsy. “The first step to harnessing Jez’s power is to grasp for the truth within you.”

He smiled, patting her on the shoulder. “It’s somewhat obscure. Don’t sweat it if you don’t get it! Most don’t manage consistent summoning until a few moons in.”

Kaya frowned, batting the hand aside as it wandered a little too close to her back. “Grasp for the truth? What’s that s’posed to mean?”

Father Zacharias spoke up. “It means, simply, to be yourself. Most of us go through our lives unsure of who we truly are. We put up fronts. We delude ourselves. That is not the essence of Jez.”

He held up a hand. In an instant, his fingers were wreathed with silky threads of gold light. “Jez exhorts his followers to grasp for what makes them truly them! For only then can you reach the innermost space of your soul, and seize the fragment of Jez’s within you. Only then can you claim it for your own.”

“Huh,” said Kaya.

He snapped his fingers, and the light vanished. “For that is the mission of Jez. To liberate the masses! To let empower every spirit to live out its truth, no matter how small—”

“If you try to sneak in another book lesson, I’m gonna beat you up.”

“…” Zacharias coughed uncomfortably. “Why don’t you try it out?”

“And again. Don’t worry if you can’t manage a gold spark,” said pretty trainer boy, coming in closer. He’d gotten so close she could smell his fishy breath. “These things come slowly. It can take years of soul-searching to discover who you are. I, Shirou, am among Jez’s most talented young disciples—and even I— “

He held up a hand, and a weak goldlight flickered across his palm. “Even I haven’t managed to summon more than a palm’s width.” Kaya blinked at it. That’s it? I thought it’d be bigger.

“Indeed. It took nearly a decade of hard practice to summon Jez across my whole body,” said Zacharias.

“You see, it isn’t enough simply to know who you are,” said the boy with a tinkling laugh. His other arm was creeping over her shoulder, again…“The hard part—the part most everyone never fully manages to do—is you have to accept it. Make it a part of you. Get so deeply in touch with it it becomes you…”

His hand was swooping down her lower back.

“Shirou…” said Father Zacharias, a note of warning in his voice. Even he was getting twitchy as the boy’s hand crept lower.

“Yeah, I don’t get it,” said Kaya, pouting. “Literally not a single word either of you just spouted made a lick of sense!”

“I’m sure it’ll come in time…” whispered Pretty Boy. “I’ll help you.” His hand went past her waist.

She pivoted. For an instant her leg lit up with a furious, blazing gold shine.

Zacharias gaped at it. Pretty boy gaped at it. Then she punted him in the nuts.

The boy’s eyes bulged, his mouth hanging slack. Then he made a long, whining hrngggggggggg sound, dropped, and curled up into a shivering, whimpering ball.

Kaya turned to Zacharias, grinning. “More!”

SIXTY-FIVE

ALL THAT POWER (VI)

It was fast becoming clear that Dorian’s current strength level was not going to cut it.

Not by far.

He was at best as strong as that other Oasis lord. The one who’d gotten wiped off the face of the plane by that blast of Fire Law. And that was one Sky-Realm dragon, among a dozen! And what’s more—

There was Nijo to contend with. And whatever else human experts the Ugoc had.

It was enough to make Dorian’s head spin.

He had just two weeks to slap together a plan to counter all that?! There was no technology he could dream up that fast that was up to the task. No elixir, either. Even if he could pull some Uber-cannon out of his ass, it’d need a lengthy construction process.

Two. Weeks.

There was simply no time!

Two weeks was not enough time to touch on a Dao, and infuse his Core with it. Even for Dorian that project would take a month. And he’d need the right environs, the right materials, the right insights…nope. Not happening.

There was, in the end, only one path Dorian saw. And that path led him here.

He paused, arms crossed, before a gate composed of two sheets of the corrugated steel so big they could’ve made up one side of a fortress by themselves. The gates led into a high, spiked wall which towered over the buildings of the nearby streets. The place this wall encircled was Dorian’s target.

A squadron of guards in Heilong garb flanked the gates to either side. Two of them rushed up to him as he drew near.

“Halt!” cried one. “This is a restricted zone! Anyone who wishes to access the sinkhole needs Special Clearance by way of the Governor or General Heilong himself! Produce your identification, interloper!”

Then Dorian pulled back the hood of his cloak, letting the noon sunlight illuminate him. Dorian waved a hand in front of his face. “Is this good enough?”

One guard gasped. The other stood frozen, gaping. “Of course, Hero!” cried the non-frozen guard. “Our deepest apologies—forgives this one’s poor eyes for, ah, failing to recognize your honored self—”

“Yes, yes,” said Dorian, waving an impatient hand. “Let me through, will you!”

The guard made a fist. “Open the gates!”

A huge lever lay by the door’s side. It took the strength of four men to pull it. Then the dam broke down the middle, slowly swiveling open, groaning with a grating of stone and a hollow clattering of massive, hidden gears.

“Thanks!” Dorian started on through. To either side of him, the rows of guards bowed down as he passed. He smirked. After months upon months of being treated like a diseased dog, it was nice to flex his status for once.

A pity he had such a short time to enjoy it…

“Sire?” Called the guard’s tepid voice from behind.

Dorian stopped. “What?”

“May I—if it is not too presumptuous of my humble self—inquire what you plan on doing here?”

“What else? Entering the sinkhole.” Dorian left out the part about probing its depths. The part about seeking out the source of his bloodline, so that he could power a deep well of bloodline-burning—and rocket himself high, high, high-up. To irresponsible, unstable heights, honestly! Heights that no Earth Realm practitioner should ever reach without proper grounding in a Dao.

In a perfect world, Dorian would bring up his cultivation and Dao insights in tandem. He’d blend the two like interwoven strings into a wondrous tapestry of being, and be all the more powerful for it.

In this world, on the other hand, he was about to go all-in on sheer cultivation. It was the difference between gaining muscle slowly and responsibly, keeping up a lean physique—and eating every last scrap of meat in sight, and bloating up to a fat blobby mess.

In other words, it time to become a whale! Or so he hoped. Who knew if this heaving blubber of power would be enough to contend with even a fraction of the Ugoc forces? And who knew if there was that much bloodline in this sinkhole—or if it was even accessible by him?

Either way, the idea—the stupid, ridiculous, long shot idea—had him at once eager and desperate.

“How deep do you wish to go?”

Ah, yes. There was still this guard, frowning bushily at him. Better shoo him off.

“Not very,” said Dorian casually. For if he admitted the truth—that he was going deep and possibly disturbing a maybe-Demigod at the center of Azlan’s water supply—which was the foundation of the whole of the Oasis, in a desert—

The Oasis lord might not take well it.

“Ah, good, good,” said the guard, breathing a relieved sigh.

“Why do you ask?”

“Sire, it is forbidden by decree of the Oasis lord not to go past 50 arm-spans.” The guard shuffled about, looking nervous. “That is where all the fishing, the harvesting water-crop, the growing of kelp, the pumping of aqueducts—all that occurs above this depth! As you descend past, to 100 spans…”

He gulped. “That is where the trouble begins.”

“Oh?” Dorian perked up. “Do tell.”

“The deeper you go, the more qi-rich the waters become. And as a consequence…the more powerful the Spirit Beasts within. At the surface the greatest dangers are spearfish. But past 100 spans you may encounter the lesser Gunk Eels—Profound Realm beasts, one and all, and horribly toxic besides! They seldom rise to the surface, but their nests plague the region.”

“Hmm. Noted.” Profound Realm eels were but bugs to bat away for him at this point, no matter how toxic they were. “Anything else I should know about in there?”

“Well…” The guard swallowed. “Past 150 spans you enter the Eel King’s territory. Therein lie Earth-Realm Beasts—drakes, water-wyrms…perhaps, if you’re particularly unlucky, even a dragon turtle. Their cores are precious, but the risks far outweigh them. no one has been to those depths in over a century. And if you’re very unlucky you may meet the Eel-King himself. And no one has survived to speak of him.”

“Gotcha.” Things were getting slightly concerning. “What else?”

“We don’t know.”

Dorian raised a brow. “Explain.”

“Err, you see, sire,” said the guard, a bead of sweat forming on his brow. “no one who has gone that far has come back alive. The last who attempted it was a team of peak Earth-Realm experts, centuries ago. Top Rankers all—among them the Oasis lord’s genius nephew, Yilei Zhang, who—it was rumored—was a half-step into the Sky Realm! Their bodies floated to the surface hours later, pulverized to mush.”

“Huh.”

“That incident is what prompted the Oasis lord to institute the depth ban.” The guard hesitated. “You ah—forgive my impudence—you are planning to respect it, yes?”

Dorian looked scandalized. “What sort of ruffian do you think I am? Of course! I am the Hero of the Oasis! I would never break rules.” I put his hand over his chest. “I shall stay above your limit. I swear it on my honor!”

The guard still looked a little hesitant, but he could hardly push it now. Not when Dorian had sworn on his honor. That would be flagrantly disrespectful.

“Of course, sire.” Bowing, he withdrew.

With that little obstruction cleared, Dorian happily marched into the sinkhole proper. Behind him the heavy gates swung shut.

Time to make a god bleed!

Or—more realistically, if Dorian was honest—scrounge around for little Blood droplets that god left behind at the sinkhole’s unknown depths. The sinkhole itself was spread before him now: a vast circle of crystalline blue, shimmering lustily in the sunlight. Great metal tubes—the pumps of the aqueducts—fed into it, sucking in gouts of water that thundered as they streamed up the metal. All along the perimeter were little farming projects: floats of multicolored crop soaking up the rich qi of the sinkhole. Thick forests of kelp floated about, its dark-green tips bobbing up to the surface.

Dorian set foot at the edge and stared into the abyss. Clear as the water was, past a certain depth it grew darker, murkier, thicker. If Dorian squinted he thought he could make out the vague outlines of huge, scaly bodies shifting among the deepest lines of kelp.

But those weren’t what he was looking for. He cast his senses for something deeper—a subtle resonance that he’d felt each time he neared this sinkhole. A resonance that’d grown into a deep, mighty thrumming which rattled the very particles that made up his being. He felt like a plucked string. He licked his lips.

This was no normal resonance. That much was certain.

He breathed deep, rubbing his hands. Here goes nothing!

Ker-plunk!

* * *

Father Zacharias watched, helpless, as the idiot a month into training tore apart his most gifted young acolytes one-by-one. With such—such absurd ease!

“HRNGGG!” Groaned poor Ptu, paling as he hunched over, hopelessly cradling the soggy remains of his ballsack. He’d been Zacharias’s latest, greatest, hope. Alas—he now joined the roomful of groaning boys rolling about on the ground, mourning the deaths of their fertilities with whimpers and drawn-out moans.

The girl really liked inflicting pain. Liked it far too much for any proper disciple of Jez! And once she’d found this little anatomical loophole, she was downright vicious in her exploitation.

Even Zacharias himself shivered, unconsciously drawing his legs a little closer together.

“Awesome!” Kaya bared her teeth ate him. Her whole body was wreathed in shining gold. “I think I’ve got the hang of it. What next?”

Zacharias sucked in a sharp breath. What have I done?

“Let’s pivot to another aspect of Jez’s training,” he said quickly. “Jez’s cultivation is distinct from all the methods you know! To access it, you must tap into your inner self—that which is connected to the soul of Mighty Jez. Rather than channel its power directly, you must draw it into your core and circulate it.”

“Huh.” She cocked her head.

He was about to suggest she try a few training exercises to familiarize herself with the qi pathways. He was about to suggest she first spend the afternoon practicing drawing the powers of Jez into her meridians. He was about to say It will likely take you months, or even years—

But he swallowed it all. What the hells did he know? This girl wasn’t human!

“Why don’t you try it out?” he said, weakly.

She beamed. “Okay!”

She closed her eyes, frowning, puffing out her cheeks in concentration.

In an instant it was like a furnace had been set ablaze within her—a furnace of sheer gold qi.

“Careful!” cried Zacharias, reaching out. Suddenly, she was burning up with it, gold aura shedding off her in thick waves, too much for her form to hold. She coughed, eyes widening, and rather than air gold qi spewed from her mouth.

She fainted.

Tentatively, as though touching some fatally wounded predator, Zacharias poked her. Her skin was scalding hot—

—and she’d risen, in the space of a second, from the very base of the Profound Realm nearly to mid-Profound!

Zacharias felt his head spinning. This…

What the hells—apologies, great Jez—what in Jez’s holy name is this nonsense?!

Then Kaya’s eyes fluttered open. Coughing, she propped herself back up and grinned. “Hey! Did I get it right?”

“I—yes,” he stammered. “But, ah I must caution you—do not go that fast in the future! Come to think of it—do not cultivate for at least the next day. Your body at present—it’s…that stunt nearly melted you down from the inside. Even now, your skin is only held together by Jez’s light!”

An issue I’ve never seen a single follower of Jez have to deal with. Until now.

Zacharias’s head was spinning. The girl simply didn’t make any sense!

She blinked. “Oh. Okay.”

“Another thing.” Zacharias swallowed. He had to get this in early, before she got too deep—too strong, too stuck in her ways to heed his words. “It is of vital importance that you pair Jez’s powers with kindness,” he said sternly. “You mustn’t misuse the light of Jez. It is against his most basic teaching!”

“But I thought you said to stay true to myself?” She frowned.

“Precisely so. That is the key to all of Jez’s theory.”

“But what if my true self is that I really like hurting people?”

“That…” Zacharias paused. “That, erm, is not supposed to be the case. The teachings of Jez reveal that the true self within all of us is really our shared humanity. It is the benevolence and reason which govern the human Spirit! That is what connects all of us. One for all. All for one.”

“Huh.” Kaya squinted at him. “I don’t buy it.”

Zacharias choked on his spit. “You can’t simply— that’s—that is not how it works! This is theory. The foundation of Jez’s scripture.”

“Yeah, or so you’re telling me.” She jabbed a finger at him. “How long did it take you to get your whole body golden, huh, old coot?”

“…Eight months.”

“Well, it took me an hour. So, why should I listen to you?”

“…”

“Thought so!” She put her hands on her hips and looked up at the ceiling. It was as though she could see through the wood into the other, higher chambers of the Church. The ones with Jez’s techniques. The ones with his treasures.

“So. What else have you got for me?”

“I…”

Zacharias’s mouth had gone bone-dry. …Just what kind of monster have I created?!

And then, with considerably more despair as he watched her strolling about, prowling for more nuts to crush—

And why did it have her? How in the Nine Hells did she deserve to receive such an affinity?! The girl’s an idiot!

SIXTY-SIX

ALL THAT POWER (VII)

Dorian took the plunge. Ker-plunk!

At his stage, one breath could last an hour if necessary. He could go a month without eating if needs be. His body was fueled mostly by qi. So, he was heedless as the sinkhole waters enveloped him in a cool embrace, heedless as he sank farther and farther in, feeling vast currents swirling and coursing all about him. He went on, seeking the depths—the fathomless deep blue and the promise of that sweet, sweet resonance.

At first there was only things he’d seen at the surface: farming cages knotted with flora, nets draped over schools of silver-scaled fish, kelp forests drifting to and fro, mottled with warm hues by the sunlight. Only little critters up here: small schools of fat, lazy fish, oysters clinging to the sinkhole walls.

What he sought went deeper. To the places the light hardly dared touch. As he swam, slicing easily through the waters, sunlight grew dimmer. The kelp forests spread out, twining and drifting over each other, choking the light above. Even from here, down some twenty-odd spans, Dorian couldn’t see how deep these stalks of kelp went. They only seemed to widen and multiply as he swam. The sinkhole was a big—nearly as big as the Coliseum in size—but a solid half of it was entangled in this stuff!

He kept going.

Soon the fat fish thinned in number. The oysters vanished. The atmosphere was less cheery sunny lazy, more gloomy murky drab. The water was thicker somehow—gunkier. Each kick of his legs, each stroke of his arms took ever-so-slightly more out of him. And he could hardly see far at all—his hand was a dim pink haze before his eyes.

So it was not with sight that he sensed them, but with sound. And smell. A gift of that awesome Tear of the Dweller.

A gift that might’ve saved his life.

All about him, rank, rotting smells were drifting out from the walls. Drifting out in arcs. Coming closer. At first it was only a few, behind, in front, a smattering from above. And then more and more, breaking out, closing in.

Dorian squinted.

Suddenly his pupils dilated, and what once seemed impenetrable melted away—he saw, but not like humans did. He saw as he imagined the Dweller must see. He saw them all around him in perfect definition, without color: Gunk Eels. Like giant squirming tongues made of gray, rotting flesh, one gooey, watery eye gazing out from a face that could’ve been drawn from a child’s nightmares. Each of them had maws studded with rows upon rows of dagger-sharp teeth, and from them spewed an inky gunk which hissed as it left their mouths, as though it was burning the water itself.

Profound Realm beasts, one and all. There were even a few in the Earth Realm.

And there must’ve been dozens of them!

Dorian had dove straight into the middle of their nests. Blundered in, crudely, brutishly—like a fool with hardly a plan in mind. Very unlike him.

All this was true, but Dorian had also come in with a few key facts in mind.

He was in the Earth Realm. He had the Heilong Javelin, now spiced up with two bloodline techniques. He had the Serpent’s Senses—an ace-in-the-hole.

Plans, strategy, tactics—none of this mattered when you held the ultimate trump card.

Absolute power.

He smirked. Of the Mortal Realms, he now stood at the second-highest stage of cultivation. There was only the Sky Realm left before godhood, and he’d wager he was strong enough to go toe-to-toe with the typical early Sky-Realm Spirit Beast.

Which meant after his latest breakthrough—in theory, at least—almost nothing in this Oasis could threaten him!

Time to put that theory to the test.

Dorian drifted there, letting the Gunk Eels seal up the exits, hemming him in, tightening like a net…

But this environment was dark, soaked in shadow. The deeper he went, the deeper the shadows grew. It took but a flicker of will to call them to his aid.

[Blacken the Sky!]

Darkness flooded the waters.

The eels tilted side-to-side, bewildered, their one eye suddenly made blind. The only one who saw through it all was Dorian. It was all clear as day to him, for these shadows answered to him. What they saw, he saw too.

[Level-Up!]

[Blacken the Sky] Lv. 1 -> 2

Ooh! The technique’s drainage went down nearly a quarter. How convenient.

Dorian smiled, a flash of vicious white in the dark. Then, right above, another prick of white: growing brighter, larger, a cruel fang unsheathed from the shadows themselves.

Dorian closed his eyes. He saw the eels in his mind, points mapped easily by his new senses.

Then he connected the dots.

There was no screaming underwater. There was no writhing. It happened very fast—and his Fang, powered by a full Earth-Realm Spirit Sea, did its job with brutal efficiency.

It was like a needle sewing: back-and-forth in clean lines, mercilessly stringing through flesh and bone as though there was nothing there at all.

By the end of it there was a pleasant stillness. These gunk eels did him the courtesy of not bleeding. They simply hung there, inert, gaping, Massive holes punched through the centers of their bodies. Some were cut cleanly in two.

Dorian surveyed his handiwork, satisfied. Not bad. Not bad at all!

A nice warm-up exercise. It was a useful rule of thumb, when entering a dungeon, to clear out the chaff.

If he found himself needing a quick escape out to the surface, the last thing he needed was these things gunking up the route!

Then Dorian froze.

He felt in an instant like a bug trapped under glass staring up at the blinding and infinite sun. Something formless and absolutely massive drifted over him—and he knew, somehow, that he’d been seen. The mere gaze was enough to send all of his nerve endings flaring. It was so monstrously huge it felt like he’d been swallowed whole, held in place under an aura whose sheer breadth and heft was stole his breath, weighed down his chest.

It passed, retreating once more to the depths from which it’d come.

For a time, Dorian only stared at the blackness below him.

What. The. Fuck.

He’d barged in here gung-ho because he should’ve been essentially invincible in the Oasis! Yet—

That thing. That didn’t feel like the pressure of a Sky-Realm creature…

That felt like the pressure of a fallen God.

Dorian swallowed. A demigod—or even higher, potentially!—that’d been so wounded its cultivation had dropped back to a line straddling mortality and godhood. A line that let it seek refuge in the Lower Planes…

The Dweller. That was it. It must be!

The revelation had him slightly nervous—and also utterly giddy.

It’s true! The damned thing’s alive!

He hung there, treading water, without a clue what to do next.

On the one hand he’d just confirmed the existence of a creature that no doubt had the capacity to slaughter him. And he had no escape techniques, really—certainly not down here. If he went farther in, and it took it as a sign of aggression…

But did it?

To it, Dorian must seem like a fly! There was no hint of malice in its gaze. Only an impassiveness—a passing glance thrown his way as it shifted to other things. Dorian knew creatures like these, that dwelled at the bottom floors of dungeons. The affairs of the riffraff seldom concerned them.

Or am I just trying to talk myself into going farther?

…That was probably it. The safe, smart move would be to regroup, call himself lucky that it hadn’t come after him, and live to fight another day…

He frowned at the deep waters, dithering.

Then he felt something.

That resonance, once more—but now that he was closer, he felt something peculiar about it…

Was it…moving?

And in more directions than one. A resonance drifting to north, another, subtly different, shifting south. He strained his senses to their limits—was that a mote of bloodline aura, moving in a semicircle?!

And, finally, he put his finger on what set the sinkhole’s resonances apart from all the other bloodline resonances. What made them so vibrant, and deep, and layered.

They felt like his own.

Which was to say, they weren’t inert, dead relics. They belonged to the living.

Nine fucking hells. Does this mean what I think it means?!

Either there was more than one Dweller, or the thing had descendants!

Descendants filled with fucking bloodline! Fountains of Blood, swimming about, waiting to be sucked dry, burned up, waiting to rocket him up to the highest stratospheres of cultivation! This was not scrounging in the muck for possibly a bloodline relic, as he’d originally intended. This was draining it from the source!

He was getting too giddy. Far too giddy. His inner goblin was screaming at him to dive down there this instant and slurp up a seafood buffet and good heavens did it take a firm hand on the inner leash of his soul to reign himself back! Hold on—just a second—

If I go down there, like this, and try to slaughter creatures with my own bloodline—creatures who the Dweller may hold dear!—

This could very well be the last anyone ever heard of him.

Yet how, after that, could he not go deeper in?! If only to explore? If the whole point of this ordeal was to bloat up on empty calories—why, if he had access to this kind of bloodline to burn, he could practically skyrocket himself far into the Sky Realm. He could in an instant bloat himself with so much qi he’d be an army unto himself! He’d be a step from godhood, just like that!

Okay, bit of a stretch. Calm down. That so-called step still meant imbibing and fashioning and deepening a Dao. That was still a tremendous undertaking.

But if he could seize this thing and set all that bloodline ablaze he might become the strongest thing under Heaven. Certainly the chunkiest thing. The sheer size his qi pool would be made his head spin—it’d be like comparing the sinkhole to a common pond. He was nearly forming his own pond of saliva just thinking about it. This heft of qi wouldn’t be merely uncommon. It’d be bordering on unheard of for any mortal. It’d be the most firepower he’d wielded as a mortal ever.

Greed and caution warred within him. Yet he already knew, going into it, that greed would win out. What the hells was he to do—not try for it?

The only thing he conceded to wisdom was to reign himself in a bit.

He could not afford to brashly stride into those depths. All his assumptions were flipped on their heads. This little stunt with the Eels was a one-off. From now on, slow and cautious. If anything, he told himself, he’d merely go take a peek at it.

He nodded. He was well and truly warming to the idea now. Yes, yes, just a peek—just to scout things out! It couldn’t hurt, right?

And if an opportunity does arise, well…

We’ll see, won’t we?

He plunged farther into the depths.

SIXTY-SEVEN

ALL THAT POWER (VIII)

Breath check: no issues there. He still had a good half-hour, maybe more.

Qi check: good, and fast recovering. Merely swimming these waters gave him a pleasant boost to his qi recovery. He felt the energies of the universe seeping through his skin.

He was ready.

His mission had changed. Where once he’d come as a treasure hunter, come to clear out some Beasts and perhaps snag some stray Blood, now he felt like a spy. As he swam deeper, he cast his senses out as widely as he could. He soaked in the smells and sounds and tastes drifting about him. Slowly a crude map of his surroundings took shape in his mind’s eye.

Down and to the left: a domed, hard shape, scaly tail sticking out, drifting amid the kelps. Its neck and head were a drake’s. It was a Dragon-turtle, or Xuanwu. Two lumps stuck by it, tiny clones of its shape: children, maybe? Whatever the case, Dorian steered clear of it.

He was lucky he’d inherited his serpent’s senses. He noticed a flurry of swirling water raring up from ahead, closing in fast. He pedaled out the way just as a school of water-wyrms, gilled, webbed bastards of their land-bound cousins, raced on by. Nearly all were deep in the Earth Realm.

Phew! He kept swimming.

To his right, nestled into the wall, a hive of drakes. He gave it a wide berth. Another school of water-wyrms, Earth-Realm one and all. He swam around them. Deeper and deeper he went, a hundred spans deep, then two hundred…

The resonances were only growing stronger. He felt them like heatwaves sinking into his flesh, warming the core of his being. They only grew hotter as he drew near. And they grew more distinct, too, each flush with its own life-signature. They sung to him sweetly, ferociously, shivering his soul, boiling his blood. The closer he got, the more alive he felt.

He was only a hundred-odd handspans away—he could feel it! By now there was no light, and neither was there much kelp—or anything at all, for that matter. The walls had gone from hard-packed sandstone to a moldy craggy stone. This was no place for the living. The Beasts that swam these depths were huge, nameless things: fishlike, eyeless beasts with skin the consistency of rock and gaping, toothless maws.

Still Dorian was as a moth to a flame, drawn in almost irresistibly…

He felt it before he sensed it. He sensed it before he saw it.

Right above him—piercing down, a sudden and colossal presence—

Blindly he wrenched to the left, and a huge tongue of flesh speared by.

HUMAN SCUM!

A deep, warbling voice echoed in his mind. Telepathy?!

The thing spun around, and Dorian saw it in full. It might’ve been the ugliest beast Dorian had seen this run: every inch of skin was marred with a sore or a scar, its cyclops face squashed flat on one side. It was like a Gunk Eel—but more. Bigger, uglier, gunkier—and, most pressingly, most powerful.

From it emanated the furious aura of a Sky Realm Beast.

FUCK!

Dorian tensed, calling his Javelin to his side. This could get ugly.

HOW DARE YOU TRESPASS UPON MY TERRITORY!? HOW DARE YOU SLAUGHTER MY CHILDREN?! The Beast spun around, bearing down upon him again. I, EEL KING WO, SHALL MELT YOUR FLESH OFF YOUR BONES!

The thing opened its mouth—

This time Dorian didn’t even have time to react, it happened so fast. Part of it was his fault, really. He’d been so focused on this new threat that he’d lost sight of what was below.

One moment the Eel King was there. The next, he simply vanished. A Sky-Realm Beast, gone. Just like that. In his place was a wall of scales, shooting upward in a torrid blur.

Dorian blinked, squinting, struggling to pierce the darkness. What?!

It took a heartbeat for the rest of his senses to catch up. Then he registered it: a raving heat of sheer resonance blasting out from this wall, a thump-thump-thump-ing of some great and powerful heart. And then the wall curved in on itself. For it was never a wall at all, and as Dorian took it in—the whole of its breadth—it dawned on him.

Was that…a throat?! A throat studded with scales, upon scales, upon scales…

Scales that looked a lot like the scales he’d swallowed…

He froze.

His vision was limited to a black-and-white sketch, and its range left much to be desired. So, he only made out the nature of this new thing as its mind-boggling heft curled around to greet him.

Basilisk!

Its head was like two gargantuan slabs of polished obsidian bolted unevenly together, opening into a mouth frothing with inky spray. And what a mouth it was! So big it went beyond his field of view—like the mouth of a cavern filled to the brim with rows upon rows of wicked teeth. Teeth that looked an awful lot like his own Javelin. To either side of this mouth were two slitted eyes wide as a man was tall. Now, it trained its gaze on him.

It felt like he was standing before a furnace of sheer resonance. He was certain his skin was about to melt off his body!

Hold on. Dorian’s eyes went wide. I know this thing!

They knew it as the Evernight Basilisk…

But he knew it by another name.

Is this thing a fucking torchdragon?!

He was astounded. Here?!

He knew these things. He’d fought these things! These were Godbeasts native to the upper layers of Hell. It was said that they were born at the center of volcanoes, and there they dwelled their entire lives, feeding off the toxic ash and molten brimstone following explosions. They fed off the qi at the core of the plane itself!

Among the serpentine bloodlines, torchdragons were top-tier—no less venerable than such great lineages as Raindragons or Azure dragons, the births of which could shake a Realm by itself. Dorian had only seen a handful across all his lifetimes. As Salas Godhunter, tasked with hunting one down for its heart, it’d taken Dorian centuries just to find one. And the ensuing fight was hellishly tough—even as a Godking facing down an Empyrean!

And now, in a middle-of-nowhere backwater Lower Realm, he’d found one. An infant, judging by its cultivation. In adolescence it’d already be a god. Not merely one torchdragon, either—judging by the resonances below, several.

It was mind-boggling. It was absurd!

These things all ran through Dorian’s mind in a flash as he and the torchdragon eyed each other. And one thought, above all, rang in his head.

If this thing decides it wants to eat me…

I am so utterly fucked.

Dorian almost didn’t dare to so much as let his heart beat. It seemed only curious for now—Dorian sensed its emotions through the resonance, a swamp of confusion. It must’ve been wondering how it could feel kin to this tiny thing. How its blood ran hot in such teensy veins.

Dorian hoped against all hope that this shared bond would be enough.

A long, horribly slow beat passed.

And then a resolve seemed to settle in the torchdragon’s mind. Dorian’s heart dropped. Oh, FUCK—

Dorian bolted.

The Fang materialized in his hand. He grabbed on with all his strength, and willed it to get the fuck out of here! It shot up—

Not fast enough.

It defied all logic how something so massive could move so fast. He’d seen it rear up—almost teleport—to snap up the Eel King. But in the back of his mind its speed seemed unbelievable, somehow impossible.

Until it happened to him.

He’d gotten not five handspans before a lance of white-hot pain tore up his thigh at the joint. He gasped, glancing down. Precious air bubbles fled his lips. It’d sunk its teeth clean through his leg! But not fully through. This was by intent. He saw it in his eyes, then, its horrid, cruel, huge eyes. It didn’t want a piece of him.

It wanted the whole thing.

Then it tugged, and Dorian knew that he could not resist. Not even a hundred Dorians could resist the heft of this force, it was so vast, so undeniable. It’d be like trying to pull back against gravity. He’d be helpless as the beast dragged him back in, perhaps to the sinkhole floor—dragged him down, and ended him.

His heart sank like a stone in his chest.

He knew then what he had to do, and he did it without a moment’s pause. The Javelin fell, sheared through flesh and bone.

He screamed. It felt a hot nail had been hammered into the center of his skull. The pain was so piercing he almost blacked out. But he was free, free as the torchdragon twisted downward, its fleshy prize in maw, thinking it’d won.

By the time it realized it’d been tricked its prey was already fleeing to the surface.

As he went up, clutching onto his streaking Javelin for dear life, Dorian had another hope. A prayer, really, to any god who might be listening.

For Saint’s sake, do NOT let that thing follow me!

His prayer was not answered.

At the far edge of his senses the waters were thrust aside with astonishing speed. It was all Dorian could do to invoke [Serpent’s Senses]—but even still, pushing the technique to its limits, the thing moved so fast it was like he hadn’t slowed time at all! His only reprieve was that it was no longer teleporting. He could at least see it move. Which meant he could react, and that made all the difference.

In a blink he’d halved the distance to the surface.

In a blink it’d more than halved the distance to him.

Holy—

One last desperate thought shot to mind. One final trick.

He could see the sunlight now through the kelp-forests! But it wouldn’t matter. It was too late. He’d barely breach the surface before its jaws closed around him. As though on cue its maw opened wide, bristling, and Dorian felt through the resonance a blast of ravenous hunger. Dorian had but a fraction of a second. Here goes nothing!

[Blacken the Sky!]

There was no time for any huge shifts. That didn’t matter—all he needed was two slight adjustments. The kelp forests cast flickering shadows all above him. He willed them to detach, to pool into a space just large enough for his Javelin to enter.

Then he willed the shadows made by himself—those shadows he cast on the massive snout of the Beast—to pool, too, hanging there in the water. An exit point.

Then he let his Javelin go.

It slipped into the space of shadow above, and vanished.

And then it was only him, free-floating, defenseless as those ridiculously huge jaws hinged wide open. But all Dorian was focused on was that second space of shadow. The one he’d made on the torchdragon, and held still as it opened its mouth, as it kept coming up. The one that now sat squarely at the center of its open jaw as it made to swallow him whole.

Just when they were on the verge of clamping shut, when they neared their peak extension, when Dorian could see the fleshy innards of its throat puckering up, the Javelin emerged again.

The Jaws came down. And so the fatal race between the two began. It finished an instant later.

The torchdragon’s Jaws almost clamped faster than Dorian could think!

But Dorian had one crucial advantage—momentum. Each tiny fragment of a second meant the torchdragon came farther up. Meant the distance between its fleshy throat and that shadowy pool was cut that much shorter.

A torchdragon’s Fang gored flesh.

But this time, not his own.

SIXTY-EIGHT

ALL THAT POWER (IX)

A rule of thumb: creatures impenetrable from the outside often hid a soft interior.

The Javelin gored through a huge chunk of flesh and kept going, spearing through a bulbous bulge of throat, quickening as it went.

He saw the torchdragon’s pupils flare out, dilating, a trembling corona of pale orange. The Beast’s jaws made to clamp down, and gagged—mere feet from crushing Dorian’s head to paste. Dorian’s heart skipped a beat.

Then they breached the surface. Dorian shot up first. The torchdragon writhed in hot pursuit, burning up with fury, blinding sunlight slicking furiously off its scales. They hung there for an awful, interminable moment in the air, borne aloft by sheer momentum.

Dorian let out a heavy, shuddering gasp. Any instant those two jaws, those two hulls of endless, man-sized teeth, would snap shut. Any instant he’d wake up in the Unstuck Space, his run brought to a bloody and painful end—

But they never did.

They held still, wide open, like a gate jammed at its hinges. And all this time something wasn’t still.

The Javelin had not stopped moving. It had gone down, even as the torchdragon had gone up, and it found only soft mushy flesh. Even the rougher sinews and muscles were ripped wide open as it speared down, seeking an end—

One heartbeat. Two.

And then gravity took hold of both he and the torchdragon again. Down they went.

Shit! A quick [Cloud-Treading Step] vaulted him over to the side. Away from the Beast’s still-gaping maw.

As he rocketed away, he observed the falling body—Hells that thing was massive!— and saw it’d gone slack all along its scaly breadth, utterly at the mercy of gravity. Its eyes gazed dully. Its jaw hung loose. Dorian’s breath caught. Could it be?

Two sounds came next.

The first, only Dorian heard. A clink! —a sound his Javelin made deep in his soul. At last it’d bore up against something hard, definitive. It stopped.

The second the entire Oasis must have heard.

The torchdragon’s body—so huge its shadow stretched across the whole of the sinkhole—a body which must’ve weighed as much as a fleet of steel battleships—struck the water, tail-first.

It was so violently loud it blew out Dorian’s ears. Just the vibrations rattled him down to his bones, sent his teeth chattering. The whole world shivered with it, as though stung by an electric shock.

Then came the water. Dorian saw it rise then rise higher, and higher, and higher still, until it smothered the light of the sun.

He didn’t even bother trying to escape this one. He was spent. He accepted his fate, let it crash down upon him, and then was lost, wrenched about in a melee of monstrous currents, dragged into a universe of irresistible chaos.

For a time he was spun, tossed, battered, drowned. Then the waters recede, and he washed ashore gasping, spluttering, alive.

Brushing the wet hairs from his eyes, he scrambled up.

The torchdragon lay belly up in those sinkhole waters.

Dead.

Dorian’s whole body went limp. Dimly he felt himself fall to his knees. I’m ALIVE!

He laughed. Hysterically. Freely. HAHA! By some mad roll of the cosmic dice—godsdamned alive!

Then another thought struck him. His laughter choked off.

He scrambled up, tried standing, forgot he’d lost half a leg, swore, and then settled into a flamingo perch. Stable, he squinted at the sinkhole. At the corpse.

The corpse full of fresh BLOOD!

Cackling, he kicked off.

Behind him he heard gears cranking. The gates were blowing open, guards streaming in as he flew through the air. Voices cried out—’WAIT!’—

Then he swan-dived past those endless rows of teeth, past the torn-up strips of throat, deep into the blackness of the torchdragon’s gaping maw.

There was one thing and one thing only that any Beast Hunter did upon first slaughter. Before the Blood could settle and get stale and dry into the corpse itself.

Beast Core!

***The Beast Core was much like the Spirit Sea. It held all a Beast’s Blood Essence. Left alone, it’d leak out and infuse the body, making bloodline relics.

Sure, there was bloodline to be had elsewhere. A good handful of this torchdragon’s scales might qualify as bloodline relics. Its larger Fangs might too. But the real treasure lay deep within.

The real Blood Essence was stored in the Core. Most often, it was nestled right under a beast’s heart.

And it just so happened that Dorian’s Javelin— still stuck in the torchdragon’s body—had carved him a tunnel straight through the thing. Greedily Dorian plunged in, ricocheting off squelching, fleshy, awfully warm walls of a sagging throat, diving farther down the fleshy, sticky tract. He landed in a splash of strange, sticky oil-black acid. It hissed but didn’t burn him, almost as if it knew not to. As though it knew he was kin. Then he slid down the world’s gunkiest waterslide in complete darkness, led only by a sharply growing sense of resonance and his own rising eagerness.

There!

A glow—not of light but of Blood, of heat, something like a boulder nestled in these walls of flesh—his Javelin lay beside it. Gritting his teeth, Dorian sank his fingers into the walls of the creature’s intestines. He skidded to a bloody halt.

Right before it.

Then, trembling, he climbed for it, stabbing handholds into the creature’s insides until he was side-by-side with the thing. Up close it felt like he’d put his face against the surface of a star. He could feel a scalding heat tonguing his skin. It was almost unbearable.

My gods.

He was shaking as he held his hand out. His eyes were wide, and he couldn’t keep a panting smile off his face. He was drooling. He almost couldn’t bear to do it—could bear to reach out and, with one finger, make contact.

The touch was physical. But the connection was spiritual. It went somewhere beyond, and he felt his bloodline brush up against something massive.

The whole bloodline of a Sky-Realm Beast—of his lineage! Freshly deceased! At his literal fingertips, dormant, waiting for someone with just the right timing, just the right fit, to suck it all up.

A weird thought popped into Dorian’s head. One of his earliest memories of his childhood—a truly mind-boggling amount of time ago—was seeing one of his family’s pet dragonfish eat another in his pond. Then, crying, running to his brother Houyi. Houyi had held him, of course, gone through the motions of comfort, but it was what he’d said after that stuck with Dorian now.

“Remarkable,” his brother’d said, eyeing the dragonfish flatly, clinically. “This fish weighed a stone. Its victim did too. In but a meal it has doubled its mass.” Then a corner of HouyI’s lips quirked. “Imagine if humans could do that.”

Absurd how it came to mind now, all these aeons later.

Dorian felt his lips quirking too.

Imagine if humans could do that, indeed?

***It was his turn to open his mouth. A mouth of the Spirit. Then he sucked.

Bloodline rushed in. Fresh, hot bloodline. It tasted like a nectar of the gods.

One sip had his head flushing. He felt like all the nerves in his skull had been set on fire. It rushed in, then down, seeking out his Spirit Sea—

[Level-up!]

[Bloodline Density]

[21% -> 25%]

HELLS! That huge?!

[Core Saturation: 11% -> 15%]

A dizzying rush of Blood Essence was gushing into him. It felt like he was drinking molten magma—it hardly felt like his body could contain it all he was taking it in so fast!

[Level-up!]

[Bloodline Density]

[25% -> 29%]

[Level-up!]

[Core Saturation: 15% -> 28%]

How much more was there? All Dorian could do was keep that Spiritual mouth wide open, and drink. The speedrunning part of this run had well and truly kicked into gear—

[Level-up!]

[Bloodline Density]

[29% -> 33%]

[Level-up!]

[Core Saturation: 28% -> 46%]

Oh, my. My, oh my.

He was so happy he was nearly delirious. He would’ve laughed was he not so busy trying not to puke out a lump of swollen, boiling qi. He felt like he’d just eaten a sumptuous dinner. Like he’d been stuffed full to the point of bursting!

And yet the plates just kept coming, and coming, and coming, without any signs of slowing—

[Level-up!]

[Bloodline Density]

[33% -> 36%]

[Level-up!]

[Core Saturation: 46: -> 66%]

In one stroke, one damned stroke, 3% to 66%—deep into the mid Earth Realm, like that!

His grin was threatening to stretch off his face. It was so ridiculous, so stupid fast, it was nearly worrying. And also dizzying. Like he was a mortal who’d been rocketed up so high into the atmosphere the air was hard, almost painful, to breathe. He was struck by an overpowering jolt of vertigo.

He couldn’t actually enter the Sky Realm proper. Not as he was now. The Sky Realm necessitated an Infused Core. It meant he needed to select a Law, and instill its insights into the Core, for it to advance.

Which meant that there was a rock-hard bottleneck he simply could not pass.

The Beast Core didn’t care a whit, of course! That flow of godly liquid was slowing—absurdly he was almost thankful for it, he was so bloated—but it still meant he was taking in more and more. Almost more than his body could hold! His skin was starting to smolder, leaking smoke-black light, as though about to burn off his flesh. His body was suddenly horribly heavy, like his bones had turned to lead, his muscles to cement.

But still—

[Level-up!]

[Bloodline Density 36% -> 39%]

[Level-up!]

[Core Saturation: 66% -> 78%]

Hells. Am I actually about to explode?! Dorian wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. What an issue to have—powering up too fast!

But he didn’t have time to think on it, for the next Level-Up in this fast-flowing stream arrived. It stole his attention utterly.

[Level-up!]

[Heilong Javelin: Second Forme]

[Toxic Spear: The Javelin is now tipped with the bloodline acids of the basilisk torchdragon itself, which no metal known to man can withstand. Anywhere it goes it leaves a trail of this hyper-potent acid, derived from its new bloodline density. As it moves, it terraforms the battlefield.]

Dorian was beside himself with joy, and also dying of bloat, all at once.

Fuck it—

If I die, I die. Keep that shit coming!

SIXTY-NINE

ALL THAT POWER (X)

There wasn’t even time to play with his nasty new Javelin forme, no time to settle down and soak in his new power gains—the bloodline would not stop flowing!

Dorian was a man of many flaws. This much he admitted, and he didn’t really care a whit about most of them. But one flaw he did acknowledge as a real issue was his sheer thirst. That inner goblin of undying greed sometimes grew so big he and it were one and the same. And that was when the trouble began. That was when he was most prone to losing his head.

In the heat of the moment, right now, he was gone. Even as he kept his soul wide open, even as he embraced the flood, some quiet, rational part of him sighed and buried its face in its hands.

He couldn’t bring himself to give a shit. He was still cackling, sounding a little deranged even to himself, as he inhaled that sweet sweet bloodline, as the energies of the Heavens and the Earths set every vein on his body on fire, torched his flesh with the living breaths of the Multiverse, flushed every inch of him with a sizzling ecstasy. He was getting godsdamned huge!

[Level-up!]

[Bloodline Density]

[ 39% -> 41%]

[Level-up!]

[Core Saturation: 78% -> 84%]

Oh, he was really starting to feel it now, bloating up his stomach. He felt a little like a balloon tied up to a hose, sagging with water, stretching to new limits and stretching farther, faster still, impossibly—it was this great glut of qi and bloodline sitting heavy as two sandbags in his core and his Spirit Sea, overflowing, spilling a turgid mass of white-hot energy into the rest of him.

Still—like a chuckling fatty at a buffet reaching for his tenth dish even as the buttons started popping off his coat—Dorian persisted. He felt greasy. He felt sort of awful.

But he also felt like a godsdamned Saint descended to the mortal plane. His cackling grew louder.

89?! Hells if he was stopping now!

[Level-up!]

[Bloodline Density]

[41% -> 43%]

[Level-up!]

[Core Saturation: 84% -> 90%]

HRGGHGGGGG—

Dorian started.

What the hells was that?!

Was that a mental burp? Some strange gasp of the Spirit? That tiny voice of reason in the back of Dorian’s head was starting, once more, to niggle at him. He frowned. Even he hadn’t gone from almost 0 to 100% of the Earth Realm in one sitting. He’d blasted through the thing without touching on a single Law!

You were supposed to infuse your cultivation gains with Law insights, and in this way create a symbiotic foundation for the Sky Realm. It was the only way to advance.

He’d just swallowed a huge, unrefined chunk of qi. bloodline-dense qi, true, qi that on its own was deliciously potent even without a Law—but still…

[Level-up!]

[Bloodline Density]

[43% -> 45%]

[Level-up!]

[Core Saturation: 90% -> 96%]

He was struck by a weird spell of drowsiness.

Okay, fine—I’m at the limit. Time to end things. His greed was sated, as was his flesh. His skin was glowing with qi, and not in a good way. In a bulging-water-balloon-filled-to-its-limit sort of way. One wrong move, and he might just pop. He was about to run up against a hard bottleneck, and that’d be the end of it—and perhaps the end of him. It still stung some deep-down part of him to let the bloodline left in the torchdragon’s Core dissipate into its corpse, but such was life. He’d snatch up the relics it made later.

Sighing, he made to yank his hand out.

It wouldn’t budge.

He frowned. He tried again, harder. Couldn’t move it an inch.

No way. With one last heave of his Spirit he tried tearing himself away. It felt like trying to yank his arm out of a vat of tar. No luck. Tried again, desperately. Nope.

Shit, shit, shit—

Somehow he was stuck! Not merely physically—spiritually too. His Spirit had so firmly connected to the Core that it wouldn’t let him go. It was like they’d been welded together.

And still the gains kept coming—

[Level-up!]

[Bloodline Density]

[45% -> 47%]

[Level-up!]

[Core Saturation: 96% -> 100%]

FUCK!

Dorian’s whole spirit felt sluggish, bogged down. His skin was literally cracking. A white lattice of qi shimmered down his body like the fissures dicing the earth before the earthquake struck.

He almost couldn’t believe the absurdity of the situation. Every inch of him was so raw and so seething hot he could hardly believe his skin wasn’t melting like a wax sculpture! He wracked his mind, running down a list of possible escape plans. Something—anything!

A beat.

Nothing came to mind.

Fuck.

Another excruciating heartbeat passed, then another, the morbid ticking of a grisly countdown clock.

This is the single stupidest way I could possibly go out. He felt his Core and his Sea flexing under the weight of the bloodline, under the qi, felt his innards groaning in protest. Any moment now…

I really managed to speedrun the Realm too fast, he thought miserably. I’m really about to fail—by being too good!

It was such a damned shame, too. How often did he get a Perfect Grade Spirit Sea? Perfect Grade Spirit Seas were given their name not merely because of their great capacities. They were also seamless, their walls utterly durable. They leaked no qi. To a god such a thing was invaluable.

It wasn’t just that. How often did he chance on such a good bloodline this early? He’d never tried his current setup before, precisely because it was so ridiculous! no one knowledgeable, talented and skilled enough to attain a Perfect Grade Spirit Sea would then steadfastly refuse to infuse a law into their Earth Core. It’d be like building a pristine granite foundation, and then slapping a ramshackle straw hut on top of it! The most optimal procedure was to build up Dao insights alongside qi progress, weaving them together into a glorious tapestry of being…

Instead, he’d just gotten fat. So fat with qi it strained the imagination. He’d kneecapped his own progression by going too fast, and not ingraining even a hint of a Law in his cultivation. It would’ve taken him a mere month or so of meditation to do it—

—time he didn’t have. He was forced to do this. Still…what a silly set of circumstances! What a dumb way to die!

The lines on his skin flared out deathly white, as though leaking the glow of the afterlife. The qi and bloodline boiled up in him at once, sloshing about with pent-up energy, and he felt a knife-stab pain in his gut, then an unpleasant, nauseating tearing as his Core and his Sea stretching beyond their seams. Wheezing, he opened his mouth, trying to breathe. All that gushed out was a stream of black qi.

His eyes squeezed shut. So long…

[Level-up!]

[Bloodline Density]

[47%-49%]

[Weapon Technique: Nightstalker] Lv. 0 -> 1

[The wielder of the Heilong Javelin may enter any shadow within a set radius, and exit from any other.]

Great! In any other instance Dorian would’ve been ecstatic. This thing had so many uses! If only he lived to realize them. At this moment it felt almost ironic, a sick joke. Thanks, Fate. Excellent timing.

He sensed it in his Perfect Sea. He sensed it struggling mightily, trembling within him, seeking out the next Path: seeking a way to merge fully with the Core, melting into each other, and in so doing form a perfect Sky of being.

But it simply could not. There was no bridge, no Dao, no spark to melt them into each other. For a second they ground up against each other, struggling yet finding no purchase. No way forward. Dorian soaked it all in, resigned. Any moment now his Sea would give and it’d all break out like floodwaters smashing through a dam.

And his poor, poor body would its victim. He was about to be burned alive, popped, burst wholly open—by his own qi!

He tensed, sucking in a breath. Here it comes! He felt his Spirit Sea stretch to its ultimate limit.

He felt it at the threshold.

Then, with excruciating slowness, it edged past—

And held.

He blinked. Wait. What?

[Level-up!]

[Core Saturation: 100% -> 104%]

…

His Spirit Sea had flexed. It had stretched. It had met the bottleneck and been denied the path forward.

And then, at last, it didn’t break apart. Instead—has it adapted?!

Dorian gaped.

It can do that?!

He sat there, frozen.

That shouldn’t be possible! Yet there it was. He was very much still stretching at his seams. He was still bloated as all Hells. And yet…he was not unraveling.

Is this because of some hidden property of the Perfect Grade Sea? Could this be due to its seamlessness?

He was half-convinced this was a fever dream.

How the hells hadn’t I known about this?!

He paused. Well, it is rather obscure…almost every Earth-Realm fighter ended up with some Law insight or another, merely by osmosis! Most stumbled upon it by accident, like Artificing Head Thon. The few that knew what they were doing intentionally wove it into their Cores.

Which left a group of wackos that now included him.

People skilled and talented enough to form Perfect-Grade Cores, and yet willfully oblivious enough to choose not to infuse them with Laws across their whole time in the Earth Realm!

[Level-up!]

[Bloodline Density]

[49-51%]

[Level-up!]

[Core Saturation: 104% -> 106%]

He took it in numbly. His mind was still far away. Yeah—no sane person would choose to do this! The Sky has nearly double the capacity than the Sea and the Core combined. And the addition of Laws puts you in a whole new category of power altogether! In truth there’s no benefit to going down this wacky side-route. It’d be like choosing to remain a child when you could evolve into an adult. Nonsensical.

No wonder I haven’t heard of it.

And yet here he was. Huh.

He shrugged. Well, at least I’m alive!

The bloodline flow was slowing to a trickle, now. He wasn’t even sure he’d squeeze another Level-up out of it. He grinned, burped, patted his belly. Peak Earth-Realm, huh? Not bad!

Then he froze.

A strange thought came to him out of the blue.

…Wait. Can I exploit this?

His Spirit Sea didn’t feel stretched at all now. It had stabilized, and comfortably housed the sum total of his qi. Huh.

It had grown to accommodate his new qi reserves. Now, it felt like he was at 100% saturation—even though in theory he’d gone 6% beyond the limit.

The implications were starting to break his mind a little.

He now had more qi than the Perfect Sea and Core should’ve been able to hold. And yet the idea now struck him like a bolt of lightning.

Can I go even farther?

I can burn my bloodline for qi, right? Qi that can would then go into my Core…and as long as I don’t take in any Laws, I can’t advance to the Sky Realm! So won’t my Sea be forced to stretch and expand farther, and farther, and farther?

He sat there, in the belly of the beast, utterly dumbfounded.

6% more than the theoretical limit is already a noticeable difference. What if I burned more of my bloodline, and got up to plus 10%? 15%? 20%?! Is that even possible?!

And then—

His eyes shone.

I can burn my bloodline. And use it to overload my qi reserves.

Isn’t there a repository of bloodline I can use to replenish my lost Blood with? Right below my feet—err, foot?

There were several other resonances in that sinkhole, after all…

Can’t I go fishing again? And burn more Blood? And take in more qi?!

Dorian sucked in a sharp breath. If he kept burning, and his Sea kept adapting and expanding, and he snagged a few more of these Godbeast Cores—just how massive could his qi reserves get?

He’d gone a little weak at the knees.

If—and this is a huge if—if this theory is right…if adaptation is simply an innate property of my Sea—if it has no real limit…

If I simply refuse to infuse myself with a Law and keep eating, and expanding, and farming more bloodline, and eating, and expanding, and so on—

Could I become the single fattest Earth Realm creature on this plane?! Hells—the single fattest Earth Realm creature in the whole Multiverse?!

This idea, this setup, was aggressively stupid. It would be like if everyone else came to a fight wielding a sword—their Law insights, which sharpened their techniques into deadly weapons—he’d come in nude, wielding only his prodigious fat rolls of qi.

But if I cultivate enough mass, will it even matter?

His mouth went dry. His heartbeats thundered in his ears.

Could his battle plan simply be to get fat enough with qi that he could steamroll his way to victory via sheer, dumb, brute power?!

…

This was an incredibly stupid idea.

And the more he thought about it, the more excited about it he got. Oh, no…I’m going to go through with this, aren’t I?

My gods.

If I am to beat down Sky-Realm creatures wielding LAWS with only an Earth-Realm base…

Just how fat will I have to get?!

SEVENTY

ALL THAT POWER (XI)

Before Dorian left, he made sure to pocket the leftover relics. He ended up with a nice haul: three Scales, a minor Fang, and a strange purple, swirly bead. All of them brimmed with bloodline Essence. Perfect!

He climbed out of the Serpent’s mouth, still grinning, and was met by a sea of officials on the shore. They gaped at the sight of him, perched on this floating barge of a torchdragon corpse. For a moment no one spoke. They shuffled their feet and looked to one another, baffled. They seemed like they weren’t quite sure what to make of this.

“Greetings!” Dorian called, waving. He nodded to the torchdragon. “Lovely evening for fishing, isn’t it?”

These guards were Heilong forces.

In theory they should in some way punish him. Detain him, perhaps. But Dorian was also, in theory, a Heilong higher-up—and therefore also their boss. So, all they could do was gape and splutter.

Dorian shrugged. Let’s try this new technique out, shall we? [Nightstalker]!

He hopped back into the mouth of the Beast, dipping into a pool of darkness.

And vanished feet first.

He was swallowed by nothingness. Not quite darkness.. He’d been shunted to a place where his physical senses failed him, and all he could do was grope around with his Spirit. No sound. No light. He was a cloak of cold, disembodied sensation, moving in mind if not flesh. He was in a space that was not empty. Instead, it was filled with nothing—a subtle but important distinction. To the first-time teleporter, it would’ve been severely disorienting.

Luckily this wasn’t his first time with teleportation. All of these techniques worked much the same: by shunting you into an in-between space—in this case a Shadow Dimension, where the Laws of Darkness touched upon the physical Realm—and then shunting you back out again.

All he needed was an exit point…there! Right behind a row of mute outlines, the imprints of the officials on the Shadow Realm, was an open space. Dorian dove into it.

He emerged head first, did a ballerina’s flip in the air, and landed with a catlike, sinewy grace.

And then promptly fell flat on his ass when he forgot he was missing a foot, which rather ruined the effect.

The officials whirled around. Gasps peppered the air.

“I’ll be heading off now,” said Dorian with a spry grin. “Stay safe! Oh—and sorry for the property damage. You can keep the corpse.” He jerked his head at the still-floating torchdragontorchdragon. “I’m sure that’ll suffice as compensation. Good day!”

Without waiting for a response he stepped into shadow once more and was gone.

* * *

He went back home in jumps, flitting between shadows, stumbling over himself like a drunkard, giggling a little. This new technique, this Nightstalker, was excellent.

Floop! Another twenty paces covered. Floop! Now forty. He’d jumped maybe ten times and was still at close to 90% of his qi pool. He cackled.

This was a game-changer! Imagine if I had this during my fight with the torchdragontorchdragon. Could’ve just teleported behind him and been done with it!

He frowned. Say…Just how wide is this thing’s jumping radius?

Next jump he stretched as far as he could.

He ended up somewhere near sixty paces forward.

Fascinating. It’s not that far, but I assume it’ll increase as I level this thing. And it should prove quite useful if I need a quick escape…

He thought again about that sweet sinkhole, that resonance singing to him. An untapped wellspring of possibility, right there!

He was going back. That much was certain. First, he’d go home, figure out what to do with this peg leg of his, and have a rest. Right now, he was running off sheer excitement. He was bound to crash soon enough!

But tomorrow…

I’ll be bringing this funky new trick. And my upgraded Heilong Javelin, two, with its Second Forme…

He’d be back very soon for Round Two. He licked his lips. And this time, I’m the hunter!

* * *

He stumbled upon Kaya when he came back, halfway through downing five bowls of noodle soup. They looked at each other and froze.

“Since when did you get to mid-Profound?” said Dorian, one brow raised.

She beamed. “I went to the Church of Jez and made them teach me all their power-getting tricks! I went up so fast the Church leader told me to knock it off. It was awesome.” She slurped down a noodle. “See—they’ve got all these stuffy rules. All these dumb ideas about ‘morality’ or whatever. But if you kinda ignore all that stuff and do your own thing, you can get so much more done!”

Dorian blinked. Huh. She almost sounds like me. Aww…she’s learning! He smiled, and was surprised to find he meant it. “Hey, that’s great! I’m proud of you.”

“Mmm! And what’s up with you, huh?”

She squinted at his missing foot.

“This?” He wiggled it about. “Don’t worry. It’s all right—just a little fishing accident. It’ll grow back.”

She looked concerned. “Uhhhhhh…are you sure?”

“Yeah. I might cook up an Elixir to speed it up—who knows?”

“Hmm.” She scratched her cheek, as though chewing on a question. Then—”Okay!” She went back to her noodles.

Huh.

He waved a hand, yawning. “I’m turning in early tonight, I think! Big day ahead of me. I’m going back to snag a few more fish. Hopefully without losing a limb this time.”

“Fun!” She wiped some sauce off her cheek. “I’ll go back to my place, too—try to wrestle away a few of those secret techniques they’ve got holed up in there, I think…” She grinned. “Good luck!”

And that was that. He was a little surprised she didn’t pry further. Huh. Dorian rather liked this new version of Kaya. No fuss.

Shrugging, he went to his quarters.

He didn’t need to prep much for tomorrow. As far as he was concerned all of his materials were contained within himself, and with his new movement techniques his foot was hardly an impediment! There were only two things to do before round two, really.

The first was rest, of course.

The second…

There were still three bloodline relics burning a hole in his Interspatial Ring.

Let’s see if my grand theory of fatness holds up!

* * *

He swallowed the first, felt it drop down his body and nestle into his chock-full Spirit Sea.

His Sea and Core churned as the relic let out its bloodline, squishing up against their walls, forcing them to flex out. He felt briefly nauseated, less ‘oh-gods-I’m-about-to-hurl,’ more of an unpleasant churning of the gut.

But then, after a few terse seconds, his Sea eased into place like clay hardening into a new mold.

[Level-up!]

[Bloodline Density]

[51% -> 53%]

[Core Saturation]

[106% -> 109%]

Dorian waited. He didn’t seem to be falling apart…He shrugged. Here goes nothing! He downed another.

[Level-up!]

[Bloodline Density]

[53% -> 55%]

[Core Saturation]

[109% -> 112%]

It took a few minutes for his stomach to settle, but once it did it felt…weirdly good.

Last one.

[Level-up!]

[Bloodline Density]

[55% -> 57%]

[Core Saturation]

[112% -> 115%]

And one more time his Spirit Sea stretched out, deforming and reforming to seamlessly enclose the new qi…

He probed his Spirit Sea, and found that its walls were as strong as ever. Hmm. No visible stretch marks…could it be like growing a muscle? The old bits didn’t get stretched. It simply built upon itself, expanding, growing ever more robust. It didn’t weaken as it grew—rather the opposite.

What could be the limiting factor here?

Dorian scratched his chin, frowning. Here’s another theory. What if the only limiting factor is physical space?

That was—the Sea and its Core within could grow as big as his body allowed!

If this was the case he hardly needed to worry at all. Qi was some of the easiest stuff to store in the world, in part because it was mostly nonphysical. It was lighter and more fluid than a gas, and a Spirit Sea’s worth of it could be held in a space the size of a fingernail! Though a creature’s organs often varied greatly in size—a dragon’s heart might be ten times that of a human’s, for instance—Spirit Seas and cores seldom got any smaller than a sesame seed, and seldom bigger than a fingernail. All a creature’s magic, stored in one tiny space.

Dorian’s Perfect-Grade Spirit Sea at present was likely about the same as a typical adult Sky-Realm dragon. Maybe a fingernail, nestled under his heart. Which meant it had quite some room to grow. How much before his body really started to protest was in question—but could he get to 200%? 500%? 1000%, even and beyond?!

* * *

Interesting.

He licked his lips. I suppose we’ll find out, won’t we?

* * *

Day Two. Morning. Dorian went back to the sinkhole, only to find that it’d been barred by security. Now, double the number of guards milled about the gate.

He snorted, stepped into shadow, and promptly exited on the other side of the door.

Whistling, he went up to the edge of the sinkhole—a sinkhole still bobbed with ruined fishnets and the crushed remains of cages and even a segment of aqueduct, half-sunk into an edge…oops.

He closed his eyes, took a breath in, let it leak back out, and with it leaked any other nonsense cluttering his mind until only the task before him lay in his mind.

Then he opened his eyes, summoned the Javelin, and stepped into shadow with conviction. Round two!

SEVENTY-ONE

ALL THAT POWER (XII)

A few important things had changed since his last visit to the sinkhole.

First was his qi reserves. They’d doubled. Which meant his raw power output was also twice as great.

Second was his qi quality. His bloodline density had more than doubled. Its density had visibly reached a new level.

All qi had a ghostly quality to it, a sheen of shimmering energy—his qi had been like this at 20% bloodline density. It’d floated about like a shadow given mass, a stream of energy darkly tinted. Now, at over 50%, it’d thickened to an almost solid black. When he let it play across his fingertips. It looked like a river of ink—thick, heavy ink.

Third was his new-and-improved Javelin, and the fresh techniques it’d gotten as he boosted up. It was shockingly agile as he tugged it about him. Its once-white tip was now soaked in tarry black, a black which dripped qi like spilled, smoking ink, burning hissing fissures into the ground.

And there was Nightstalker too. It all but guaranteed him a speedy escape, should he need it—but also a speedy entrance…

It was with a great deal of confidence that Dorian stepped into the black unknown.

He sought the depths, grasping past the outlines of shallow kelp, past the empty dens of Gunk Eels, past the milling dragon-turtles and water wyrms patrolling the middle depths. He sought the places where the sun didn’t shine. Where he could exit anywhere he wished.

So he did, at its outer reaches. There was a shock as his body snapped back to physical place, then a second shock as the deep, dark waters swept him up in their chilling embrace.

Below him stirred a churn of resonances. They were some distance away, muddling together but clearly there, like the smudged glow of a lighthouse through heavy fog.

He swam closer.

How many? He honed in on the resonances. Six—no, seven? Eight? As he got deeper they resolved more and more before his senses—senses that’d grown so precise after his latest bloodline infusion he could navigate the darkness about him as though it were mid-day.

But resonances went two ways. He’d taken notice of them, sure, but now he felt the nearest two glows perk up. He felt them shift closer, higher, piqued. He felt their senses, huge and smothering, drift over his body.

He summoned the Javelin. He let its aura leak out proudly. He cycled his bloodline, holding nothing back, letting the full brunt of it shine beacon-like in the dead darkness. These other torchdragontorchdragons must’ve felt the death of its brethren—perhaps sibling?—just a day before. And now this little worm, who’d had but a smidge of bloodline yesterday, came back wielding double?

Dorian felt a stillness take hold of one of them.

And then a blast of icy rage swept the waters like a blizzard, shivering him down to the bones. Something was coiling, tensed to strike, deep in those waters! Something locked square onto him.

He braced himself. Serpent’s Senses! The world slowed tenfold and then some, buoyed by his chunky new qi reserves.

He held the Javelin tensed and at the ready, and waited, his mind locked onto the space below. In his mind the sinkhole appeared as a vast cylinder of shadow, a three-dimensional portal of exit-points—any of which his Javelin could strike from. Too many. He isolated it down to one slice. One plane, spanning the breadth of the sinkhole.

His mind tightened, honed in. The rest of the world faded to a background hum. All he needed was to predict and select but a single point.

What happened next happened very, very fast.

The torchdragontorchdragon screeched in a realm unheard, in a realm of the Spirit, and Dorian nonetheless felt it and winced.

Then the thing was a blur if vivid motion in his mind, streaking up to devour him.

Caught off-guard he would’ve been slower to act, no doubt! This thing was at least mid-Sky Realm. He might’ve been swallowed whole!

But planning was critical. And in a fight of such great powers, margins of error were but fleeting slivers of a second. Dorian bought himself time. Time was everything.

That—the initial flicker of motion itself—was Dorian’s trigger. No hesitation. He acted instantly. His mind had already settled on a very simple algorithm. He executed it with brutal efficiency.

Its trajectory—linear. The path was a straight, clean line in his mind, crossing the plane he’d chosen, ending at his body. The point it’d cross—the latest point at which it’d open its mouth to swallow him—crystalized in his mind.

Before the torchdragontorchdragon even reached that point, before it’d even opened its mouth, he shunted the Javelin. A pre-emptive counterstrike, timed with pinpoint precision.

It opened its mouth, bellowing madly—

—and ate shit.

There was a gagging, a thrashing, a full-throated bellowing, and above all a horrible shearing, tearing sound that carved through the core of the massive beast.

And then it was still, hung motionless in the water.

Dorian grinned. Yes!

A very simple trap, a textbook bait-and-strike. Yet still damned effective!

He made to go in for the Core. And froze.

SHIT—

A second resonance had reared its ugly head! He hardly had time to recall the Javelin before it streaked for him, cleaving the waters of the Oasis at mind-bending speeds. It was only early Sky-Realm, much weaker than this one, but still fully capable of swallowing him in one gulp!

And this was so much messier. No time for a setup. No clean visualization. No pre-empting—it was already but a blink away from swallowing him!

So he got the hells out of there.

One foot into shadow—out. And very convenient, since he was steeped in the stuff already!

And not an instant too soon. A fraction of a heartbeat after he left, a cavernous mouth full of wicked-sharp teeth swallowed up the waters where he’d been. Phew!

An absurd idea struck Dorian. Its insides are dark, right? Can I just…

He felt for the torchdragon as it went by. Nope. It was cloaked and suffused by the light of its own qi, a protective barrier. No entrance there.

Then an even more absurd idea struck Dorian, an improvisation.

He stepped back out of shadow, into the exact same spot he’d left, just as the creature’s momentum carried it past. Suddenly, he was behind it as it streaked up.

In a lecture that he’d been forced to sit through oh-so-long ago, Dorian had once heard his brother Houyi make the observation that the vast majority of organisms in this world were really straws of varying lengths surrounded by flesh and bone.

“Take the human, for example. The straw has two ends. It starts as the mouth, passes through the body, and ends…well. This holds for the serpent, as for the dragon, as for the Phoenix.”

At which point little Dorian had yawned, and said, “Why do I have to know all this, again?!”

And Houyi had frowned. “To defeat one’s enemy, one must first know him fully, utterly—better than you know yourself. To know him is to know his anatomy.”

Weird how that stick-up-his-ass prick kept popping up in Dorian’s head at the weirdest times lately. In any case it’d all seemed a heap of drivel.

Until now.

A straw with two ends…

Dorian’s eyes flashed as he stared up. I was too late to meet the first. But certainly not the second.

He chucked the Javelin with all his might. It vanished into shadow and emerged at a very tender point.

There was a word for this part of a serpentine creature: cloaca.

Another observation Dorian had noticed, over the years. Creatures are so fast to guard their heads, and their hearts. Even their armpits and backs, on occasion!

No creature guarded its butthole.

It was simply never a place the mind went when grasping for candidates for attack.

A surprise attack to the butthole?

In Dorian’s limited experience this had a 100% fatality rate. And so it held true here.

Dorian winced as the Javelin went up, pierced through a brief flicker of resistance, and kept going, ruthlessly, viciously. He felt a stark shock though the Resonanace. He felt the torchdragon’s sheer, unending horror as it felt the point carve up, as it realized just what the Hells was happening. It trembled. It thrashed. It gave one last desperate bellow—more a whimper, really—and then it, too, was still.

All in all, one of the less pleasant ways to go, it had to be said. Still…he grinned.

What an unexpected windfall!

Now he had two prime Spirit Beast Cores. Cores that promised to boost him to such heights it made him dizzy just thinking about it!

He leapt for the first corpse, went down its throat, poked his way through the darkness and snatched up the Core. He didn’t make the same mistake as last time. No eating for now, though he desperately wished to chomp it up then and there. Into the Interspatial Ring it went.

He went back out and swam for the second corpse, happy as can be, and dove in. Seconds later, he’d found his way to the second core, lovely little inky bead of throbbing power, and was working on prying it free. He swallowed back some saliva and with reluctant fingers stuffed it into his Ring. Soon, my lovely! Very, very soon…

Time to make his exit, he supposed. He licked his lips. Time to absorb all this sweet, sweet bloodline. Time to get stupid huge! His metamorphosis in a formless wrecking ball of utter qi began now.

Of course, it was then that he’d felt it. He frowned.

Something had changed in the waters. A new, unnatural stillness.

He swam out, still frowning, and cast his senses deep into the vast darkness below him.

The resonances below were swirling faster than ever, spiking, and he could feel a swell of emotion boiling down below. An agitation of monstrous spirits.

Um…

Dorian hesitated. Not good.

And then, even farther down, there was an exhalation. A long, slow breath out that seemed to run up and down the length of the sinkhole, rippling across every inch of water.

Dorian did a double take. What?!

It came from an aura he’d somehow missed. He’d missed it because it was so far down, and because, up until now, it had not made its presence known. It’d been dormant. Now, its sleep had been disturbed. Even as he hovered here, heart pounding, he felt it like a mountain with no peak shrouded in thick mists. It gave off the muted presence of a sleeping giant. It was suffocating for him even to exist in its presence. It made him feel disembodied—like all the world about him, the water in which he swam, belonged to it. And he was but an insignificant speck of a trespasser. A trespasser it could extinguish with but a flicker of thought.

Oh, my…

Dorian knew in an instant that this creature could not be in the Sky Realm. This creature was of the beyond. And Dorian could guess exactly what it was.

He rather suspected its detached Fang was now the Javelin by his side.

Far below in those fathomless depths, a giant tossed and turned in an increasingly fitful sleep…

He was struck by a horrible thought. A thought he really hoped was not true.

It felt to him like a giant slowly rousing from its slumber.

SEVENTY-TWO

ALL THAT POWER (XII)

There were times when it was right to push. When opportunity crested like a wave, and it was the task of the master cultivator to ride that oh-so-thin line straddling destruction and transcendence. So, when Dorian felt those resonances swirling below him, he’d grinned and bared his teeth. Bring it on!

Then he felt the Dweller, and his face changed.

Dorian was beyond the peak of the Earth Realm. He was as formidable a foe as they came in a mortal plane. Yet this aura was a well of gravity so vast it warped the very fabric of the shadow realm. So vast it made shimmering stretchmarks and yawning micro-tears up and down the sinkhole waters—something that, by the godsdamned laws of matter, should not be possible.

But this aura didn’t care about the rules of this realm. For it belonged to a deity.

Deities could very rarely enter a Lower Realm. There were only two possibilities—one, they were inhabiting an avatar, a follower who’d donated his body as a host. They’d only be able to express a fraction of their powers.

Or two—and this Dorian suspected was the case here—it was wounded. And so its cultivation had dropped just enough, to some Pseudo-Sky-Realm state, to let it seek refuge in a Lower Realm…

This thing had been asleep. It might well have been in hibernation, nursing wounds centuries, perhaps millennia old, dormant.

But now there had been too much chaos of its bloodline. There was a shock. It was waking, and likely because of Dorian.

Shit.

Even his presence here seemed to agitate those resonances below. And in turn the Dweller grew more lucid—

There were times when it was right to push.

Now was most certainly not one of those times!

Dorian made a mad dash into the shadows. He was spat out in a tree-shaded bank of the sinkhole, shivered at the warm of the sun, and whirled to the waters. He watched every ripple, wide-eyed, tensed from head to toe.

Deep below, the resonances simmered…

And, as the seconds trickled by, he was relieved to find that that was all they did. Boiling like a steaming pot over an extinguished fire. It was he that’d agitated them, he realized. He was an an intruder upon their lair. But now he’d vanished into nowhere. With him gone their rage was losing steam. Those auras down below seemed to be settling back down into a normal-ish cadence, wafting to and fro…But still he waited there, unmoving, almost expecting a torchdragon to come charging up from the depths, screeching for his head.

Were torchdragons solitary creatures, as most dragons were? Even mother dragons often cared little for their babes…it was a fair bet—or so he hoped—to guess that none would tear up the surface, seeking to even the score…

Still, only after sitting until the sun struck noon did Dorian let out a sigh of relief.

He gave the sinkhole one last backward glance before strolling off.

Whatever—I certainly got what I came for!

Two Cores lay snug in his Interspatial Ring, begging to be absorbed.

If he wanted to tap this well again—and he most certainly did— he’d need a little more discretion. No sauntering in willy-nilly and chucking his Javelin about. He didn’t fancy the thought of waking that monster nestled in the brooding dark.

Bah. I’ll deal with this later.

For now, he had more interesting concerns.

Namely chugging hyper-concentrated torchdragon bloodline until he either passed out, blew up, or got stupid huge!

* * *

The Heilong Estate, newly rebuilt, would make a fine site for his breakthrough. It was still a mess of scaffolding and workers milling about, struggling to slap steel plates back on its two main towers, but the bare bones of a residence was here. Cultivation room—sealed blacksteel crates—littered the grounds, hauled in from other estates. Temporary residences that looked like army barracks ran along the perimeter.

As Dorian neared, he saw hundreds of Heilong grunts in grid formation arrayed out on the patchy wasteland that’d once been the front lawn. Each of them was armed with a shiny new Stick. As they waved the Sticks about, chests and heads held high, Dorian was pleased to see they almost seemed to know what they were doing.

“Ha!” A shout went up. Then a plume of fire scorched the air, dozens of tiny blasts fused to one.

Dorian raised a brow. Not bad! Not bad at all. They’d certainly improved from the bumbling mess from his last visit. He could see this troubling an Earth-Realm armada. Given enough Sticks in enough hands, maybe—just maybe—they had a shot of holding off the bulk of the invasion by themselves!

But the bulk meant nothing unless they could also repel the elite among the Ugoc ranks.

A Sky-Realm dragon, though? That…maybe not so much. Just one such beast could devastate the lot of them.

It would have to fall to Dorian to take those nasty creatures on, it seemed…

His fist clenched around his Interspatial Ring.

“Ah! Io. Well met!” Bin seemed as cheery as Dorian had ever seen him. “Training has been going most smoothly, as you plainly see.” He pumped a fist. “We shall drive back those scum savages before the moon is out!”

Guild Head Thon ambled by his side, sniveling and dabbing at his hairy face. “Isn’t it godsdamned beautiful?” He whispered, staring out at the field of glinting weaponry. “My babes—all grown up…”

“Right,” said Dorian. He turned to Bin. “Anywho—have you got any spare cultivation chambers?”

“Of course. Use them as you please.”

“Lovely!”

He made to stroll off. But before he could, a Heilong messenger scampered up to them. “At the gates!” he gasped. “We have a visitor!”

“Who?” said Bin with a frown.

“Hello!” said a sprightly voice. They all whirled around.

Pebble—now Crag—was strolling casually up the field, whistling. Behind him, yelling, streamed a horde of harried guards. “There he is!” cried one, pointing a trembling finger at Crag. “Seize him!”

Crag paid the man no heed.

“Sire,” he said to Bin with a bow, “Might I commend you on your compound’s stellar defenses! It took me the time it takes to burn a joss stick to crack them—and I’m usually through these in a blink!”

“Who the hells are you?” said Bin flatly.

“Easy. He’s with me,” said Dorian. He raised a brow. “So! How goes it on the Outskirts?”

“Wonderfully!” Crag beamed. “I’ve now got total control of all the gangs! It took some effort to convince Feiyang—he got real mad about it—but he saw reason after I plucked out his other eye! I guess saw is the wrong word there, isn’t it?” He scrunched up his face. “anyway. He’s moody and pouting and stuff, but he’ll get over it. It’s for his own good. ‘Snot just his eye that got poofed—his brain also got a bit screwy after you poked him. Retirement will be good for him—I told him as much!”

“This is great news.” Dorian grinned. “Thon! Might I introduce you to Crag, the new leader of the Outskirts in all but name? And Crag—this is Guild Head Thon. He’ll be the one supplying your tens of thousands of new slaves—sorry, citizens—with the weaponry they’ll need to defend their homes.”

He grabbed Thon’s big hairy hand and Crag tiny smooth one and put them together. Both of them looked a tad mystified. “Work out a deal, you two, or we might not exist in two weeks!”

On that happy note, he gave them a parting wave and set off. “In the meantime, I’ve got some breakthroughs to make.”

* * *

The inside of the cultivation room felt like its own pocket dimension. No sound trickled in from the outside, and the walls, floors, and ceilings were all a seamless matte-black fabric. It was designed to absorb and reflect all qi. No leakage in nor out.

Breathing deep, Dorian teased out the first of the Beast Cores. For a second he let it play across his fingertips.

He paused. That first core took me from 0-100% saturation. That first core threw me a new Spirit Weapon From and a crazy useful ability. Now, I have two cores at my fingertips! He could hardly fathom what’d come next. Either I pop like a balloon, or—as I suspect—I ascend to a new, almost frighteningly girthy form…

Here goes nothing!

Tepidly, he reached out with his spirit, his bloodline, and made contact.

And the core answered with vigor.

Pitch-black bloodline qi teeming with power rushed into him—

[Level-up!]

[Bloodline Density]

[57% -> 63%]

[Core Saturation]

[115% -> 120%]

There it is.

[Level-up!]

[Bloodline Density]

[63% -> 67%]

[Core Saturation]

[120% -> 124%]

And then—

HRGNDNGNGNGG—

He doubled over, gasping, as his stomach bloated up inside of him. It was all he could do to writhe there as the walls of his Spirit Sea stretched and twisted, struggling to hem in the new chunks of bloodline.

Until they didn’t. Until his belly once more started to settle.

[Level-up!]

[Bloodline Density]

[67% -> 70%]

[Core Saturation]

[124% -> 129%]

Yes! More, more!

Then, an instant later as a sharp pain erupted in his stomach—NO! And he keeled over, trying desperately not to shit himself.

When they sing of this in the hymns and the legends—the moment the world’s first super-Earth-Realm creature, the almighty Io, was born, thought Dorian through teary eyes, they had better omit this part!

He went back to moaning and flopping on the floor.

[Level-up!]

[Bloodline Density]

[70% -> 73%]

[Core Saturation]

[129% -> 134%]

Oh, Saints! Have mercy! It was so much worse than the first time! Maybe because each spurt of qi strained his pool. Maybe because each spurt came so much larger than it came the last time he’d done this. And yet it was also so much better—his core saturation was rising so fast he was grinning despite it all.

He was rewarded with one last gift for his trouble.

[Level-up!]

[Weapon Technique: Void Shield] Lv. 0 -> 1

[Wraps a shadow around any incoming qi attack, swallowing it whole. Its qi cost is proportional to the magnitude of the attacking technique]

Dorian cackled. About time a defensive technique came my way!

Then he thought about that last sentence and froze.

Qi…cost?

I’m about to get so fat qi cost is immaterial to me!

Does this mean—so long as I amass a truly obscene amount of qi—I can now void nearly any incoming technique?!

My, oh, my…

At first he’d thought he was totally screwed going into this. Against Nijo and his god-powers and his endless fleets and his hordes of Sky-Realm Law-filled critters, he’d have put his odds at under one percent to survive, much less win!

But now a tiny ray of hope was peeking through the gray clouds…

If he could just keep this up. Keep stacking up qi. Keep picking up and honing and leveling a suite of potent techniques…

His eyes hardened. I just need to keep. On. Pushing. As fast as I godsdamned can! From now on, there is no such thing as too much!

SEVENTY-THREE

ALL THAT POWER (XIII)

Dorian spent much of the next few hours in a delirious haze. He grew well acquainted with the texture of the floor. He rolled about, groaning and twitching, in a mattress of his own sweat. It was like having the multiverse’s worst case of indigestion, constipation, and diarrhea—all rolled into one singularly unpleasant cocktail.

At least the power kept coming!

They’d streamed in, bit after bit, until it became a blur of light and meaning in his mind. All he saw was the jump—his Core Saturation easing past 150%, then 160%, his bloodline density inching closer and closer to 80%, 85%…

He added half a Dorian’s worth of qi in the span of a few hours—and more, each mote of qi strained his capacity to hold himself together.

Then a new kind of update broke through the fog.

[Level-up!]

[Weapon Technique: Acid Rains]

He perked up. Oh?

[Expels a cloud of qi that looses acid projectiles upon the enemy]

Dorian propped himself up on his elbows and half-groaned, half-chuckled.

He had a blocking ability—[Void Shield], Lv. 1.

He had a single-enemy striking ability—[Shadow-Strike], which he’d gotten all the way to Lv. 3.

He had a movement ability—[Night-Stalker] Lv. 1, which let him jump in and out of shadows.

And now a multi-enemy striking ability—[Acid Rains].

Which meant his suite of techniques—at least, at a basic, preliminary level—was now complete! He’d unlock more advanced bloodline techniques as he reached higher cultivation levels, or leveled these techniques till they evolved to higher forms. For now, the only thing left was to keep on chugging…

[Level-up!]

[Bloodline Density]

[85% -> 87%]

[Core Saturation]

[163% -> 169%]

And on and on it went, the most beautiful and awful thing in the world. Dorian was giggling deliriously, drooling onto the floor, his eyes glazed over, mind a thick bog of pain—

And then, after a long while, one last notification hit.

[Level-up!]

[Bloodline Density]

[94% -> 97%]

[Core Saturation]

[186% -> 192%]

Dorian was going to puke. He was going to shit himself. He was going to give birth to a being formed of pure qi. This unconscionably huge glut of qi was going to pop open his belly and climb out of its own accord. None of these things happened, of course, but they all felt in that moment very imminent. His body was telling him—stop! Enough! Please, dear Saints, I can’t take it anymore! Spare me!

He gurgled, grInning, tapped his Interspatial Ring, and popped in the second Beast Core.

You see, sometimes you had to read between the lines. His body told him he’d reached a limit. But had it, actually? Dorian felt the walls of his Spirit Sea. Sturdy as ever—no change from when it’d been at 100%!

All this was was his internal organs groaning in protest. That, and the fact that a human body really wasn’t meant to hold this much qi. If you got past those little hang-ups, though, he was all clear to keep up his mad dash!

[Bloodline Density]

[97% -> 100%]

[Core Saturation]

[192% -> 201%]

If I’m not mistaken, I just eclipsed the qi pool of a fully grown Peak Sky Realm adult dragon!

And dragons had the most qi of any mortal creature.

Which meant, as of right now, Dorian had officially achieved the title of ‘Fattest Creature on the Plane!’ Huzzah!

He gave himself a brief moment to celebrate. This whole enterprise was going as well as he could’ve wished!

He was at 100% bloodline density, too—which meant that now his Blood was as pure as any pure-blooded torchdragon’s, a rare sight even in the higher Realms. Maybe only the Dweller had as pure a bloodline, among those torchdragons gathered on this plane. The trouble was, there was no spill-over here. There was no going over 100% bloodline density.

The only thing he could do about the excess was to burn it.

Time for part two of the plan!

From his Interspatial Ring he drew out a thick barrel stuffed full of the Devil’s Promise. The Elixir that would burn his bloodline in exchange for an outpouring of qi. The very same one he’d resorted to to prep for his match with the Rat-King.

Now he attached a metal straw to the bottom of the barrel, put his lips to it, and took three huge sips. Glug-glug-glug—

The dark liquid began its nasty work almost instantly. A burning feeling gnawed at Dorian’s gut.

[Bloodline Density]

[100% -> 98%]

[Bloodline Density]

[98% -> 96%]

It’s working! Then, as more bloodline gushed in from the Beast Core—

[Level-up!]

[Bloodline Density]

[96% -> 98%]

Perfect. Dorian smirked around the straw. The bloodline burned at nearly the same rate as new bloodline poured in. His bloodline density would be held constant around 100%—which meant that the only thing that changed should be his Core Saturation.

[Level-up!]

[Core Saturation]

[201% -> 208%]

That should be the gains from the incoming bloodline…I wonder what the burned bloodline will—

He didn’t have time to finish the thought.

[Level-up!]

[Core Saturation]

[208% -> 225%]

OH HELLS—

A mind-bending burst of nausea and white-hot pain struck him. As in he nearly felt his mind deform, such was the force of the feeling.

It was not so much a failure of willpower. His mortal brain simply felt that tide of overwhelming sensation, went, ‘Nope! Not dealing with that shit.’ and headed out the psychological backdoor.

Dorian whited out.

* * *

He came to in a puddle of his own sweat He tried propping himself up, gurgling spit, and found that his whole fur cloak was soaked through. So was the flooring. This was less a puddle than a small pond.

I’m…alive?

Nice!

And by that invisible-knife-digging-a-hole-in-his-stomach feeling, the bloodline burning process was still ongoing, too…

[Level-up!]

[Core Saturation]

[385% -> 388%]

Oh my dear Saints—what has happened here.

He blinked to make sure he was seeing correctly.

He’d jumped nearly two hundred percent, while passed out?!

He felt light-headed, wobbly. And for the first time today, it wasn’t from the tempest in his gut.

I think—I think I can now officially and proudly claim the title of ‘fatass’. I’ve become a real specimen, haven’t I?

He thumped his belly and let out a happy burp. A cloud of warm qi left his mouth. It felt right, somehow.

He got to his feet.

He noticed the qi instantly. It was like having quadruple the blood circulating in his body, except instead of Blood it was a constant stream of pure energy coursing to and fro, buoying him with a constant sense of power. Anything in this room he knew he could reduce to dust with two fingers—by dint of the sheer force his newfound qi would let him exert!

And applied to my martial techniques—my word. How stupid strong are they now?

Grinning, he opened the door to the chamber, letting the outside world back in.

Then he was greeted by the piercing shriek of sirens.

He frowned, leaping out. The hells? We’re under attack?!

The Heilong Estate was deserted. No soldiers. No Bin. Not even construction workers were present—steel girders and hammers were strewn haphazardly about the site. From the main street outside the compound came a din of cries and shouts. Citizens stumbled over one another, ducking through doors and under awnings fast as they could—ducking for cover. From what?

A thunderous bellow answered him. He glanced up.

Ah.

On the far side of the Oasis, beyond the walls, was a full-fledged Frost Dragon. It must’ve been the size of the Artificer’s Guild by itself—like a thousand huge, angry icicles glued together, come to life. Its body was a translucent ice-blue, steeped red in the setting sun. Its eyes were cruel black gemstones, its wings a dewy film spidered with long icy bones. A hailstorm flowed out its frothing mouth. A hailstorm thick with the Laws of Frost. Even from here Dorian could feel them shivering the fabric of the plane.

Peak Sky-Realm!

And it was not alone. Another Frost Dragon circled by its side—also deep in the Sky Realm, also wreaking utter havoc.

Behind it, on backs of Vordors and wyrms and lesser dragons, were a fleet of Ugoc shamans.

The Azcan Oasis’s best response was ranged across the sky. Two dozen massive airships spewing cannon-blasts of qi, helmed by dozens of Earth-Realm crew each. Lightning-qi crackled across the sky. Booms rang out as rows of cannons let loose at once, peppering the Frost Dragons with blows. They did little more than annoy the creatures. Dorian watched as one of them spat out a breath, a breath suffused with Dao—it froze the air itself, spreading like cold wildfire, and swallowed up a battleship. Just like that, in seconds, the thing was the world’s biggest icicle. It dropped without protest, thundering into the sands. A tide of sand and dust thickened the air.

Dorian felt like his brain was being slowly crumpled up.

What the hells—they’re here ALREADY?!

Wait—no. No. From here he could only detect two Sky-Realm presences. This was not the main fleet. This must be a probing force.

Even so, by the swathes of auras flickering out at the Oasis’s perimeter—things were not going well…

No.

His eyes hardened. No, no, no—none of this nonsense. This ends here.

Dorian’s Javelin flared into being. Its shadowy aura now soaked triple the range it had before. Everywhere Dorian went he carried with him his own little shard of night.

He turned his eyes to the sky. He could imagine Nijo looking on with an insufferably serene grin through his scrying-glass. This was a test—almost a taunt. The man was playing with him. To him Dorian was no threat.

If Dorian had to guess, Nijo had chucked the Ugoc unit already stationed closest to the Azcan Oasis at them, simply for the hells of it. His message was clear. I don’t need to drag my full army across the desert for the likes of you. Why take a full two weeks for that when one quick blitz will do the trick?

The sad thing was, he would’ve been right. He was almost right.

Except you’ve attacked a day too late, I’m afraid…

Dorian’s new qi seethed in his veins.

He snorted. Choke on this, why don’t you?

Then he stepped into shadow, and was gone. Time to throw my weight around.

SEVENTY-FOUR

ALL THAT POWER (XIV)

It took him six shadow jumps.

A step into an alley shadow took him to a chimney’s shadow cast on a nearby guild roof. Then another shunted him down the street, and another farther down, and then again, and again, and at last he landed on the broad walkway atop the Oasis’s thick outer wall.

He was greeted by a scene of chaos.

Below it was hard to say who was winning. The ground troops seemed to hold off a tide of wyrms and wolves well enough, he supposed. A light-show played across the sands, flaring bright reds, blues, yellows—a firestorm, hailstorm, and thunderstorm messily fused. Gales of qi ripped through the battlefield, stirring up clouds of sand and dust. It must’ve been worse at ground level, where you could hardly tell friend from foe. There was much screaming from man and beast alike.

Up in the skies it was more one-sided.

A dozen of the Oasis’s battleships were already smoking wrecks half-buried in the sands. Two dozen more fought bravely, but they had their work cut out for them—they were struggling to merely fend off a thick swathe of Ugoc Shamans striking from atop giant Profound-Realm Vordors screeching bloody murder. Then there was the matter of the Frost Dragons, the real threat that no one in the Oasis had an answer for.

On one side of the skies, the Oasis Head and a handful of the other Azcan leaders struggled to hold off one of the dragons. The battleships were left to deal with the other—along with the cloud of Vordors spearing through their ranks, belching acids. The ships were not coping well. Even as Dorian arrived, a bulky steamer was pierced by a lance of ice. It went down, wailing, in a plume of fire. The other ships’ cannons boomed desperately, but their tries glanced off the Dragon’s thick scales. Useless.

Dorian licked his lips, stretching his arms. What to do? He could try a Javelin, but he was also drawn to try something more pure. Something that might showcase more directly what he was capable of…

Something that might give Nijo some pause. And thus buy him more time. Something that would earn him a little respect—perhaps, if he was lucky, even fear…

He threw out his hands, and brushed the dust off an old technique. A technique he hadn’t made much use of since he’d gotten his Javelin—but a potent weapon nonetheless.

[Yama’s Chains!]

This time, he channeled his full base into it.

The neat thing about Yama’s Chains were that they were made of pure qi. Which meant that the only limiting factor to their size was him.

And right now, he was no limit at all!

To either side of him there were two THUDS as two enormous chains of smoking shadow—each link big as a man, thick as a wyrm’s neck—snaked along the top of the wall. He must’ve looked comically tiny, holding them with his two hands.

Gasps rang out from below.

“It’s him! It’s him!”

“The Hero’s arrived!”

“Almighty Heavens, we’re saved!”

Despite it all, a weak chorus of cheers rang out.

Dorian always rolled his eyes internally at the title. ‘Hero.’ Ridiculous! It was the last thing anyone should call him, of all people. Still he snorted as he flexed his hands, and the chains rose up to either side of him, coiling like pythons poised to strike. I am here to save the day, aren’t I?

The Frost Dragon battling the ships whirled to him, snorting gales of frost, its crimson jeweled eyes glinting madly. It locked onto him. Its eyes narrowed.

Then it opened its mouth, bellowing, and the air warped with Laws of Ice.

It didn’t spew an icy substance. Rather it was like the world itself was infected by an unnatural frostbite that iced the air itself—a frostbite that arched straight for Dorian’s head. [Serpent’s Senses!]

Time slowed tenfold.

Dorian regarded the attack with mild amusement. Then he leapt forward, letting the attack smite a section of wall behind him. It was leisurely, almost effortless. My turn.

He thrust his hands out, and his Chains answered his will.

To either side of him two immense masses moved as one. The Frost Dragon snarled its contempt. It flapped its great wings to dodge, fluttering tiny tornadoes in the sands below. Its huge heft streaked up. It all seemed so delightfully slow to Dorian’s eye.

One chain snagged it around a leg.

The Frost Dragon looked down. It snorted again, somehow with even more contempt this time. He could see its thoughts in its eyes—this puny human means to constrain me? As if!

It beat its mighty wings.

It didn’t budge an inch.

He saw its slitted pupil go still. Then it lasered in on the chains, disbelieving. It beat its wings again, twice, three times, each mightier than the last, putting the full thrust of its Sky-Realm powers, its mighty draconic frame, into the motion.

The Chain held it with a serene firmness, like a patient owner leashing a disobedient dog.

When the Frost Dragon looked down again Dorian saw in its face a stark, naked horror. He smirked.

This was perhaps the first time in its life that it had run up against something mightier than itself—something that must’ve seemed in that moment an absolute power, looming before it like the endless depths of the sinkhole, unknowable, undeniable. When it looked to Dorian he saw in its eyes a newfound fear. It was the fear of a predator encountering a predator bigger than itself. It seemed not to know what to do.

For two incredible seconds they stayed there, fixed in place, the Dragon beating and screeching in futility, Dorian holding firm.

Then Dorian flexed, the Chain yanked, and the Frost Dragon became a smear of bluish motion.

BOOM!

Around the crater sand rose in waves as though it was water. The Dragon struggled up blearily, on unstable legs. Then Dorian looped a second Chain around its neck.

It looked then like a greater black snake setting upon a smaller blue one, bearing down upon it, wrapping it snout-to-tail even as it thrashed and clawed and spat Law attacks which struck only sand.

Dorian looked at his handiwork, grinning. His qi was already the thickest, densest, heaviest he’d encountered on this plane. And now that he’d amassed more than 50% more than what even a Peak Sky Realm Dragon could hold? The thing stood no chance from the start!

For a moment he held one of the most powerful creatures of this plane in his iron grip, savoring the feeling.

He looked to the skies. I hope you’re watching, Nijo…

Now, Dorian had really downed only one of the man’s elite soldiers, so to speak. He’d have to take on fleets of creatures like these—not to mention Nijo himself, and all the god-powers he brought—as a one-man-army, pretty much. And he had only about a week’s time to do it! It was far, far too early to celebrate.

But, in this moment, he felt like the king of the godsdamned plane.

Then he thought a funky thought. Let’s get a little cute with this, shall we?

He squinted at the Frost Dragon. He imagined the thing like a towel. And then he twisted, as though to wring it dry.

The Frost Dragon’s screeches shook the dunes. All around it the fighting had stopped—even the Ugoc Shamans, on backs of Vordors, were staring at the scene and gaping as the Dragon thrashed and bucked, its tail whipping about, but it could do nothing as one Chain went one way, and the other squeezed it the other. Dorian was, through sheer brute force, trying to snap the dragon’s spine inside its body.

And hells did he try for it! Qi ran mad in his veins. The Chains wrenched and struggled against that jagged frame. Alas—he was asking too much. All this did was cause the creature a great deal of pain.

He sighed. Fine…

He raised his palms, and the Chains went up with them. The apparatus—Chains bearing up a wrapped-up, immobilized dragon—cast a long shadow over the battlefield, enrapturing everyone on it, man and Beast alike.

Then Dorian summoned the Javelin.

The world about him was drenched in shadow as the glinting black-tipped Head emerged, dripping an oily acid as it went. He willed the Chains to stretched outward this time—rather than wringing the towel dry, stretching it to its limits head-to-tail. The Frost Dragon was made into one horizontal line, every inch of it, muscle and scale and sinew, stretched taut. There it is…Dorian left a little opening between the Chains, right in the middle of the Beast. Where its massive heart beat nervously behind a stretched layer of jagged blue scales.

The Frost Dragon whimpered. The Javelin shot forth.

* * *

In a dimly lit room many li away, the Godking inhabiting the body of Nijo Ugoc saw a Fang go from one side of his lovely Frost Dragon to the other, as easy as a needle passing through fabric. His mouth hung a little open.

He was the least shocked person in the room.

His Ugoc generals were tripping over themselves. One blubbered. One cried out. Another was tearing out his hair.

“What in Jez’s name was that?!”

“That’s godsdamned impossible.”

“It’s the work of another god. Must be!” A bald giant etched all over with Jez’s gold markings thumped the table. “Someone else is interfering in this plane!”

Nijo chuckled lightly. The moment of shock had passed. His mouth resolved to its usual happy line. “It’s a pleasant surprise, to be sure,” he said softly. “But not entirely out of the question. And you are correct, Amada—in a sense. There is a god’s hand in this. But not in the way you might think.”

He leaned in, regarding the scene with big, curious eyes. “Perhaps it ought to be impossible,” he whispered, as though to himself. “But I should expect that of you, shouldn’t I? Mm. A most wonderful display.”

His eyes glinted. “What other tricks might you have in store, old friend? Oh, I’m most eager to find out…”

“What the Hells—I mean to say, in Jez’s name—is this?!” The hairy man crossed his arms. “Enough with the riddle-speak, your honor! Who is he?! Is this man a true threat? Should I reroute our Elder Wyrms from the East, or our baby Phoenixes from the south?”

Nijo laughed. “You needn’t worry. This matter is of personal interest to me—and our friend has now earned the right to face me in the flesh. I shall make the journey West. I shall see to him myself.”

“Ah.”

That seemed to settle down everyone in the room. His generals went on to other things—like their plans to sweep the swamps of the south of the Plane, and to besiege the Eastern highlands. That this mysterious Io would be dealt with now seemed a foregone conclusion.

Nijo sighed happily.

SEVENTY-FIVE

BEYOND THE SKY (I)

Dorian pierced the heart of the Frost Dragon. Blood and innards spilled out the back end, a glorious shower of gore that splotched the sands crimson, drenching soldiers and Beasts alike. They all saw it — the Oasis fighters, the Beasts, the Vordors and their Shaman Riders.

A silence fell upon the battlefield.

Then Dorian raised his hand, and the chains bulged out, blurring, splitting. In a blink they’d doubled. He bared his teeth.

Almost all at once the Ugoc forces fled for dear life. He laughed.

Below, all about him, Azcan soldiers stared up at him. Their eyes shone with something like hero worship—no. Even more. They looked to him with reverence befitting a god.

“Hero! Hero! Hero!”

The chants blew up all around him. Men were ecstatic, leaping up and down, thrusting their fists at him, whooping and hollering. Dorian surveyed the battlefield, nodding. They’d lost maybe a sixth of their men. Not terrible, all things considered.

Although—if he was honest—in the end, the loss of only one man here would really matter…

Up ahead, a bedraggled Oasis lord flew down to him, trailed by a crew of frazzle-haired old men and women. Dorian counted Artificer Head Thon among them, along with the alchemist head and a handful of other heads of Noble Houses.

“A timely save,” said the Oasis lord. He looked a little too shell-shocked to muster up his usual sagely smile. “Gratitude—”

“Yeah, listen.” Dorian cleared his throat, then put on his most serious face. “Clearly, I am now the difference between winning and losing. Without me, this Oasis would be in ruins. With me, you at least stand a chance!”

The old Heads looked at one another, blinking. Nobody disputed it. Not even the Oasis lord.

“So here’s what’s going to happen. We have a little more than a week until Nijo arrives—or so I have so I have some admittedly dubious reason to believe. In that time, I must be the center of this Oasis’s efforts. Of course, do the usual—arm yourselves. Declare a state of emergency. Fit a Stick into every hand that can wield it, and so forth! But when I make a demand in the following week, Soul Contract or not, let’s agree it’s in the best interest of both of us to follow it. Agreed?”

The lord hesitated. His brows quirked. “That…would depend on—”

“Are we seriously quibbling about this? You saw that Frost Dragon. There’s dozens, maybe hundreds, where that came from!” Dorian sighed. “Right now I’m nowhere near strong enough to handle them all. I’ll need your full cooperation. Can we agree to save the politicking for after the once-in-a-millennium crisis is over?

“Fair enough.” The lord swallowed, looking pale. “What do you propose?”

“First…” Dorian wiggled his stump of a right foot. “I’ll need your most potent healing Elixir. Pull it out from your storages. Brew it. I don’t care. Just do it fast.”

“We shall have it at your doorstep by evening,” said the alchemist guild head. She was also looking rather pale. Come to think of it, a palor had drawn across the lot of them.

“Second! I’ll be conducting certain training exercises around the sinkhole for the next few days. Keep the gates locked. Do not disturb me, no matter what you hear. Got it?”

The Oasis lord nodded slowly. “Fine. What else?”

“Hmm.” Dorian scratched his chin.

Plying that sinkhole was suddenly a risk. He was strong, but likely nowhere near strong enough to poke the creature slumbering in its depths. But he still needed that sweet, sweet bloodline…which meant he had to draw out his prey. Make those torchdragons come to him somehow.

He grinned.

“Say, do any of you have a fishing rod I can borrow?”

* * *

Dorian spent the night recuperating and regrowing his foot. He’d been given a sickly green elixir that tasted as awful as it looked, but it did the trick. His limb was growing back—albeit with a sensation very much like a child’s growing pains, except ratcheted up to scale with its growth rate. But by now Dorian had gotten used to writhing around on the floor, so he didn’t mind.

At some point Kaya had come in. She didn’t so much as greet him. Just stepped in, trailing golden smoke, blinked twice, face-planted into the floor, and passed out. …Fair enough!

And she was now, inexplicably, Peak Profound.

…Fair enough!

Dorian was too busy writhing to think on it very much.

* * *

Later that night he found himself in a familiar place. Blank, hazy, shimmering void.

A dreamscape. He groaned internally.

And a familiar figure resolved out of the haze. Black suit, white gloves, stern features—his butler, Gerard, stood face-to-face with him.

“What now?” said Dorian, one brow cocked.

“We don’t have much time,” gasped Gerard. He held up a hand. “No sardonics, please, my liege—I’ll say my piece, and then this dreamscape will dissolve. Jez has conquered more than three-quarters of the Middle Realms. His forces have breached the Upper Realms, sire! Not since Thurin the Conquerer has such a feat been done.”

“Huh.”

“We should be safe—and the other Godkings should contain the threat—but I felt you should know, regardless—” His voice grew suddenly warbled. He frowned. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. His figure grew ghostly. He looked on the verge of winking out.

It must’ve been a bad time. The planes were too far apart. Even to send this message from as distant a spot as the Unstuck Space must’ve cost Gerard a hellish amount of qi.

The scene broke apart, misted to nothing, leaving Dorian blinking at the darkness.

Well, shit.

This ‘Jez’ has actually done it? Breaching the Upper Realms, eh?

…

He suddenly recalled that strange, broken-up message Old Man Fate had tried to send him. The panic in Fate’s voice.

…

Hm. They’re in a real jam, aren’t they?

Then he shrugged his metaphysical shoulders. Sucks to be them!

The move to seal himself up in maybe the Multiverse’s most secure storage space was looking ever more prescient. He’d effectively removed the need for him to care! Short of collapsing the Zenith Plane itself, which held the Unstuck Space—obviously impossible. Jez would need to wipe out the heaps of Godkings defending the plane to have even a shot at such a thing—Dorian’s position was impregnable.

And so when he woke up he simply wiggled his new toes, got to his feet, shunted that vision to the back of his mind, and happily went about his business.

He had some juicy fish to catch!

* * *

What does one do to bait out a torchdragon?

Normally you’d throw on some meat, perhaps freshly bloodied. Bait. Dorian got a feeling such crude tactics wouldn’t work on creatures of their caliber.

No—he needed bait that worked on a deeper level. Bait that cut deep.

He stood at the edge of the sinkhole, a high-grade fishing rod treasure made of Spirit Bamboo in one hand, his Interspatial Ring in the other. What to pick…

His eyes glinted. Heh. What about this?

Out came the still-rotting skull of the Sky-Realm torchdragon he’d slain the day earlier. He hooked it to the end of the rod.

Then he lowered it down into the waters. It sank lower, and lower, and lower, until he was certain it’d gone to the depths of the torchdragons’ lair.

And he waited.

Time ticked on. The time it took to burn an incense stick slid by. No response. Dorian frowned. Really? I’m taunting you with the corpse of your dead brethren—nothing?

Closing his eyes, he delved his bloodline senses into the sinkhole’s farthest reaches, seeking out emotional cues. He could sense the torchdragons there, slithering about, and he could sense they were irritated. A few were even fuming.

But they could also tell it was bait. These weren’t dumb brute Beasts. None of them rose to it. Aww.

He could sense a few of them really wanted to, though. A few were a spark away from swimming to the surface to give that nasty human a piece of their minds. They just needed a little encouragement, as it were…a little push to really get them going.

Dorian reeled his rod back in and studied the skull. Then he brightened.

He dropped his trousers and started to piss on the thing. He lathered it on thick, too, the way a gourmet chef might drizzle his signature sauce all over a dish. He sniffed. Suitably pungent! Excellent.

Grinning, he dropped the fishing line back in.

It didn’t make it halfway down the sinkhole before he felt sharp spikes of rage from down below. More than one. Many more. If Dorian was honest, a few more than he bargained for initially—

He sucked in a breath, summoning his trusty Javelin. SHIT—Here they come!

It was one thing to face down one Sky-Realm Beast. But here—what were there, three? Four? Five, even?! He must’ve pissed off most of the torchdragons left in the sinkhole!

One-on-one he could trounce a Sky Realm Beast just fine. But five-on-one? Suddenly he wasn’t nearly so confident…

Yet in that moment, absurdly, those raging auras all appeared in Dorian’s mind not as fearsome Beasts, but rather as a bundle of throbbing +100%! Statuses, just waiting to be absorbed…

He cackled.

Bring it!

The sands rumbled.

SEVENTY-SIX

BEYOND THE SKY (II)

A master cultivator never entered a fight without a clear strategy if they could help it.

A master cultivator never entered a group fight at all, strategy or not, unless the difference in power was enormous!

There was some romantic idea—Dorian blamed the poets and the bards for this—of one hero mowing down a dozen of his peers. Say, a Godking with a Multiversal Ranking of 20 slaying five peers of slightly lesser standing (a few Godkings ranked in the lower double-digits, maybe).

This was plainly insane. Unless it was one of those truly untouchable forces in this Multiverse—like his stuck-up brother Houyi—that Top-20 Godking was screwed!

Dorian’s minimum ‘one-versus-many’ threshold was usually one full power level above the many. In this case, he found himself in the weird situation of being one full power level below the many torchdragons coming for him with unsettling swiftness—and yet perhaps due to his hyper-bloated reserves, he was still in effect a half-step stronger. These were uncharted waters.

[Serpent’s Senses!]

He bought himself a bare few seconds to think—a bare few seconds watching the colossal shadows of twining torchdragons thicken, darken, grow ever-clearer as they raced for the sinkhole’s surface.

[Level Up!]

[Serpent’s Senses] Lv. 1 -> 2

Nice. The burn rate to his qi hadn’t slowed, but now he could push even further—his senses slowed past tenfold to elevenfold, twelvefold…

Still, there were too many variables. Too little time, even with this level-up—those things were coming up at a blistering pace. Getting out of this clean and unscathed might be optimistic…he snuck a glance at his newly regrown foot. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

There was a shock of thunderclaps as they broke the surface, dashing waves of Spirit Water across the shore. And then they were upon him.

Five, all rising at once, ugly knots of planes and sharp angles and piercing white teeth, great tongues of oil arching straight for him.

Dorian winced. Why was that bastard Houyi popping into his mind each time he faced these things? But perhaps it was natural. The man had taught Dorian how to fight, after all. His voice filtered in as clearly as if he were at Dorian’s side: “When forced to fight a group, always strike first. Eliminate them one by one with prejudice.”

Dorian summoned his Javelin, drew out a few thick Yama’s Chains, and went for it.

The Yama’s Chains he thrust out as pure distractions—to buy some time as he went for the first torchdragon. The brunt of his focus was on nailing his Javelin’s arc to meet the nearest torchdragon’s wide-open mouth. In it went, and he felt the satisfying ripping of Javelin on innards.

The rest of his attention, meanwhile, was spent on keeping those other little fuckers at bay as he hollowed out the first. He harried them, shoved them about with his Chains, and otherwise drew up a dense web of shadow. When a torchdragon ripped through his efforts he leapt under it. Into its shadow he went. Out he popped amid the big swathe of shade made by the walls on the other side of the sinkhole, unscathed—and his Javelin had at last carved through its victim, sending its body cratering into the waters. One down!

Dorian grinned. Maybe he’d been too cautious in his assessment. Maybe he was just a very good matchup against these creatures—too small to get ahold of, too powerful to snap up in a bite! The first one had gone down easy enough! Four to go. Simple.

And that instant of hubris, that fraction of time he let himself relax, made all the difference.

Four brutish heads whirled to glare at him.

Then they all opened their mouths, some fifty paces from him.

Out poured thick gobs of molten-rock qi.

Dorian snorted. His Serpent Senses were still active. They sapped so little of his powers nowadays that he hardly ever needed to turn them off in a fight. These gobs—while nasty-looking, and certain to deal great damage should they connect—hadn’t a prayer’s shot of hitting him!

And then the gobs vanished.

…Wait.

It took a beat for him to deduce where they went. That was a beat he’d wish he could get back very, very soon.

His heart sank like a stone.

He almost stepped into the shadows beside him on instinct. That would have ended this run then and there.

He leapt up, clinging onto his Javelin hovering mid-air, and only barely avoided death by burning.

From that shadow—from the shadows all around him, beneath his feet, even above him—enveloping him—came a stream of massive gobs, swallowing up the sky, flooding the world, welding into a huge dome all around him. A dome of qi hot as the Nine Hells. He wasn’t the only one who could send shit through the shadow-space! And it was coming fast, and in such vast quantities, a sea of the stuff pouring through the shadows—too fast for him escape this closing trap through the vanishing sliver of light above him. He at least had the wherewithal to produce a qi-lamp from his Interspatial Ring, dispelling the shadows starting to form on himself, before the dome closed up for good. Before he was locked in this hellish furnace.

And then the furnace shrunk at an alarming rate.

He couldn’t even exit through the shadow-space. It was filled with steaming-hot qi! He was stuck, suddenly hemmed in by this mass of horrible boiling qi advancing on him from all sides. He was stuck here, clinging onto his Javelin mid-air, helpless. It was grotesque.

He couldn’t even use Void Shield, that marvelous new technique he hadn’t even gotten a chance to dust off and try! That thing would use shadow to envelop the enemy’s attack. But the enemy’s attack came from within the shadow itself. The fight had turned on him so fast he felt like he’d gotten whiplash. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

He had maybe half a heartbeat’s time before those walls smothered him utterly, melting him to mere bones. Stretched out with Serpent’s Senses that made for a little over six heartbeats’ time—barely anything. FUCK—

Beat one. He tapped his Interspatial Ring and chucked out a shield artifact, just to test it. The oily attack turned the shield to smoke in an instant. Shit.

Beat two. He tried another artifact. A chunk of obsidian. But torchdragon’s qi when superheated was the stuff of the inner volcanoes of the higher planes. Even from here Dorian could feel its shocking heat scalding his skin. This stuff burned through anything. There was no escape. He even threw a Yama’s Chain at it, just to see if he could disrupt the wall even a little. Nope. Burned up on contact, like that. Just sank into the wall and smoked to nothing.

Hells, this bloodline is potent!

Beat three. Panic beat. It was starting to hit him just how dire this was. Now, the attack had closed in on him so much he felt his skin starting to squirm. The skin on the back of his hands were already starting to peel off his body.

Beat four was when the idea came. If there’s one thing that has a hope of surviving the superheated qi of a torchdragon—it’s the bones of the torchdragon itself!

The last two beats he spent hurriedly constructing perhaps the shittiest flood shelter in Multiverse history.

First, he yanked out that piss-stained skull. Then he squeezed himself into it, qi-lamp still tucked at his side, while yanking out every last chunk of torchdragontorchdragon skeleton he had in his Interspatial Ring.

There were only four openings he had to account for. Two eye holes, two nose holes. The jaw was welded shut enough—he’d just have to trust it’d hold.

Those holes he plugged with as many bones and fragments as he could. And then, in the final moments before impact, he threw up four Yama’s Chains to pack the things in tight. Hold them in place.

The impact was less brutal than he’d expected. Less an instant walloping, more a soft start—then a steady increase of pressure, a constricting. Dorian gritted his teeth. Was it working? There was an ominous hiss above him, but at least for now the bone hadn’t melted to slag. It had gotten uncomfortably hot. But that was all.

He sensed the bloodline resonances drawing nearer. He sensed within them a confusion—as in, why is the human not dead yet? And then, one by one, the confusions dissipated. They felt, or saw, what he was doing. Despite it all he was holding them off. Their strike had failed. He was rather miserable in here—it was far hotter than his liking, and he should never have let this attack get half this far—but it was a moot point. He’d survived.

Yet they didn’t let up, weirdly. If anything they poured more qi into the mix. And so Dorian lay there, suspended mid-air in this skull inside a sphere of boiling qi, holding back the flood and wondering just what the hells these creatures were up to.

As far as he could tell the bones weren’t melting in the slightest. They were only getting hotter.

And hotter.

And hotter…

…

So hot the air was starting to hurt his lungs to breathe. And he knew then what they were trying.

He had made a shelter, true—but seen another way, he was like prey trapped in a pot of its own creation.

And these Beasts intended to cook him alive!

SEVENTY-SEVEN

BEYOND THE SKY (III)

Dorian wracked his brain for a plan and came up blank. The bone around him was now so scalding it were gave off a sickly pale light. Where he was crammed up against it he felt his skin curdle. Searing jolts of pain shot up his body. He felt like a lobster in a pot. The temperature around him would not stop creeping up, and up, and up…

He groaned. What was he supposed to do?

Break out? How? He was straining to keep the holes of the torchdragon’s skull plugged as it was. The shadow-space, soaked with torchdragon qi, were no refuge. He could not be more stuck.

It was getting rather hard to think in all this heat. A fog of boiling feeling was slowly creeping over his mind. He blinked his filmy eyelids and held up an arm. The air here was so hot, so humid he couldn’t even sweat properly.

His skin was getting soggy. Like butter heating up, relaxing its firm yet soft shape, getting sloppier…

But again: what was he supposed to do?! He heaved a laugh, then choked on the scalding air. Damn it all!

Then a single bright thought pierced the bog. He blinked.

…Wait.

What if what he was supposed to do was to simply do nothing?

He perked up. This should cost those infernal creatures a hell of a lot of qi, shouldn’t it? There were four torchdragons, sure, but they had to keep feeding this boiling sphere.

He didn’t need to break out. He didn’t need to stop them. There was no use in thrashing about, in wasting his energies on escape attempts. Simply by being he made this a contest of endurance. He simply needed to not die!

Granted, he thought, watching the skin on the back of his fingers sag off like melted wax, not dying is hardly a trivial matter. But he did have some help.

He flexed his fingers. No pain, weirdly. Perhaps the nerve endings had been burned off. He tapped his Interspatial Ring and scanned its contents. Lots of knick-knacks floating about in there. Arrays scattered about, Stick prototypes, Relic fragments, heaps of artifacts…aha!

A mound of healing elixirs of all colors. Leftovers, to be sure—he hadn’t had time to restock of late—but these would have to do. He uncorked the first and downed it in a swig. Tendrils of icy qi swept down his throat, trickling to his limbs and nestling there. It helped the way a cool towel might help a fever patient. He was still burning up inside and out—his arms and his legs had melted so much he could pick out the gross strings of tendons through warped flesh—but it was something.

He just needed a lot more somethings. Out poured the rest of the elixirs. Really any healing artifact he had! Then he uncorked them one by one and drank, drank, drank. An great upwelling of healing energies went into him like a icy spring, pouring out into the wildfire burning across his body. His flesh became a battleground, a tug-of-war between hurt and heal, melt and mend, and he felt like he himself had become some crucible of wild energies breaking upon each other. All the while his qi was added to the mix, tirelessly working to stitch back whatever bits of him it could.

And it was working!

…Sort of.

It was, at the very least, slowing the melt. Less ‘butter-in-hot-sun,’ more ‘ice-sculpture-left-at-room-temperature.’ His skin was still, on the whole, drooping distressingly off his bones. Even his eyelids had softened up far more than he’d like. He’d pulled out his last trick, downed his last elixir. Now, all there was left to do was wait!

And wait.

And wait.

Was it just his fevered imagination or was there more flesh than skin on his arm now? The skin was sloughing off him like reams of hot, sticky silk. Blearily he noticed a pool of his own melted skin was starting to form about him. He was sitting in a puddle of himself.

And that puddle was starting to bubble. He blinked again. A surreal feeling struck him. It had gotten so hot the puddle of his own skin was starting to evaporate.

Only then did it really hit him that there was a decent chance he might actually go out like this.

The healing elixirs and his qi, tireless as they were, were starting to feel like chucking buckets of water to put out a burning house. He sought his interiors and found them starting to flag. The elixirs were petering out. His qi, still churning, was having a damned hard time keeping up. The pressure was getting excruciating.

Even his Spirit Sea felt it! Under the immense heat, the oppressive force of it, it was starting to condense, drawing into itself, growing ever-thicker…heavier…melting into the core, which itself was soaking up the qi about it, packing it on like new clay…it was starting to gain its own mini-gravity, even. It was starting to spin in slow, tremulous revolutions. It was starting, unbelievably, to glow.

Dorian frowned two burned-off brows. What the hells is happening here?

It brought to Dorian’s mind the process of advancing from the Earth to the Sky Realm! But that involved a setting free of the Laws in the Core. The Core broke open, suffusing the sea, which then spread out into a vast plane in which each little strand of qi brimmed with a smidge of Law. In this way a Sky was formed.

Except here there was no Laws in his Core. And rather than expand outward the Core seemed to go inward, packing on more mass, growing denser, spinning, glowing, burgeoning with greater powers—

Not a Sky, but rather becoming a Star.

Dorian could hardly breathe. He was utterly bound by the sight. He’d never seen anything like it before! After Earth was Sky. Everyone knew that. But the paths of cultivation were innumerable and spanned the breadth of the Multiverse! Even quirks of biology would alter the paths of the individual. Strange, arcane powers lurked in the shadows.

And by his bizarre choice to forego a Law and bring on more qi, he’d strayed well off the beaten path. Had he stepped into one such shadow? Was this some new glorious path of advancement—packing in, growing dense and thick and massive beyond measure?!

Then it stopped. Dorian gaped at it—at this wonderful thing forming within him held in stasis, shivering. Slowly it started to unwind, streams of qi falling away, sloshing back into Sea form, unbounding from the mass. No! He wished he could throw it all back with invisible hands, hold it together—it was so close to becoming! You can’t leave me here with but a taste of you! Blast it all!

Yet its impetus had vanished. The pressure was gone. The heat around Dorian was fast dropping. His eyes shot open.

So transfixed was he that he hadn’t clocked the fact that his skin had stopped sagging. The healing forces of his qi, of the few trickles of elixir left in his system, were starting to reassert themselves—slowly stitching skin over dried-out swathes of blackened flesh. His whole body felt made of old, brittle wood—like one wrong move and he’d crack.

And yet he was alive!

He could sense the creatures outside, too. Baffled. Spent. Sense their rage, once burning as hot as their qi, give way. The space of shadow was empty once more, inviting.

That image still shimmered in the back of his mind—his core condensing, spinning, becoming something so delectably new! As soon as he got out of this fix he’d look into it. But it would have to wait. For now…

He snuffed out his qi-candle in the skull, the only thing holding back the darkness. Shadows drenched the space once more. In the next instant he was gone.

He re-emerged in a shadow of a tree, cross-legged—right in front of the pack of torchdragons. It must’ve been a horrific sight—this shriveled-up mess of tissue that once was human staring at them with dried-out eyes, grinning with flayed gums and cracked teeth.

The torchdragons, these great hulking beasts of the dark, recoiled at the sight of him! And they had good reason. For though they were spent in both flesh and spirit, their qi poured into that one all-out effort to fry him—an effort that had brought him to the cusp of transcendence and annhilation—he still had a good, oh, 300% of his qi left?

It was qi that powered techniques. It was qi that gave a fighter power. It was qi coursing through their flesh that let these torchdragons snap at supersonic speeds. It was their qi that let them spit acids to melt the skies and boil the seas!

And now that qi was nearly all gone. They were naked. Disarmed.

You’ve had a grand old time frying me to within an inch of my life! Dorian’s mouth curled up cruelly. Why don’t I repay you in kind?

Yama’s Chains exploded out from his body. Two—four—eight—each as big as a torchdragon, each costing him a huge swathe of his qi, casting long, ominous shadows over the sinkhole waters. He had qi to spare.

Another one of HouyI’s handy tenets: the most powerful tactic a fighter could muster was the counterpunch. Roll with the opponent’s best punch and suddenly they’re left out of position, overextended, vulnerable—now these torchdragons were to him simply huge fish out of water!

Huge as they were they seemed suddenly hesitant. Unsure.

Then four Yama’s Chains snaked to the sinkhole, blocking off any hope of escape.

Then his Javelin rose above him, a reaper in white. His other Chains flanked it like an honor guard.

One of the torchdragons couldn’t take it anymore. It leapt for him, jaw wide, unhinged.

[Serpent’s Senses!]

It was almost pitiful how slow it seemed to him now—slowed down, stripped of its qi, desperately lunging with only its scaly body. How in the Nine Circles of Hell had he been so careless as to let these things trap him—almost kill him?!

No matter. The fight was all but over. All he had to do now was execute. And his Javelin was as good an executioner as any.

The full heft of Dorian’s massive qi reserves sent the Javelin streaking through the air so fast even with his super-slowed senses he only saw its after-image. He sensed it through feeling instead—the feeling of bone meeting soft, fleshy throat, and carving deep into the body beyond.

And then there were three. Three drained torchdragons that had gone very still.

Dorian saw them, true. But his mind was already racing ahead, racing within them to their cores, the energies within that would boost his sea higher, thicker, chunkier…and even further.

It raced to that mirage of a dense black star of cultivation, that brief glimpse he’d gotten within himself, some new, glorious, unseen frontier…

As his Javelin emerged from a pool of shadow beside him, soaked through with black blood, his eyes were shining.

SEVENTY-EIGHT

BEYOND THE SKY (IV)

The rest was but a formality.

Yama’s Chains struck out and bound up the leftover torchdragons. They writhed and flopped weakly like fish stuck on hooks, but they were too sapped to put up a serious fight. It was like with that Sky-Realm Frost Dragon, trussed up and pitiful. Dorian gutted them like fish.

It was only after he’d happily collected his the last of the Beasts’ Cores, however, that he realized just how severe the damage to his body was.

All this time there had been at most moderate pain. Mostly internal. He bet this was because the parts of him that could feel pain had been burned off. Really he’d lost all feeling in the whole of his body. He couldn’t wiggle his toes if he wished, and his fingers were like pouting children, only sometimes obeying him—and even then slowly, reluctantly.

What set off the alarms in his mind was when he put his last Core into his Interspatial Ring, took a step, and heard a sharp CRACK. Then he frowned, lifting his leg, thinking he’d stepped on something. And found that his foot didn’t follow. He stared at the blackened stump buried in the sand. The brittle lumps of bone within, the tendons snapped clean off.

…Huh.

The heat of battle was burning out within him. And with it that superhuman rush, that exhilaration, was leaking out with it. He felt all of a sudden very old and saggy. A heavy fog of fatigue was slowly washing over him, tugging at his eyes, dragging at his bones. He was sinking involuntarily into a humid stupor. His whole body grew irresistibly heavy. Even his thoughts, usually a fast-flowing stream, now trudged through a swamp of the mind.

He had to get out of here. He was going to crash—was crashing—

He fled. Five well-timed shadow jumps took him to his apartment. Blearily he felt around, shoving blurry sketches of furniture aside, picked out his backup stash of Interspatial Rings, poured out all the healing elixirs within, downed them indiscriminately. Then his body flagged at last. He went out like a light. He didn’t even feel himself hit the ground.

* * *

Father Zacharias had no idea what to do. It was like they’d let a hungry Vordor into a nursery! He’d been verging on desperation as he watched Kaya Rust run through their latest batch of recruits. Now, he was verging on tears as she tore through their stack of techniques in the sacred library—chucking entire volumes aside, saying “boring!” Or “dumb!”. He had to swan-dive to save a centuries-old meditation by an old Jez Priest on the nature of being from falling into the hearth. Then she’d alighted upon a technique—”Oooh!”—and of course it was their most risky and volatile of the bunch—’Darkheart Sutra’—a cultivation method based on harnessing one’s most fiery desires. Zacharias had had it locked up in one of the back bookshelves. How she’d gotten her hands on it he didn’t know. Now, he could only watch as she set to work with the thing, gobbling up elixirs and Spirit herbs and all manner of the church’s precious resources as she did.

In his head he’d had this plan. The more he got to know her the more potential the girl seemed to have. Her head was most useful precisely because it was so empty—all the more room to put things in! Hopefully a lifelong devotion to Jez’s creed, along with a dash of ethics. Morality. Obedience. And so forth. So, he treated her like a tamer might treat a wild beast. Entice it with food. Win it over by feeding it what it likes. And all the while, bend the thing to your will.

He cringed. What a pleasant fantasy that was…

He had never seen a creature so single-mindedly devoted to the pursuit of pleasure. It was absurd. She had no other interests or cares—none at all! Zacharias led a church. He had seen his fair share of devotion. This was something else. This was inhuman. Humans cared about things. Families, friends, hobbies, beliefs, ideologies—but her mind was fixed on a single sadistic point: get strong, hurt more. There was something deeply wrong with her.

Could it have been Jez’s influence? He frowned. To bond with Jez was to bring out the core of one’s soul at some deep level—but that couldn’t account for all this. Though it might’ve made a broken psyche worse…

Whatever the case, no amount of sweet-talking on his part would fix it! She was proving a headache to persuade. Getting her to care about anything else was impossible. Her appetite was seemingly endless. Zacharias could swear she was hiding an Interspatial Ring in her belly. He couldn’t keep enabling this—she’d eat them out of a home! Yet if he stopped giving her what she wanted now, would she simply grow bored of them and leave? In that case all they’d gotten for their troubles would be the loss of a heft sum of goods—alongside the collective infertility of a generation of Jez’s worshippers. Either way was no good. No good at all.

The other church leaders shuffled behind him, swallowing and dabbing at their foreheads.

“What do we do?” Whispered one of his elder priests, looking rather pale. “Sir Nijo said to rope her in, but, ah—I only mean—” He spread his hands helplessly.

“I know,” croaked Zacharias.

“Can’t we stop her? At least put a limit to this?” Cried another priest.

“She hardly listens to me as is,” Zacharias kneaded his brow. “The only thing keeping her here is that we feed her what she likes! Besides—do you want to be the one to tell her to stop?”

The priest shivered, drawing his knees together. “Sensible point, Father. Very sensible.”

Zacharias groaned. He felt like tearing his hair out. He’d created this monster, after all. This could only end two ways. Either she ran through the whole of the House of Jez, or they chucked her out before she had the chance!

He winced, watching her wolf down a thousand-year ginseng. The latter was looking more appealing by the second…

And in the final calculus she’s but a tiny piece on Jez’s vast board. It’s not as though she’s of any real importance…He swallowed and folded his arms. He grew more sure of himself by the second. That’s it. Enough is enough! Let us call this whole mess a failed experiment, absorb our losses, and move on. This fiend can find some other poor cult to terrorize!

* * *

Dorian woke up not dead, which was always a nice way to start your day. He blinked—eyelids still working, very good—and got slowly up to a crisscross position. His whole body felt scraped raw and throbbed dully, but not sharply. What time was it? He squinted out the floor-to-ceiling windows. The sun was slowly rising. The next day?

Well, that’s another day gone. Another day closer to Nijo’s arrival. What did he have now? A week? Perhaps even less? He could hardly count on an enemy to keep his word—though Nijo had been almost disturbingly honest up till now.

All the more reason to get going! He tapped his Interspatial Ring. On today’s agenda: First, absorb all his new goodies! Second, do some poking about that fascinating phenomenon his core had gone nearly gone through. But only after he’d gotten all the writhing out of the way.

Core number one! He tapped a finger to the Beast Core, and the floodgates opened wide.

It was almost starting to get routine, which was insane to think about. As he rolled over, dry heaving and feeling that mad rush of qi and bloodline and that familiar burning in his gut, it struck him that in any other circumstance the chunk of qi he was about to get was transformative. Any mortal—hells, even lower-tier gods—would kill to up their reserves by the chunk now pouring into his Spiritual Sea! Yet to him it was but one of five lined up. And he intended to get through them all by day’s end…he was spoiled for qi! Even as a god such a monstrous route would likely never come to him again. He’d been to firmed-up by then, too settled.

Status updates flashed by his fluttering eyelids. Sweat pooled around his body. There was much flopping about and groaning and even a mild loss of bowel control.

And then it was done. Up popped the final message—

[Level-up!]

[Core Saturation]

[554% -> 560%]

Only with the flexible, moldable, nascent build of a mortal could he throw on nearly +200% qi in but a few hours! It was the sum of both the total immolation of a Beast Core’s bloodline and the innate qi that Blood brought to begin with, and it sat heavy and thick and beautiful in Dorian’s stomach. He even looked a little more bloated as he glanced down. He was starting to feel it now—the physical space of his Spirit Sea, small as it was, brushing up against his organs as he shifted his weight. A little like feeling his knuckles crack, but much slimier. Slightly disturbing.

Yet also utterly awesome. He could literally feel his power growing within him! …Sort of like a tumor! But a very good tumor. The best kind of tumor. The feeling did bring up a more disturbing implication, though. The thing did take up physical space within his body. And like it or not his Sea was a part of his body. Which meant that there had to be some natural limit for his body to impose on this qi growth.

Or maybe not? Maybe it’ll just keep blowing up without end. Maybe my belly can simply keep expanding. Maybe I’ll walk around looking like the most pregnant human in the history of the Multiverse, wielding the powers equal to untold hordes of gods! He brightened at the thought.

…Probably not. But one could hope.

Core Two!

And then there came another few hours of playing the dying fish. He gave up on controlling his bowels. At some point Kaya had walked in very angry about something or another, said something, but he couldn’t hear her over all the ringing in his ears. Then she left, and he went back to flopping and shitting himself uncontrollably. By the end of it he’d run out of sweat to excrete.

[Level-up!]

[Core Saturation]

[709% -> 715%]

Glorious! Wonderful! Lovely!

His whole belly area had gotten uncomfortably tight. He waited for more bloodline from the Core. None seemed forthcoming.

…Huh.

He was quite happy in the grand scheme of things. He was still now seven times as powerful as he should have been, at the natural limit of his already enhanced Spirit Sea! It was not merely a difference in quality. It was a difference in kind. He could also hit seven times harder, and that made all the difference in the world. What was a light jab from him could now be a killing blow!

There was, however, one slight dampener to his glee.

If Dorian’s math was right, this was substantially less than what he would’ve expected from a core. A 155% increase was what—30-odd% less than last time’s boost? Some qi must’ve leaked out somehow. Maybe his Sea hadn’t grown fast enough to contain it.

Suddenly he was nervous. Diminishing returns likely meant one sobering thing. That his suspicions were right. There was a natural limit to just how much qi his Spirit Sea could hold—even in its most stretched form—and he was, ever so slowly, starting to approach it.

The question now was how fast he’d run up against it. With any luck, not before I’ve downed these last three Cores…

With a little more trepidation, he popped in another. Oh, Fate, you heinous little bastard. Don’t you cut me off when I’m so close—at least let me hit that sweet 1000%! Let me hit 10 times harder than anyone else at my power level. Is that really too much to ask?!

SEVENTY-NINE

150. BEYOND THE SKY (V)

Core three started off smoothly. A flood of bloodline and qi rushed in, and his body quickly set to burning it up and stuffing it in. The percentages crept up and up, to Dorian’s mind linear— to 721%…soon 735%…754%…So far, so good!

Then he felt a unsettling sensation grip his Spirit Sea. It felt like he was pissing himself—but that he could handle. He’d pissed himself more than once and it was only morning! No. He was pissing himself, but rather than with urine it was with qi, and that was infinitely more disturbing. It was like he was trying to close up some imaginary zipper in his body but the sheer bulk of his qi reserves bulged behind it, squeezing out against him, staunchly refusing to let him firm up the seal.

It wasn’t much, mind you. A tiny leak. Barely noticeable. Yet light rains often led to great storms. Even as the numbers kept climbing—albeit ever-so-slightly slower, jumping by 5%s at a time—he was struck by a sense of foreboding. He grew jittery.

It was when he passed the 800% mark when he felt the seam start to widen. He could only watch, aghast, as his precious precious qi leaked out by the gob, smoking off his skin. Still it wasn’t much. Three-quarters of his qi was still safely shuttled into his ever-expanding Spirit Sea. But whatever natural limit his body had was quickly asserting itself, and with each new droplet of bloodline, with each new burning, more and more leaked out before his body had a chance to patch up the gaps.

Each little stream of qi hurt him somewhere deep in his soul. The tiny goblin within screamed and clawed and wailed to get it back, but alas limits were limits! He should’ve expected this. It was hardly conceivable that an Earth Realm fighter, however strange a trick he’d found, could grow without limit—could contain in theory a universe full of qi in his body. Still, though…if not a universe, at least give me tenfold! Just tenfold and I shall be happy. More than happy!

It was looking to be a close call.

Past 850% and the qi leakage was growing truly tragic. Dorian could hardly bear to watch. Each time he saw a gob of qi leak out, lost forever to the void, he felt like a mother being forced to give up one of her children. He frowned. No, no—that comparison was a bit rich, wasn’t it? A mother could always make another child if she so wished. Those little shits were a renewable resource. He, on the other hand, had exhausted the sinkhole of torchdragons! As tragedies went there was simply no comparison.

At least reflecting on the abjectness of his plight took his mind off the fact that his qi absorption was falling off a cliff.

By the late 800s he was leaking out nearly a third of the qi he put in! At last, thank Heavens, he managed to just squeak over 900% before the core ran out. He heaved in a breath, patting his burgeoning belly, and forced down the urge to vomit. If he let loose now he might just throw up his entire Spirit Sea.

Two cores were left.

He took a few minutes to catch his breath. To let his Sea stabilize, and to make certain he wasn’t about to blow up or throw up or pop like a balloon.

all right…another deep breath, and he opened up the second Core. The grueling process began again.

He felt like sieve. Torrents of black qi-smoke blew out from him, melting holes in the walls, burning out windows and escaping into open air all about him. He was quickly nearing the point where he was absorbing as much qi as he leaked out! He’d put so much into himself by now that he felt like a man at the tail end of an hours-long binge at a banquet, or perhaps a buffet—except magnified tenfold. He was bloated and horribly sleepy all of a sudden. A hot muddle of fatigue was settling in over his brow.

No. No! He gritted his teeth, slapping himself, and had to keep again from throwing up. No sleeping. I just woke up, damn it! No time for another nap!

By sheer force of will he kept himself upright. He was hardly able to think. He was stranded in some hot dreamy sleepy state. He dimly registered the end of this second core’s offerings.

[Level-up!]

[Core Saturation]

[1032% -> 1035%]

He blinked. He made it! Tenfold, and then some! Huzzah! He grinned stupidly. This next core—this last core—would shove him to his limit. Probably beyond. And he was getting frighteningly close, by the looks of it.

This time he slouched into the final torchdragon Core. As it poured into him he lay there spread out, too bloated to move. His main goal now was to simply not fall apart at the seams. There was an outpouring of heat, of swelling, of a most unusual sort of pain: a pain that seemed to come from every point in his body at once, puffing out. It was as though every atom of his body wanted to fly off in its own direction. Like his body was unwinding bit by bit. But he never really did explode—he simply hung there, feeling in each moment like he was about to—even as his Core Saturation crept up past the mid-1000s%s, then slogged up near 1100%…

An indiscriminate amount of time later…

[Level-up!]

[Core Saturation]

[1128% -> 1131%]

That was the last of the updates. The rest of the bloodline and its qi simply poured out of him. His body, try as it might, could stomach no more.

At last it was done, and he could scarcely believe he was alive. He’d made it. And—miracle of miracles—he was still awake! Sure, he was yawning all over himself and so bogged down by drowsiness he was falling into micro-sleeps—snapping up every few seconds and blinking, trying to clear his head—but he’d made it. Eleven times normal power, in the palm of his hands.

He felt a warm tingling of joy. He would’ve felt more excited, but he couldn’t feel very much of anything at the moment. He was dissolving into a strange and endless grayness. He burped, and out poured a turgid cloud of black qi that splattered onto the rug before him. A qi with eleven times its normal potency.

The puddle of qi burned through the rug in half a second. The rug’s only remnant was a vaguely sulfuric scent. Dorian blinked. Huh.

Then the puddle melted a giant hole through the floorboards. The stone beneath it went up in a smoking hiss seconds after. Then there was a thunderous crash as the ceiling of the floor beneath gave way. Then another, and another spurt of hissing, louder this time. Another dense crash as it burned through another floor somewhere far beneath. A flurry of shrieks and shouts came through the gaping hole.

Dorian blinked once more, slower. And promptly passed out.

* * *

He woke up still feeling sluggish and far too bloated. He looked down.

His stomach was the size of a melon. That would explain it.

At least he could think properly now! He yawned, stretching, and got to his feet. This body—this cultivation stage—had been shoved to the brink of its breaking point. He’d maxed out the Earth Realm. He patted his hefty belly, grinning. Not bad. Not bad at all.

By Not bad, he really meant that there were likely precious few creatures on this plane that could hope to touch him now. Hells—he could put up a good fight against a quasi-god, probably!

But Not bad still left him nervous when he thought of Nijo. Would eleven times power be enough to face down not only legions of Sky Realm monsters, but also an avatar of a god?

gods played by different rules. Things got finicky when the higher Laws got involved. He could beat down some Sky Realm nuisance, sure, but Sky Realm creatures could make use of laws like toddlers could make use of katanas. Dorian had seen some godly avatars kill a mortal with but a thought! They could simply command the Laws of Life to sever the soul from the body, and the Multiverse would comply. If Nijo had that sort of power up his sleeve Dorian was screwed no matter how fat he got!

Probably not, though. That sort of thing was quite rare, even among the countless Daos. The point still remained—Dorian had no clue what Nijo and his godly sponsor were capable of. And that made him nervous. He was really damned strong. Strong enough? Who could say?

He’d harbored some insane dream of hitting twenty, maybe thirty times power by the time the Ugoc came, but Fate had other plans…

He put his hands on his hips, frowning. I suppose my massing phase is officially complete. What now?

There was that one very intriguing path he’d gotten but a tantalizing glimpse of…

His mind drifted back to the cocoon of heat and pressure he’d been thrown in by those torchdragons. How that unique concoction—mixed with an environment dense with familiar qi—had given rise to something new in him. A condensing. The start of a fascinating conversion—a new, hitherto unknown stage of cultivation, perhaps? From Earth, skipping Sky, to…perhaps Star?

He scratched his chin. But how would he recreate those conditions? They were rather unique. Stuffing himself into any old forge wouldn’t do it. He also needed that qi affinity, that resonant environment. Maybe only the Dweller could produce such an effect for him now, and Dorian got the feeling that thing wouldn’t be too keen on helping him.

Hold on. There is another way, isn’t there?

He thought back to the origins of the torchdragons. Where they were born, and gained their first Laws, their affinities—among the molten rocks and magma flows, nestled in the places where the bowels of the Earth touched the open air. That was just the sort of environment he needed right now. He knew it deep down somehow, a bloodline intuition. He licked his lips.

I wonder if there are any active volcanoes near the Azcan Oasis.

It might be time to go on a little excursion.

INTERLUDE 3: THE LONELIEST MAN IN THE MULTIVERSE (I)

Edge of the Multiverse

Old Man Fate dipped an oar into the pitch-black depths, and rowed. “Hup!” he gasped, pulled back, and went for another. “Hup!”

It made for a peculiar sight. A Godking, who had enough power in one finger to flatten a mountain, struggling atop a ratty old wood rowboat? But nothing here was ordinary—not the little old rowboat, which was in truth a divine treasure carved of the Tree of Eternity, perfectly buoyant, endlessly durable. Nor the waters—which seemed at once impossibly deep and utterly empty, as though there was nothing there at all. It depended how you looked at it.

From the outside Fate seemed a weary old man sailing amid a sea of stars. Above him the sky was a great dark bowl flooded with tiny lights. It looked like the gleaming heads of ten thousand pins pricking an infinite matte cloth. Below him black waters ran out to all sides, melting into an inscrutable horizon.

He panted, wiping the sweat from his brow. “Phew!”

There was nothing at the actual edge of the Multiverse. This pocket dimension was a construct. This was all made aeons ago by a deranged Godking with a penchant for breeding cruel and unusual pets, pets he stored in this strange, far-off lair. This was an in-between, a space between planes, a pocket of the void. Fate had Voidwalked five days and five nights’ time merely to arrive at this strange midnight dimension. Even then its appearance was a matter of chance. The journey here had been hellish, but he had no choice.

The forces of good, the forces fighting for the very freedom of the Multiverse itself, were being overwhelmed! They were losing perhaps the most important war in all of history, and he’d all but exhausted his options.

And so he was here to seek an audience with a man who—as evinced by his choice of home here, at the very edge of the Multiverse itself—was hardly keen on visitors. It was doubtful whether he’d receive Fate at all! But as he gritted his teeth, throwing his old bones into another heavy row, he knew he had to try. He simply had to.

He’d been rowing for ages, it felt like. Where was the residence? He frowned, scratching at his bushy beard. Surely it was around here somewhere. He pulled out a frayed yellow star-map, squinting at it.

Then the waters started bubbling about him.

He started. Eep! The map slipped from his fingers.

He barely managed to heave his little boat out the way before a huge, slimy head burst out of the waters, an ugly thing, eyeless, like one giant swollen tentacle—but a tentacle with a gaping maw of a mouth. It opened it now, baring rows upon rows of thick humanlike teeth.

Power Level—God!

Fate didn’t have a clue what it was. He was very old. He’d seen all manner of foul creatures. And yet the grotesque things that plied the depths of this far-out sea astounded even him.

He caught himself. Grotesque? He hesitated. Perhaps that was a smidge unfair. He hardly knew this fellow. It might look a little unsightly to his eyes, perhaps, his aesthetic tastes. But it was entirely possible, he supposed, that it lived a rich, vibrant inner life, that it had simply come by in friendly greeting—

It growled and lunged for his head. He yelped.

[Heavenly Dao: Fate]!

It was not so much a technique as an invocation, a flexing of a psychic muscle.

The world slowed to a crawl, unraveled before Fate’s eyes. The blacks and whites faded away until all was green threads knotted together, the whole of the Multiverse bound up in Fate. There were fewer threads here than there were nearly anywhere else. But there was nothing that could exist which could escape Fate, just as nothing could exist outside of Time and Space.

Fate’s eyes now saw the inner Fates of the world—which was a little like seeing past the muscles into the bones and organs and muscles of a being, seeing its innermost workings. It was a big ball of Fate-strings wound tightly together. He saw what made this creature tick. He saw its pasts, its creation in a cauldron of hot oil and gas—engineered by a long-gone Godking. And he saw its future. Left unchecked it would lurk here in the depths for millennia, preying on poor lost souls.

Fate reached in with his mind, gently grasped onto a thread, and tugged. The threads unwound, melted away one by one into the darkness. The ball of Fate unspooled.

The creature didn’t die. That was too violent. It simply ceased to exist. And not merely in the present—in the past and future alike it flickered out of being. It was as though the creature had never been at all. One moment there was this great hulking beast. And in that same moment, and in all moments future and past, there was not.

Fate sighed, bowed his head the nothing that now was—it was only proper—and kept on rowing.

And rowing.

And rowing.

And just as his old bones were starting to feel the ache, just as he was on the verge of giving up this whole silly ordeal, he glimpsed a bulge of deep blue against the black of the distance. Could it be?

He rowed closer and the bulge gained definition. A small island, blue sands, blue soil, studded with blue hills. On it was a simple, small village of thatched huts, smoke drifting from tiny chimneys. And behind that village was a tall bluff.

On the bluff, silhouetted against the blackness, was a greater blackness. A cloaked figure. Even from here Fate could sense the breathtaking aura of power radiating off him. It’s him!

He heaved a sigh of relief and kept up his paddling, now with renewed vigor.

Soon he drew near a neat set of docks. He was greeted by a plain-looking man in plain-looking robes with his hair bound up in a bun.

He only had two distinguishing features. The first was that he was red head-to-toe, skin, hair, eyes—red everything, everywhere.

The second was that he was about twelve feet tall.

His arms were crossed, and he was frowning mightily—a frowned that seemed only to deepen as Fate drew near the docks.

“Who are you, interloper? What the hells do you want?!” The creature boomed. His voice was gravelly, deep, and totally hoarse, as though he’d just come from a drawn-out shouting match. “Announce yourself!”

Fate was rather taken aback. “My name is Fate, good sire! I am better known by my moniker—Old Man Fate. I humbly seek an audience with the great Houyi!” he said. “Might I know your good name?”

The creature grew even redder, if that was possible. “I am Houyi, bastard!”

Fate blinked. “You are?”

“What in the Nine Circles of Hell is that supposed to mean?!”

“Ah—my sincerest apologies!” cried Fate, spreading his hands. “I had harbored some preconception in my mind, perhaps—some false idea—it is an honor, the greatest of honors to meet you!”

He tried to do a full kowtow, but he was still in his boat, so he ended up squirming about awkwardly.

“It is I who ought to apologize to you, for such a poor reception,” said a softer voice.

Another creature, very much like the first, popped out behind it. Fate squinted. It was exactly like the first—down to the hairs of the bun! Same features, same face, same proportions. The only differences were that this one was light blue. And it was 8 feet tall.

It smiled at him. “You must be tired,” it said. “Please, come ashore. Rest. And then we can speak properly.”

“Fuck off, Kindness,” snapped the big red one. “You always were too soft on visitors.”

“It is our will, Rage,” said the blue one simply. “Kindly restrain ourselves.”

“Pardon, good sires,” said Fate, glancing between them. “I remain a smidge confused. Are you perhaps HouyI’s twin? I was under the impression he had but one brother.”

The blue one laughed softly. “Oh, no. I am Houyi. He is Houyi. We are all Houyi.”

The red one grunted. “You think that clarifies things at all? Fool!”

He turned to Fate. “To be precise, I am HouyI’s Rage. He is HouyI’s Kindness. Running around somewhere is Fear, Joy, Loneliness, Vulnerability, and so forth. There’s lots of us about.”

Fate nodded. “Ah. So, you are…his clones?”

“We are his emotions,” said Kindness. “Houyi—I—am the Eternal Sentinel. I am the final arbiter of Justice in all of the Multiverse. The Fates of countless lives rest in my hands. I cannot afford to make decisions clouded by sentiment. I must be a being of pure reason. I must embody the perfect ideal of Justice as closely as I possibly can. And so I have excised all of my emotions, writing them out in living diaries. These diaries are ever-growing artifacts which act as a release valve for emotional thought.”

Kindness looked down at his body. “And as the diaries grow…so do we. Their living avatars. Their spirits. To be precise: we are the inconvenient parts of HouyI’s soul which he writes out and stores elsewhere. In this way Houyi is a fragmentary being. Together we make the whole creature once known as Houyi.”

“Fascinating…” muttered Fate, eyes wide. Both of them radiated auras equivalent to a Godking, though Rage felt stronger.

“I suspect you wish to speak with my core body. The executioner. The one who holds the Heavenly Bow, as it were,” said Kindness. He beckoned, smiling. “Come ashore. I sense we have much to discuss.”

INTERLUDE 3: THE LONELIEST MAN IN THE MULTIVERSE (II)

Houyi was a myth in flesh. As Fate was led up the gentle blue slopes, past cozy little hamlets up a gravelly path, he felt a smidge unsettled. It wasn’t that there were hymns sung about him (though there were), nor was it their strange and dangerous environs, nor was it the fact that there were as far as Fate knew fewer than ten beings in all the Multiverse who could genuinely threaten him, and Houyi was at the tippy-top of the list (though this too was true).

It was the man himself. He knew there was a Houyi once—a Houyi who had carved his name into legend. A Houyi who had shot the nine tyrannical Phoenix Godkings out of the skies. A Houyi who had slain innumerable holy and infernal beasts. Who had ended civilizations with a twang of a bowstring. Who had carved a bloody, furious path to the top of the Multiverse. Who was so powerful not even those Godkings, nor factions of Godkings whose families he’d slain—who harbored the deepest of grudges—dared admit it. For what fool in all the Multiverse dared make an enemy of the terrible Houyi? This Houyi was a husband, a brother, a warrior, a man. That was the young Houyi.

And now there was this Houyi, the Houyi who had fused with the Overbow, and so had become something else entirely: Houyi the Eternal Sentinel. Houyi who went beyond being a myth. Houyi who had made himself into what others thought he already was. Houyi the avatar of justice, carving all weakness from his flesh, shedding his humanity, transmogrifying himself into a perfect concept. A vicious tool to be wielded with prejudice by the Multiverse. The Watcher at the Edge of the World.

Fate shuddered, glancing as another big purple Houyi-emotion-clone-thing went by them, dragging a cart of blue firewood. He’d heard the tales of this cold Houyi. This new Houyi, so they said, was a creature of brutal logic—this creature who would save humanity by shedding his own. But that last bit always seemed to Fate metaphorical. Never had he thought the man would literally do it by splitting his very soul! It seemed to him unnatural.

Well—maybe it worked, and good for him! It wasn’t Fate’s place to judge, was it? Still…his hands ate at each other as another two of HouyI’s emotion-clones, one gray, one yellow, ambled by. Odd. Very odd!

How did one speak to a myth? How did one address a concept? Usually Fate was one to talk with a man over tea—shoot the breeze, as it were, make a friend. But as he glanced around at this barren island he got the distinct feeling friends of Houyi were in short supply.

“This is far enough,” said Kindness, drawing to a stop. Fate nearly bumbled into him. “Eh?”

Kindness pointed up the winding path before them which stretched up a tall bluff furred with glowing blue grass. “You must walk the rest of the path alone.” Kindness bowed. “It has been a pleasure, Fate. Good luck.” He paused. “I seldom hear out others. I almost never grant their requests. But there must be something special about you or your circumstance…it has, I think, something to do with my brother.”

“Oh, truly?” Fate blinked. “How so?”

“To be sure, I don’t know it truly,” said Kindness. “But Vulnerability has been growing larger of late. As has Nostalgia. So, it happens when I ruminate about that little rascal.”

He paused. “It is perhaps my one greatest moral failing that I didn’t, and still will not, shoot him down.”

“Well, that’s a little harsh, surely!” said Fate with a little squeaky laugh. “Dorian may be a bit prickly, but he’s hardly a monster. He may have his flaws, as we all do prickly, but he’s got good traits to him!”

“Name one.”

Fate hesitated. Then hesitated some more. He wracked his brain.

“Well—all right, you’ve got me there. But perhaps they’re buried rather deep within! But they can be dug out! Everyone is capable of redemption. Everyone has some goodness to them!”

Kindness regarded him with a heavy gaze. “Do you truly believe that?”

“Of course!”

“I do not.” Kindness smiled. “And I am Houyi at my most kind. It is not merely the case with my fool brother. People are, at their cores, are who they are. People can change. That change is cosmetic. Deep-down, the stuff of the soul, is set. The best one can do is to resist one’s core nature. That is all. You are very old, Fate, older than even I. You ought to know this.”

Fate bristled a little. “Oh come now, good sire. You can’t truly believe this sort of—pardon my language—this hogwash! What a cynical lens through which to see the world! How awful! How can anyone muster up any hope, with such a—a mean view of humanity?”

“I don’t believe in humanity, nor Spirit Beasts, nor any other creature which claims to live,” said Kindness slowly. “I believe in myself.”

The warmth in his gaze had cooled. “Left alone, life eats itself. Left alone order devolves to chaos—always. It is my great Kindness to the living community of the Multiverse that I curb its greatest excesses, arrow by arrow. You may not agree with me, and yet it is my perspective. You ought to keep this in mind should you seek to convince me.”

Then Kindness clasped his hands behind his back, smiling wanly. “You walk a tightrope between optimism and delusion. It is a charming act. Yet my core self shall have no patience for you if you fall off in either direction.”

He paused. “I only mean to help. I wish what you say were true. I truly do.” A corner of his lips quirked up. “Who knows? Perhaps you may yet convince me.”

Then he gestured to the winding road ahead, the road to the top of the hill where a figure wreathed in black stood, gazing out at the twinkling night sky.

“In all sincerity. Best of luck.”

* * *

When Fate was at the base of the hill the shadow was still. As he went up, as the shrubbery about him thinned and the gravel path sprouted thick hairy grasses, as the land grew more barren and the charming little hamlet receded below, the figure was still unmoving. Even as he rounded the final curve and stood at the peak—even as he stood not twenty paces of flat, grassless blue ground from the man, Houyi had about him a boulder’s timeless stillness.

Now Fate saw why. HouyI’s whole being was focused on one act.

Beneath his simple cloak one arm was drawn back. The other held a bow firm: a bow which seemed to Fate the most ordinary thing in the world, a bow a mortal could have made. Simple brown wood, fitted with a light sleek string. Houyi was aiming, his whole body frozen with tension.

Nothing about it suggested world-ending power. Yet that was the most peculiar thing of all. Fate had long since reached the peak of power. He could suss out the power level of any creature in the Multiverse with but a glance!

And yet here Houyi—if he was indeed Houyi, and indeed a hint of suspicion prickled at Houyi now as he gave the man another look—here Houyi seemed like no one at all! A void of qi, like a mortal who hadn’t touched a cultivation manual in his life!

Then Houyi let the arrow go.

The twang of the bow was soft and ordinary. The form on the shot was perfect, a seamless kinetic chain head-to-toe. He could’ve been a veteran hunter hunting a deer in some tiny insignificant wood.

But the arrow shifted out like no arrow Fate had ever seen. It moved at the pace of an arrow fired by any mere mortal, and yet it had an immense gravity to it, like the slow ponderous arc of a celestial body crossing the night sky. It had none of the burst of a cannonball. It had none of the speed of other godly archers he’d seen, none of that shocking zip-quick flash and fury. Instead, it moved like a great armada of battleships leaving a port. It had a certain finality to it, an inevitability.

Fate saw the thing make contact with the fabric of this plane. There was a sound then: his whole field of vision drew inward as the arrow pushed against the fabric, stretching it, not slowing in the slightest, forcing the world to contort around it. Something had to give. A tear opened up at the arrowhead, a tear which was blown into a jagged crevasse, a horrid nothing-colored fissure hung in the air. The world howled and bled and shrieked. The arrow went through, arching into the void, and the world stitched itself back up. The air in its wake shifted uneasily, as though gasping.

Fate knew one thing with cold certainty. He could see it in the green lines of destiny, though he didn’t need to invoke his Laws to see the truth. It didn’t matter who the victim was, mortal or Godking. Whoever that arrow was meant for was already dead.

And then Houyi turned to him.

He looked like an ordinary man. Fate had seen him. He’d seen his color-clones, though this version looked no more or less than any human. Fate would not be fooled again.

“Is it true, sire?” said Fate, eyes wide. “That you have not missed in ten thousand years? That your arrows track their victims across all of space and time—that it matters not what treasures, defenses, hiding-places they muster? That every twang of your bow is always a one-shot-kill, a life snuffed out—like that?”

Houyi regarded him silently. He didn’t smile. He didn’t frown. He simply looked. It was unnerving. Fate was ranked number seven in all the Multiverse! He very, very rarely dealt with anyone stronger than himself. He never dealt with anyone who could genuinely threaten him.

But here the difference between rank number seven and rank number one was the difference between Heaven and Earth…

“Greetings, Fate,” said Houyi evenly, plainly. “What do you desire of me?”

Fate cleared his throat. He usually did prefer to have some tea, perhaps chatter a bit about each others’ lives, get warm, make a friend, perhaps. Right to business, then!

“It appears as though we are losing the war for the Fate of the Multiverse,” said Fate slowly. “My visions were true. Jez’s powers stretch far beyond even my direst warnings—and he has enticed a register of Godkings to his side. Each addition bolsters an organism of already unfathomable power, and he only gains ground yet! We mount an impassioned defense, and yet Jez himself…I fear I am not a match for him.”

Silence. Fate took it as a sign to go on. “It is not simply that he is powerful in qi. He is also charismatic and pragmatic. He professes kindness, and yet acts with rank ruthlessness! And most pressingly he is perhaps the most talented swordsman I have met in all my years. He may be as talented with the blade as you are with the bow, sire, dare I say it! It is…”

Fate shuddered. “It is a most dangerous concoction indeed!”

He waited. No reaction. Fate went on, feeling suddenly antsy.

“Good sire—if he grows at his current rate—why, we may not yet have ten years before he overruns all of the Multiverse!” Fate cried. “This is why I have made the perilous journey here, why I stand before you today. It is not so much a request. It is a plea.”

Houyi cocked his head. “Speak.”

Fate swallowed. He would never, never, never wish such an awful thing upon a living being in any other circumstance. He felt sick even as the syllables formed on his tongue. But things had gotten beyond dire, and Fate had tried everything, and still his fellow Godkings were slain by the day. Still entire planes were swallowed up under Jez’s golden aura. Something had to be done.

“The only creature in the Multiverse who may match him now, power-for-power, is you,” Fate said. “My plea is this. For the sake of the Multiverse—for the sake of Justice—shoot him down before he ends us all!”

INTERLUDE 3: THE LONELIEST MAN IN THE MULTIVERSE (III)

“No,” said Houyi.

Fate choked. “Pardon?”

Houyi was silent, his stare impassive. It was plain nothing else was coming. He’d given his answer. That was enough.

“Why? How?” Spluttered Fate. “Could it be that you still believe Jez is in the moral right?!”

Silence. “He is waging war on the Multiverse, sire! Whatever aspirations he professes to—whatever ideals to which he aims—he falls far short! The ends cannot justify these means. I— I should think this hardly needs debating!”

“I have given you my answer,” said Houyi softly. His eyes, Fate only now noticed, were the only unusual thing about him. Now that he looked into him, he saw swirling purple galaxies dotted with stars—like he held all of existence in those orbs.

One last desperate try. Fate owed the Multiverse that much. “My good fellow,” said Fate, drawing up, bristling a little. “Could it be that he is too great a threat for even you? Surely not! I would not accuse you of cowardice, of course…but one must wonder…”

It was a cheap move. A jab at the ego, a sad limp final play. Houyi didn’t dignify it with a response.

Fate hung his head. He had hoped—well, he wasn’t sure for what, precisely, but certainly more than this clipped little exchange! Was it over? It felt like they’d hardly begun!

“Is that all?” said Houyi slowly.

“I should ask that of you,” sighed Fate. Another silence, turgid with finality. Then, just when Fate thought Houyi was done forever—”About my brother…”

Fate looked up. There was a strange catch in the man’s voice, a pause, something nearing human. His face twitched a little. It was like he didn’t know how to express proper feeling—or perhaps he’d simply forgotten?

“Yes?” said Fate.

“Is he…” Another pause. More twitching. HouyI’s lips drew tight together. He looked awkward. Nearly uncomfortable, even! It looked wrong on a creature like him. “Is he eating well? Is he…taking good care of himself? Will he be safe?”

Fate almost laughed at the sheer absurdity of the questions. This whole situation, standing here speaking to the most powerful creature in the Multiverse about something so—so banal, so utterly trivial—along with the multicolored clones, the pocket dimension filled with misshapen monsters—it was all starting to feel like a fever dream.

“He’s hardly an infant, Sire, as you well know. He is a Godking—and a shrewd one at that!” said Fate. “He’s still up to his usual shenanigans. Running about wreaking havoc on his lonesome. He’s sequestered himself from this mess, as he always does! I wouldn’t be worried about him.”

Houyi seemed to loosen up.

“Good,” he said, breathing out. “Good.”

And then his face firmed up like water freezing and his gaze grew still again. “Kindness will see you out.”

He turned around to stare once more into the vast night sky.

That, it seemed, was that.

* * *

“I was rooting for you,” whispered a yellowish Houyi clone, blinking up at him. Compassion, this one was called. It was chopping blue firewood at the side of the path.

“Thank you,” said Fate with a nod, a tad morose. He’d passed this one and a handful of others as he and Kindness took the meandering trail back to the docks.

“It is a pity. Truly. But I expected as much,” said Kindness, shaking his head.

“Why?” said Fate, sounding a little broken—even to himself. “I simply don’t understand!”

“I don’t deal well with grayness,” said Kindness sadly. “Once an arrow leaves my hand its victim is gone. That is a weight I must carry for-ever. And so I reserve my judgments for the true monsters. Those whose core natures I deem undeniably abhorrent. Jez…is not one of those.”

Fate chewed on that. He didn’t know quite what to say.

“I agree,” a voice snapped loudly behind them, and Fate jumped. At some point Rage had come up behind them, arms crossed. “It’s stupid as all hells. But what can we do? We’re but emotions. As far as we’re concerned, we get in the way.”

His brows knitted. “It’s shitty. But we’re right. Emotions cloud judgment. For judgments of such importance the only way is to subjugate us to ultimate reason. Doesn’t mean we need to like it, though. Fucking sucks.”

“Mm,” said Kindness, nodding. “Yet it is the only way.”

They were rounding the last bend to the docks. Fate’s little rowboat bobbed sadly in the murk.

“Here,” said Kindness, passing him a crystal orb. Inside was a snowflake of glistening green qi. The darkness around it seemed to pull back, as though afraid. “This treasure should ensure no monsters disturb you. Safe passage back. May we meet again under more auspicious conditions.”

It was puff and air, that was all. They both knew they would likely never see each other again.

Fate accepted the gift with a bow of his head. “You are too kind, sir. Altogether too kind!”

Kindness smiled wryly. “It is my namesake.”

“Well…I suppose I shan’t impose on you any longer…” Fate paused, frowning. “Erm. Is he all right?”

Rage was shining, spilling a reddish haze out of every inch of him. He glanced down. “Eh? Oh. Nothing to worry ‘bout! Just a lil’ anger dumping. That’s all. You must’ve really riled core up somehow. Now, we’re shunting it off into me!”

“I see.”

“This’ll make me a teensy bit bigger,” said Rage. He brightened. “I’ve been balding lately. Maybe I’ll get a new hair.”

Fate gave the place one last sweep, one forlorn look before he had to go for good. It really was a sad little island, wasn’t it? Stuck at the edge of nowhere for all eternity?

“So you’re the biggest of them, are you, sire? HouyI’s emotions, I mean.”

“Me?” Rage barked a laugh. “Hells no! Not at all—not even close!”

“Oh? Then who is?”

Kindness tapped a foot on the ground. Blue ground, Fate realized. On the hairy grass—blue grass which looked more like true human hairs by the second…

Then the entire island shook, rattled, as though the dirt itself was heaving in a breath.

A dense whisper issued forth from deep within the bowels of the land on which they stood, reverberating endlessly into the night. A huge, sad, empty sound.

“Hello,” said the island.

No. Not an island. A back. A giant, rounded back.

“Fate, meet Loneliness,” said Kindness. He looked down.

The ground had started to glow a frosty twilight blue.

EIGHTY

BEYOND THE SKY (VI)

Dorian passed a courtyard stuffed full of men and women as he made his way up to Bin. It was a motley bunch: there were heaps of Heilong soldiers milling about but also greasy-looking Rats, and more—hordes of wide-eyed, shivering Outskirters clinging onto their Sticks like lifelines. These were to be the soldiers who would save the Oasis, apparently!

Dorian sighed. With his Sticks they would hold off the ground troops. The low-level riffraff. Nothing else. He would do the bulk of the legwork. Then again, they were wielding his inventions too, weren’t they? He really was doing everything around here.

Bin stood at the front of the crowd. He raised an eyebrow at Dorian’s new appearance—his super bloated belly especially.

“Congratulations,” he said dryly. “Boy or girl?”

“Ha-ha,” said Dorian. “I’ll need a map from you.”

` Bin frowned. “What sort of map? Of the city? Of the compound?”

“Topographical. Of the region. As big as you’re got—something that covers all of the West Desert, preferably.”

“Hmm.” Bin scratched his chin.” We run defense work for the couriers and the merchants. We’ve mapped out the area around the Oasis a good…hundred-thousand paces in all directions, or thereabouts, I should think.”

“Excellent!” Dorian rubbed his hands together. “Any volcanoes?”

For a moment Bin just looked at him funny. Dorian could see the thought written plain on his face—what could he possibly want with a volcano?

“Yes, as it happens,” said Bin slowly. “It is said that the network of molten rock which flows under the sands is brother to its aquatic counterpart of the sinkholes. It’s all nonsense if you ask me. I haven’t seen a lick of proof. But these volcanoes—they do exist. On battleship the nearest one is two weeks away. On Vordor-back you may make it in one.”

“Hmm. Too slow. But I can move faster than either. If a Vordor can do it in a week, I’ll do it in a day.”

“I must ask,” said Bin. “What, exactly, do you want with a volcano?”

“To make a breakthrough, of course!” Dorian grinned up at him. “I know, I know. You’ve never heard of such a strange tactic. Yet I am the Hero and you are not. The things I do aren’t supposed to make sense to you. But they’ve worked so far, haven’t they? Have some faith.”

“The fate of the Oasis rests in your hands,” Bin said sharply. “I shall need a little more than faith to go off of.”

“Put it this way. This journey is the only way we stand a real shot against the Ugoc.” Dorian shrugged. “I’m at a little more than ten times the power of any ordinary Sky-Realm creature they’ve got. They’ve got fleets of them—not to mention the avatar of a God, which is more of a threat than the rest of them put together! At my current stage I’ll still be rolled over. I need one more advance. This, and nothing else, has a chance of putting me over the top.”

“I see.” Bin mulled it over for a few seconds. At last he spoke. “Strange. Your sister came by mere hours ago. She asked the same thing of me. Asked for a map of the Oasis’s surroundings.”

“Did she, now?” said Dorian idly. “What for?”

“She was bored here, apparently. She went out to fight some bigger prey.” Bin snorted. “Truth be told, it’s better for everyone. She made quite a fuss before she got her way.”

Behind Bin, a few of his generals shivered, legs drawing together.

Dorian rolled his eyes. “Really, now?” She’s going to get herself killed, isn’t she—after all that effort and resources I sank into her?

But there was no time to worry about her now. He was annoyed. More annoyed than he expected—surprised at his own annoyance, even. But what was he supposed to do about it, other than make a mental note to make more careful investments in future?

At least he hadn’t sank anything of true worth into her. And by now she was mostly extraneous. She didn’t really matter. Still it needled at him in a way he couldn’t quite explain.

“Whatever.” Dorian held out a hand. “The map, if you please?”

* * *

A girl in tattered robes dashed across the hot sands, seeking blood. She left a mangled trail of bodies in her wake. wyrms, sandwolves, Vordors alike. Each body only stoked that wild hot gold within her. That essence of life which seemed only to flare, rise up, course faster and hotter through her as she dashed along. She didn’t know where she was going precisely. What did it matter? She was going where there was pain to be dealt, and felt, and relished. Where the gold within her, this yawning maw she fed with blood and bones, might be quenched—quenched for now. Never satisfied for-ever. She gave herself over to the instinct, laughing freely, filling up with a brightening gold hue, unearthing new and and glorious and terrible powers as she went…

More. More!

* * *

Dorian had a transportation cheat code. Shadow-jumping had him crossing wide swathes of land in a blink, and it only grew wider as it leveled—

[Level-up!]

[Nightstalker] Lv. 2 -> 3

But the real genius of it was when the sun went down. When he didn’t need to flit between meager shadows cast by the dunes. When the world became one giant landing pad, and the only limit to his speed was his qi pool.

Was it even a pool anymore? As he probed his body with his Spiritual Sense it seemed comically vast—more a qi lake. Perhaps a qi sea. It had its own whirlpools and its own currents and flows, nearly a world unto itself, and it simply didn’t end!

Almost five hours of continuous jumping. That was how long it took to exhaust it. All there was about these parts were dunes and huge bone-relics sticking out of the grounds. The desert was, predictably, deserted. The map marked out certain landmarks—a spiny shelf of giant rocks sticking out of the ground here, a sandstone monolith there—that told him he was heading in the right direction.

When he ran out of qi he simply dumped down an emperor’s ransom of treasures. Down went an elixir. Down went a garden’s worth of superior herbs. Down the gullet went a bestiary’s worth of cores. It took but a (very expensive) hour for his Sea to fill all the way back up again. And he was off once more!

He was covering ground at a speed even he didn’t expect. This wouldn’t take a week, or even a full day—seven hours straight of hopping and the ground was starting to change. Darken. Soon there were long ashy streaks which stretched out to the horizon, shadows cast by nothing. As he kept dashing along the streaks started to come together until the whole of the sands were turning an ashen color, intermixed with sprinklings of coal black. In the distance the sun was rising and below his feet the sands were heating up. There was an acrid tang on the air: a hint of noxious fumes. The air too grew murkier, grayer, thicker, smudged-up…

I’m getting close. Dorian could feel it. Not in the intuitive sense—in his belly, in the space of his bloodline, something deep within him had perked up. Up until now all his bloodline had shown him was density and darkness. But now a certain hotness was rising to the fore, as though reacting by its surroundings, the way a block of coal is merely cool and dark and heavy until it is set aflame. The closer Dorian got the more he started to burn. It brought with it its own energy, stoking some furnace of the heart and blossoming within him a some primal hot-blooded instinct. The farther he went the more he felt like an animal, the more his belly throbbed within him.

Speaking of—by now the thing was starting to disturb even him. Its size he could deal with. The jiggling about like it was a second bigger heart? That…no. Nope! He frowned. Whatever phase came next it had better fix this up. He was shameless, true—in fact it was probably his most admirable quality—but he wasn’t shameless enough to lug about a bubble gut like a very pregnant lady for the rest of his run!

Past a point a gray haze tinged the air, blurring his vision to but a few hundred paces in all directions. He felt as though he was slowly crossing into another land, a gray, lonesome place between the living and the dead. The sands were hardening now.Above him tufts of clouds were rolling in, making the sun a watery mass of pale light which grew dimmer and dimmer the farther he went.

The ground well and truly firmed. This was no longer sand—this was hardened molten rock. Tiny flakes of hot ash drifted by.

And in the far, far distance he saw it: a mighty silhouette stretching deep into the cloud cover—belching out that ashen cloud cover—

He looked down at his leather map, wiped the smudge from it, and saw it was true.

X marks the spot.

The spot where, legends said, the torchdragons were born, crafted of immense heat and pressure and ceaseless flows of magma. Where they grew their greatest powers.

To ascend to the Realm of the Stars, it seemed he’d need to descend the bowels of the Earth…

EIGHTY-ONE

BEYOND THE SKY (VII)

It was less hot than he’d expected! The outskirts of the Volcano, that was. He pattered along pockmarked rock which should’ve felt scalding, but only left a warm tickle on the soles of his feet.

Hmm…As an experiment he fished out a canteen of water from his Interspatial Ring and threw it into the open air, then slowed time to half speed.

Bubbles rose atop the droplets almost instantly. Halfway down they started to steam. The full splash of water went up in smoke before it had a chance to touch the ground.

He blinked. So, clearly, he did have some heat resistance after all! Probably a gift of his bloodline. It sure didn’t feel like it when his face was literally melting off in that torchdragon furnace.

Which, he supposed, said more about the torchdragons’ innate capacities for fire than it did about his flammability. I wonder just how hot it really was in there. Hotter than the inside of a volcano? Hotter than fire? Hotter than magma?

The volcano—Drakestail Peak, as marked on the map—was growing larger by small degrees. A layer of smoke still blanketed the grounds, making shadow-jumping impossible. There was no shadow anywhere to be found, just a diffuse spread of dim light. Dim enough to cloud his sight, yet not dim enough to permit him shadow anywhere. Which meant he had to make the rest of the journey on foot. Like a chump!

It was slightly silly how fast he got used to fast travel. The two hour run felt like it took days.

By the time he got to the base of the mountain the air had grown splotchy. No longer was it wreathed in everpresent mist, but rather roaming puffs of thick gray smoke. The ground was veined with cracks running into the bowels of the land, and from them came a faint reddish light, a blush of heat. The skies frowned with black clouds that blotted all the way to the horizon. The only light came from the volcano itself: firelight poured from the top of the thing as though it were a massive candle from Hell.

Dorian took the measure of it. Pretty darn big, as mountains went—its surface was all craggy and black, like the skin of a troll running up to the peak. Sharp shelves of stone studded it down its length. Obviously no plants lived here. As far as he could tell no living creatures called this place home either. There were a few sprinklings of white in the black ground: litters of bone here and there. From the clouds above, flakes of ash and ember drizzled slowly down. Against it all there was the groaning and rumbling of huge, heavy things shifting deep within the volcano, topped off by a chorus of sizzles and crackles.

Dorian started to march.

A few hundred paces up a whiff of brimstone tinged the air. Dorian wrinkled his nose. It brought back poor memories. Perhaps his least favorite realms in all the Multiverse were the Circles of Hell—where he’d ended his last run. There were nine in total, each more dreadful than the last! Six in the Middle Realms, Three in the Upper Realms—and each of them was spread thick with this damnable smell.

It came from the single most irritating creature in Hell. Hellspawn. Little fire spirits that seemed to crop up everywhere like weeds, borne spontaneously of Hellish qi-fueled magma. Didn’t take much to spawn one. Any dead God’s body part dunked in enough qi-dense magma had a chance to become a Hellspawn. And in the middle realms dead gods were legion…

Come to think of it, it was eerie just how similar this was. The smell was nearly identical to that Hellish nastiness. As he scouted out the path ahead—a series of leaps off sharp juts of rock—he could nearly picture those hellish fuckers bouncing about on the rock shelves above. Those heat waves could nearly be waves of Hell-qi. Through a cloud of fog tiny flare-red lights danced. They could nearly be the bodies of Hellspawn bouncing to and fro! He squinted. Sometimes his imagination astounded even himself. As the cloud passed by they grew more and more distinct. It was like they were real.

And then, when the cloud had made it about halfway across, it clicked.

* * *

He rubbed his eyes. As the cloud paled the dancing fiery forms came into sharper relief. Each of them had at their centers a bone—thigh bone, finger, tooth perhaps—suspended in a flickering torchflame body. Two black qi-eyes, mischievous eyes, stared out. There must’ve been a dozen of them up there, bouncing about.

And they all stared at him.

Hellspawn?! Here?!

It would’ve been less strange on this hike to pass by a school of fish randomly flopping their way uphill. It was so out of place! These things were Middle Realm creatures. Sure, they were a half-step from Godhood—which was why this Lower Realm permitted their existence here—but how in the Multiverse had they found their way here, of all places?

Dorian could still hardly believe his eyes. There could only be two possibilities. First—some incredibly bored Godking had plucked them up and put them here. A prankster, perhaps? It would’ve been an expensive prank. Transfers to the Lower Realms of entire life forms would cost a truly mind-bending amount of qi.

And the second, admittedly much more intriguing idea…

Is there some sort of realm portal nearby?

His eyes flashed. Some interspatial connective tissue binding this realm to some layer of Hell?!

Suddenly he was very intrigued. Why in the Multiverse would a realmic portal lead here, of all places?

…Actually, place was a graveyard, wasn’t it? He scratched his chin. Lots of bones littered everywhere, even back when he was in Rust Tribe. Lots of relics. And there was even a Pseudo-God Torchdagon, the Dweller, hidden somewhere in that underground sinkhole network! How had it gotten here from its natural habitat, the volcano—which littered the nine circles of Hell?

A hidden realmic connection would explain a lot…

If he found a way to this portal—if he took that entrance rather than Ascend directly to Godhood—it would save him a lot of time and energy and strife. Ascension was almost always a very costly and painful exercise, after all, and it dropped you randomly in one of the higher Realms—often in places you had no business being in…

Still. This was Hell he was thinking about! He winced. Nearly any higher Realm was preferable to Ascend to! The Nine Circles of Hell were some of the most treacherous places in the Multiverse. They somehow managed to hold the hottest, coldest, dryest, and wettest places in all the Multiverse in its circles. Everything was extreme. The gains were great, true. That place was chock-full of resources and qi. The issue—other than the insanely inhospitable terrain—was the demons and warring kingdoms of devils and ifrits and dragons and dark elves and leaping vampires and hungry ghosts, not to mention the Godbeasts roving those molten lands—all manner of deformed, depraved monstrosities. He could hardly throw a rock without hitting a thing that wanted to eat him. He’d literally spent all of last run wading through its higher Circle!It was a miracle he made it out the other end alive, really—he’d punted, oh, two dozen runs dying in various Hellish circles? And not once had he gone there of his own volition. He’d always been dropped there after Ascending to godhood and cursed his luck instantly after.

Needless to say, the place was best avoided.

He narrowed his eyes. So, there might be a portal here. Good to know! It’s of minor interest, I suppose, but I have no use for it. If I see some swirling rip in space, note to self: do not jump in! He was here to break new cultivation ground. He was here for the volcano and the volcano only—everything else was but a distraction.

Unfortunately, it seemed the distractions were coming to him.

The Hellspawn were barely sentient, but they were drawn to life like moths to flame. Or perhaps flames to a moth was more appropriate here—if Dorian were the moth.

They opened black qi-maws, made faces of jeering laughter. No sound came out. They bounded down after him.

Shit.

He wasted a half-second summoning his Javelin, pure reflex, and then kicked himself. These things were essence beings. What was he going to do? Pierce their qi bodies? Slicing through the bone relics that sustained them would not help. That would split them into two smaller Hellspawn—both peak Sky Realm. The little shits were real annoying, and many a God had died finding that out the hard way.

The only way to beat beings made of pure qi was to use attacks of pure qi. He slowed time until their pounces looked to him like the slow wafting of falling autumn leaves. Then he briefly wracked his mind. What was there? The Rust Tribe playbook of fire attacks. Essentially useless. Yama’s Chains—perhaps, but those grappling techniques best used for controlling and squeezing large creatures. Then there was his new toy—one he’d just gotten from his bloodline, one he’d barely broken out.

[Acid Rains!]

He thrust out a hand.

It was like he’d reached out into some alternate dimension, pulled out a single pitch-black cloud from a thunderstorm, and chucked it out. It ballooned into existence nearly instantly, this chunky misty mass. But this was no normal cloud. This was chock-full of his bloodline qi at its most toxic.

The cloud belched out shower of sable rain, shrinking as it did. The raindrops hissed as they ripped through smoky air. They fell upward—not a care in the world for gravity—and intercepted the pouncing Hellspawn like a flight of arrows carving into a herd of prey. Where they touched the Hellspawns’ ember qi the black burned clean through the red. It was a most peculiar sight: a herd of red fires destroyed by a rain made of greater black fires, falling upward, biting through them in chunks until they wasn’t a trace left.

Then it was finished, just like that.

Dorian whistled. Those were Sky Realm creatures. They were bordering on Pseudo-Godhood, and likely were imported straight from some Middle Plane! There was no way it should’ve been so easy, especially since he was only in the Earth Realm.

Eleven times power, eh?

He grinned. I wonder how much stronger I’ll be once I condense it.

Humming cheerily, he went back to his march. The peak was nearly in sight…

EIGHTY-TWO

BEYOND THE SKY (VIII)

He sprung off a shelf of stone, climbed up a steep rock face, and emerged at the top of the volcano. The lip of the thing was barely thick enough to fit his two feet before it dropped off into the volcano’s molten innards. It stretched into the distance on both sides—so far it was lost in the smoke belching from the volcano’s mouth.

Dorian glanced down.

The crater could’ve fit the Azcan stadium. It looked very much like a second sinkhole, but stocked with a bubbling soup of shining reddish-orange lava, thick with flaming qi. Floats of tar drifted over the top. The whole thing was restless, in constant chaotic motion. Whirlpools of lava swirled here and there. Giant chunks of blackened stone would rear up in random spots before falling in again. Hissing geysers, crackling brilliant yellow, rose up all over. And through it all the lava in the crater was shifting slowly in one massive circle, as though stirred by an invisible ladle.

Looking down at it Dorian had a second shock—a feeling that very much recalled the Azcan Sinkhole.

Resonance! His blood ran hot in his veins, hotter than it ever had. It was as though it, too, was stirred by these hot flows.

It was a faint thing. It wasn’t anywhere near what he’d felt next to his Javelin, or a bloodline relic. He suspected there was no bloodline relic here at all! It was simply his body reacting to its natural habitat, the way a relaxed warmth might wash over a weary traveler after he returns home from a long journey.

He was struck by the absurd urge to leap in. His very Blood called for it! He almost did it. Then—hold on.

He squinted at the bubbling surface. Then he yanked out a plate of steel and let it drop into the crater.

It sank into the mess of lava, turned molten yellow and melted all the way through, and was soup-ified in a blink.

Dorian frowned. Am I more heat resistant than steel?

He’d come seeking a place of great pressure and fire to make his breakthrough. A volcano, the torchdragon’s natural habitat, had seemed tailor made for his needs! But now that he was here, staring down at the least inviting swimming pool in the world, he paused.

How do I know I won’t be cooked alive when I jump in?

And what was his master plan, really? Take a bath? Perhaps find a nearby cave and marinate in the dense lava-aspected qi? He hadn’t really settled on a firm answer. He’d gotten into the irresponsible habit of playing things by ear of late—times being what they were. But even so it would’ve been quite sensible to figure out just how fire resistant he was before coming all this way…

He scratched his head. Could he treat it like any other swimming pool? I suppose I can dip a toe in? It’s no great loss.

…Well! He shrugged. I’ve hardly got any better ideas, have I?

Feeling quite silly, he nimbly leapt off the lip, hopped once off the air, and dug into a crag on the crater wall. Then he climbed carefully down.

Fifty paces from the lava’s surface and the heat was but a warm tickle still.

Thirty and it was as hot as any gale on summer solstice.

Fifteen, and he was really starting to feel it now. Heat licked at his skin in a way disturbingly reminiscent of that heat-chamber the torchdragons trapped him in—less intense, but still…he licked his lips, a tad nervous. The first inklings of sweat beaded his brow. He kept climbing.

Ten paces and it only got worse.

Five, and he was slightly worried his hair would catch on fire from the heat alone! His skin had started to shiver a little from the heat—shiver—as though it remembered what it felt like the last time he’d gotten near such searing heat.

He stared down at the lava flows which seemed to gurgle at him, as though eager to swallow him whole.

Now that he was here the whole thing seemed a little ridiculous. What was he to do—emulate the torchdragon? Bathe in its natural habitat? And what would he do if after he stuck in a toe it just melted? Go back to Azcan having wasted a day and a digit? It was all one very tenuous gamble. Huge payoff, to be sure, but face-to-face with it he was suddenly struck by how silly it all sounded. But he’d come this far already…

May as well!

Hesitantly, he headed down once more, foot by foot.

Below him the lava flows gurgled even more eagerly. Was it just his imagination or were they bubbling more now? Was it lit brighter yellow than it was a second ago—and brighter now still?

And surely it wasn’t his fevered mind making up that ever-so-slight trembling. He felt it in his fingers, gripping the rock wall. Saw it rippling along the lava flows. The surface of the volcano was brightening with yellowish qi.

Dorian’s eyes widened—

Something’s coming!

The rumbling grew louder, more intense, and above him reams of rock broke off, showered into the lava. Furious heat smothered him. It all came on too fast. Even as he flickered on Serpent’s Senses and took one desperate leap into open air he saw the lava’s surface go white-hot, painful to look at. Shit!

It came up like a cannonball, and Dorian could not avoid the blast. Lava surged up in a mini-explosion. It caught him instantly and for a second it flashed over him, totally drenching him. He got one blessed moment to take in the fact that it felt like he’d been dunked in a tub of scalding quicksand—no melted digits, no fried skin—before he was torn down with it, splashing helplessly into the molten pool.

An instant later he resurfaced, gasping. Treading water—lava?—and looked up.

What the fuck.

Something monstrously huge flapped its wings in the air above him, wings rippling with thick crimson feathers. It had a plume like a peacock, but longer, stretching out behind it like a gown woven of the colors of autumn. But its most distinctive feature—the thing that made Dorian’s heart skip a beat—was its nine heads, each more hideous than the last. It was like someone had fused a hydra with a phoenix, and out came this half-baked monstrosity. It screeched. Dorian could nearly feel his eardrums bleeding at the sound. It somehow had both the deep bellow of a dragon and the piercing lance of the Phoenix’s cry.

Nine-headed Phoenix!

Oh, Hells…If there was ever any doubt in Dorian’s mind there was a portal to Hells somewhere here, it was now wiped out. This thing was the ancestor to the Fenghuang, the True Phoenix! It, like the torchdragon, was one of those nasty critters dwelling in Hell’s hottest regions. Only—it usually made its roosts in at least the Upper Middle Realms of Hell, or even the Upper Realms themselves! This thing burst with the aura greater than even a creature at the peak of the Sky Realm. It was a half-step into Godhood.

What was a baby Nine-Headed Phoenix doing here? Could it be that realm portal led higher up in the circles of Hell than he’d surmised? Huh. Interesting. He studied it with what felt like an inappropriate level of calmness.

Then the thing folded its mighty wings. It dove straight at him, the beaks of all Nine of its heads gurgling with flame.

Give it five centuries years simmering in the heat of Hell—five centuries to grow fat off the Laws of Fire and take that final step into Godhood—and it might’ve posed a threat. But it would not have that time.

Yama’s Chains!

Ten chains burst out. Nine to bound up the heads as they came down, choking off the would-be flamethrowers. One to hold still the body.

It felt a little like he was a child again, tearing the legs off a spasming insect. The thing’s eyes bulged red as it regarded him—first with fury, then fear as it felt Dorian’s force come in full. There was a pleasant twanging of the tendons, a sharp snapping as bones tore loose. Then nine heads splashed into the lava, one by one. The body went next.

As it was, nothing short of the divine could touch Dorian now. Not even a creature a half-step away. It was almost too easy.

My. I’m so powerful now I manage to surprise even myself sometimes!

And now that he knew he had lava resistance…well. He considered the gurgling pool below him. It felt hot—bordering on too hot to physically handle—but his body was acclimating to it at a shocking rate.

If he had his way, by the end of this nothing in this realm—not even the avatar of a god—could contend with him!

Now for the main course. It was time to make this volcano, this whole simmering cauldron of rich fire-qi, his cultivation chamber.

But first he had to make it truly his. If it hid a Nine-Tailed Phoenix in its depths, what other nasty surprises might it have in store for him? Even at the surface he could sense deep upwellings of qi, upwellings of gigantic proportions, swirling beneath. The deeper he spread his senses the richer the qi got. And not by some tiny margin, either—it got richer and denser at a near exponential rate!

Almost as though it’s the qi of another Realm, a godly realm, leaking into this one…

His eyes flashed.

Some exploration was in order.

EIGHTY-THREE

BEYOND THE SKY (IX)

Kaya had been running for so long she didn’t recall when she’d started. Could’ve been a day ago. Maybe two? But she was still brimming with energy, energy leaking out her skin as a pale gold glow. She could run for what felt like forever—until she crossed the horizon, and farther still! And all the while she set upon whatever she found like a hungry vordor, turning insides to outsides and laughing and living free and wild, hair fluttering unleashed in the wind.

At some point it had started to get colder. The air dried out by degrees. At first it felt like a thick, ever-present blanket damply swaddling her. Now, it had thinned and dried out. A few hours later still and it was starting to sting at her cheeks, reddening her skin—sharp with a fresh, stiff cold. A few hours more and a light layer of frost layered the ground. The frost thickened as she went, until at last she was pacing along flat sands streaked with crisp lines of snow and ice under a clear, pale-blue sky.

Ooh! She’d found her way to the frozen tundra. Fun!

She found funky new living things here, new creatures for her to smush up which had her feeling all warm and fuzzy. A diet of sandwolves and wyrms had kept her amused, but it had been starting to feel kind of stale. The guts didn’t squelch in quite the same way anymore. And there were only so many flavors of pain one could sample on the face of one species before they all started to taste the same.

Her first new victim was something she’d thought was a mound of icy rocks until it came suddenly alive and tried to bash her face in. She bashed it in first with one hefty gold punch. Some sort of technique she’d swallowed up at the Oasis—what was it called? Fist of the…err—Almighty, was it? Whatever it was, it had this cute ability to bypass a creature’s outsides when she hit it—the force would go straight into its insides, smooshing it to mush!

The ice golem shivered once when she struck. Then white lines spread up and down it like cracks on the frozen surface of a lake. It split apart, disintegrating into a white powder. It didn’t seem to feel hurt as it went—it sort of just broke and drifted off in the harsh gale. She frowned. Bleh. How dull!

Growling, she went deeper and deeper. She needed blood, fresh blood—oh…Oh! She perked up. She sniffed. There was an intriguing hint on the air. She’d grown a sixth sense for this sort of thing. There was a certain tang to life, a subtle smell that you only really got after you’d gotten knee-deep in the insides of lots of living things. She smelled it now—and it wasn’t just one scent but several. Big hulking things. Things with lots of flesh and fur. She licked her lips. Suddenly, she was ravenously hungry. More, more! Off she went, stalking the scent, laughing full-throated as she did.

She stumbled upon them as she rounded an icy dune. She blinked. Whoa.

They were like sandwolves but bigger, much more muscular with stark blue eyes and manes which seemed like wreaths made of jagged icicles. Each of them wore coats of sleek white fur, ending at a nub of a tail. There must’ve been a dozen of them, and they were all in the Earth Realm—and deep in it, too! These creatures must’ve been near Sky.

She was only in the Earth Realm!

Their heads swiveled to look at her as one, eyes sharp and shining. They bared snow-white teeth, growls erupting from their throats.

She felt drunk on her own blood. It rushed about her veins in a flood and she felt herself heating up, steaming gold despite the cold. Her heart hammered in her chest. She bared her teeth at them in response, fists clenched, golden qi gushing at her knuckles. Then she dashed in gleefully, freely, and lost herself in the madness.

The thought that maybe she—a fresh Earth-Realm initiate—probably shouldn’t take on a full herd of late Earth-Realm beasts never even flickered across her mind. There was a flurry of blood and snarling and clawing and ripping and tearing, blood spurting and splattering on the sands, sharp gouts of pain, limbs ripping off their joints and through it all her laughter. It seemed to pass through her as a blur of intense sensation. By the time it was over she was hollow. Even the goldlight was gone from her palms.

She stood there, gasping, and glanced around.

A dozen carcasses were strewn across the snow, splayed and broken and oddly twisted. Ahh…that’s it. A warm fuzzy joy flowed over her. The only odd thing about these creatures was that they seemed not to bleed red blood. When she tore them up a bluish-white substance, like half-frozen water, came out from them. Weird! Fun!

But why was the ground about her so red? There was red everywhere! It was like the whole place had been painted over. There wasn’t a beast without a splash of crimson staining its fur.

Then she looked down and blinked again.

Oh! I guess that explains it.

She glanced around again, quite impressed at herself. She didn’t know she even had that much blood in her!

She blinked a third time, slower now. Her eyelids felt strangely heavy. She glanced back down. Why was her skin—the strips that were left, anyway—so blue?

…Hum.

Weird. There appeared to be no qi in her. No blood dripped out of her. There wasn’t even that gold qi anymore—the spot in her soul where it came felt raw to her, overdrawn. She was utterly spent. Her heartbeat was the only sign she lived at all—and even that was so weak she scarcely felt it, and it was slowing fast. Uh…

…

She blacked out. She fell face-first into the snow and was still.

From high above, a drizzle of sleet fell.

* * *

Dorian tread water—well, lava—at the surface of the volcano, and thought. All the while he his bloodline sang to him. In this place it seemed at home. It seemed to flow as the lava flowed, swirling with the currents in this boiling molten soup. Some dormant aspect to it seemed to have awakened. The lava, which had once felt on the verge of cooking him, felt less and less hot with each second. He was acclimating.

He was struck by the feeling that he’d been here before. It was like the sinkhole, but with magma instead of water! And if he wished to explore the depths of this thing—like with the sinkhole—he’d need to dive in deep, relying on senses other than sight. Really none of his senses except his spiritual sense would do him any good here. The lava was simply too thick. Yet, as he probed deeper into the volcano, he found his Spiritual Sense was so sharpened it may as well have been a set of dull eyes. Some part of this place, the qi of it, its aspect, perhaps, clicked with him, welcomed him.

Made sense. It was his bloodline’s ancestral home, after all! He dove in.

At first it was slow going, wading lower and lower. It felt less like swimming than dragging himself through a swamp stride by stride, weaving around passing chunks of stone and tar as he did. The farther he went the hotter it got, the denser the qi—the more it seared his body.

And yet his body seemed to relish the heat. Even he was surprised. As he went deeper and deeper, soaking in more qi and heat, he felt the whole of his physical being vibrating subtly, like water brought to a low boil. Tiny motes of darkness were stripped from his flesh as he went, burned out of him—and qi rushed in, seeping into his muscles and bones and skin.

Hells— it’s body tempering!

It was what every torchdragon baby must’ve gone through at birth. Made in the most qi-dense, hottest, most pressurized regions of the volcano, its body’s every impurity was burned out from it. Like steel in a furnace it was tempered until the end product was a creature whose physical body by itself was freakish enough to eviscerate most every Beast at its power level.

And now it was happening to him!

The farther he went, the more he felt the boil. A fog he hadn’t known was there was slowly lifting from his mind. His body teemed with new power. With each passing second he felt more and more unbreakable—like under this newfound pressure his body was responding just as a torchdragon’s!

Wait. When he emerged would his skin be as impenetrable as a torchdragon scale?! A god could hope, couldn’t he?

He swam deeper, and the qi only got denser, the heat hotter…

Far below he felt a nexus of shockingly dense qi. A whirlpool of furious qi roiled around it—there. He could sense it. He’d gone a third of the way down now. No encounters. It was almost concerning—he would’ve expected something to greet him by now. Or could it be that that Nine-Headed Phoenix was really the only thing living in here?

His gut said otherwise. This qi dense a place, and no monsters? He’d seen Hellspawn outside the volcano. Clearly there were such critters about—but he sensed none thus far…It was off.

Still he kept swimming, albeit a little more cautiously, stretching his senses to their limits—making sure to probe the very boundaries of the volcano for hidden life-forms as he passed.

The nexus drew nearer…

EIGHTY-FOUR

BEYOND THE SKY (X)

The lack of monsters was starting to grow suspicious. Dorian was nearly relieved when he came across his first.

It wasn’t much, as monsters went—a serpentine form Dorian had no name for. It was like a living chain of obsidian fused together with globs of metal. It seemed to lack eyes (why would it need them in a place like this?).

Then Dorian peered a little closer with his spiritual sense, and snorted—as much as it was possible to snort with magma up your nose. There was something meaty within, something slimy, a smaller snake critter who’d stuck on this haphazard shell, like a crab in snake form. Earth Realm. Wiggling at a leisurely pace up toward him.

He summoned his Javelin. It popped into being beside him, shucking aside the lava flows, and carved downward to meet the beast. It took but a brief effort of will to pierce it clean through.

Dorian kept swimming. So, there are things living here! But this one was rather weak…is it simply that I’m still treading the shallows? That the beasts with real power are much farther down?

These shallows were already giving his body a battering. He felt like a prized sword stuck in a furnace, slowly hammered into a form void of impurities. Streams of crimson qi seeped into every inch of his skin, and deeper still, treating his organs to a brutal yet vigorous cleanse. He wasn’t hardening like a stone, nor was he melting—he was simply becoming more in every respect. His skin was becoming more pliable, more durable, more clean. His muscles stronger, his bones tougher, his joints more flexible. It was the sort of extreme deep-body tempering most Sky Realm cultivators—no, even most gods—could only dream of! And it was only possible for him due to his bloodline.

Over the next half hour or so he made slow progress, but progress nonetheless. Even the magma had grown denser. It felt like he was clawing his way through a vat of melted iron. The qi density had doubled, as had the pressure. It felt like his whole body was being squeezed in one angry fist. The heat had more than doubled, but his heat resistance was scaling so fast he hardly felt the difference.

For all the good it did his body, though, that wasn’t why he’d come. His Spiritual Sea still remained firmly in its shape! No condensing to be found here. He needed more pressure. More heat. He forged on.

After another hour of swimming his body was starting to feel like a low-grade Godly treasure. His bones would be worthy of a demigod’s Spirit Weapon, he was sure. The weird part was—despite all his swimming—the nexus hardly seemed to be getting any closer!

He was certain he’d come quite some way. A quick look back with his spiritual sense revealed a vast stretch of churning magma he’d painstakingly clawed through. The surface was so far he could hardly sense it anymore. He was stuck in this strange limbo zone—no clue how much there was left to swim. Oh, and he was very much naked by now, too. His clothing had been charmed to be weather resistant but here, at this depth, the heat beat out even the most intense fires at the Oasis. Perhaps only its most high-intensity furnaces could match what Dorian felt now.

More swimming. More tempering. The rate was slowing. It seemed like the heat and pressure would not go up forever. It was stabilizing at this depth. Dorian would guess it was hot enough here to melt nearly every substance known to this plane—so hot that solidness was a foreign concept, save for his own body. A body whose cleansing, too, was slowing. There were only so many impurities one could burn out, so many layers of tempering a physique needed before it brushed up against some natural limit…

He kept swimming. Another hour passed by like that, and the only thing he found up ahead was another weird snake-thing. He pierced it through, kept swimming, a prickling of doubt in his mind. This couldn’t go on forever…could it?

Another half hour, and he was starting to think perhaps it could. The nexus felt like a mirage, or like the horizon itself: beckoning to him, but always nearly the same distance away! Was it some kind of illusion? A trap? The rational part of him hemmed and hawed, torn on whether or not to turn back.

On gut instinct alone he kept swimming.

He was soon rewarded for it.

Up ahead, the flow changed directions. Oh?

He swam for it eagerly. It seemed to split off into several massive side tunnels! He chose one at random and followed the lava flow in. An underground network of magma? Finally he was getting somewhere!

Then he made the real discovery.

Above him there was a pocket of air. An opening—a cave?! Throat dry, he swam toward it. Only a few strides closer, and he could already sense a monstrous blast of qi streaming down from it. Whatever this place was might as well have been a beacon to his spiritual senses! To probe at it was nearly blinding. He kicked toward it with a fresh eagerness, then heaved himself up and over the top, breaking the surface and landing naked, panting, on hard coal-like ground.

Then he looked up, and gaped.

It was a giant winding tunnel stretching into the distance farther than his eyes could see. Its walls instantly caught his eye. They were made entirely of pearly white crystals, rows upon rows of them crusted together, jutting at odd angles, translucent, pristine, big as a man and sparkling with qi. They crowded the space, studding up and down the tunnel as far as the eye could see, bathing the place in soft light. They were what had blinded his spiritual senses.

Which was rather unfortunate for him. Because they stopped him from seeing what else was in this space.

There was the river of magma he’d popped out of, huge and thick, coursing way into the distance. Then, curiously, there was another massive river right beside it filled with spirit water—exactly like the water at the Azcan sinkhole!—and it, too, coursed quickly by. They wound and twisted about the space, at times overlapping but never really merging, curiously. They flowed over one another like oil and water. An effect of the qi, perhaps? Or this strange, dreamy locale?

Dorian didn’t have time to think on it. He looked up from the rivers, and found to his very unpleasant surprise that he was not alone.

He was right! Creatures did live here after all. They were simply, understandably, all clustered in this hidden cave network—where the qi was so thick it felt like wearing a second skin. Before him was a clan of red-furred apes, splashing about in the rivers. In their chests, right between their breasts, there was inlaid a gem very much like those studding the walls—but smaller. A few were bathing in lava, others in water. Apes picked hairs off each others’ heads. They looked to be having a grand old time of it. Aww.

Then they noticed him. Their heads whipped over. The whole lot of them—must’ve been two dozen—froze. They stared him down with beady black eyes. Then they opened their mouths, hissing, and there Dorian found rows upon rows of shark-teeth.

Shit. He probed them and got the most unpleasant news he’d had all day. You’re fucking kidding.

Six children in the Earth Realm. The rest were all at least early Sky Realm. And the real big, mean-looking one at the back—that one was a half-step into Godhood. It roared. They struck.

So there were a few awful things here. First, the space. It was big, but it was confined. There was nowhere for him to flee or play the sniper—and he was trapped against the lava flows. Plus there were no shadows! No way to deploy his most effective weapons.

Second, perhaps more salient, there were dozens of Sky-Realm monsters coming for his head! One peak Sky Realm beast he could deal with. One quasi-God he could handle fairly easily. But the lot of them, at once?

Unbeknownst to him, his sister was at this time putting herself in a very similar situation. She came out of it as close to dead as a person could be without being dead. Time slowed. He thought about it. He should be fine, right? Up until now he’d been somewhat of a glass cannon. But after this recent tempering he should be nearly as durable as a torchdragon itself! Surely nothing short of a beast of an extraordinary lineage could damage him. And these apes—whatever they were—were not those. He would’ve heard of them!

And so as he resigned himself to the fight, drawing out his Chains and his Javelin, he knew he’d get battered some. With so many creatures it was inevitable. He at least took solace in the fact that it was very unlikely these things could seriously hurt him.

The air warped around them as they charged him. Their meaty fists seemed to blur as they moved, some Law invoked—Earth, perhaps? Some variant of Strength? Dorian paid it little heed. Then those crystals embedded in their chests started to shine. All around them the walls of the cave did too, as though responding to some kind of call.

And sick pit dropped in Dorian’s stomach. Were they drawing on the qi of the caves?

Uh…Most of Dorian’s advantage came from his eleven times qi pool. If these things could inflate the sizes of their pools too by drawing on their surroundings…bad. Very bad. The question was, by how much? Twofold? Three?

Suddenly he had a hint of doubt. It wasn’t very long ago that one Sky Realm torchdragon had bitten off his limbs with ease. He was putting a great deal of faith into an untested body tempering he’d only just gotten.

But what choice did he really have?

He dashed at them too, Chains flashing. His Javelin surged.

His first wave of Chains mowed down the leading row of apes. His Javelin skewered one through the head, passed easily through another, and drove through the heart of a third. Then he was in the thick of it, Serpent’s senses geared to the maximum, crushing heads and hearts, slicing through as many bodies as he could. Four down. Five. Six. He was stuck in a thicket of bodies—for every one he cut down another angrier, meatier one seemed to take its place. Grimacing, he dodged and weaved below bursts of flame, below fists pounding through the air. Seven. Eight—

He didn’t even see the fist that hit him first. It came on from the side and blasted him right in the chin with a Fist wreathed in the heaviness of the Laws of the Earth, boosted by the qi-crystals studding the walls.

And only then did Dorian really understand how much trouble he was in.

The Dorian of a few hours ago would’ve died on the spot. Head would’ve exploded like a smashed watermelon. As it was he only saw white for a second. There was a harsh ringing in his ears, a blurring of sight. Dimly he felt himself falling and managed to catch himself on one leg.

Hells! That’s much stronger than it has any right to be—

That moment’s lapse let another fist drive into his stomach. In nearly the same instant a third cracked him upside the head, and a fourth smashed him in the ribcage.

Dorian managed through sheer force of will to not black out. He was relieved to find nothing broken. His body held strong—

Then a fourth fist hit his head.

He didn’t feel it because he was too busy being unconscious. Neither did he feel the fifth and the sixth and the seventh strikes smash into him on his journey to the ground.

Then, luckily, his head cracked hard against the obsidian—and that woke him back up again. It took him but a fraction of a second to get his bearings. He blinked. For some reason the apes had backed up, ringing him a circle. Blearily he glanced up, only to see the chief ape descending from one giant leap, fangs bared, two fists clenched in one big flaming Law-wreathed hammer aimed right at his chest.

Body tempering or not, there wasn’t a chance he’d survive that.

Fuck!

EIGHTY-FIVE

BEYOND THE SKY (XI)

This was the part where Dorian magicked some incredible plan out of his behind, turned the tables, and won the day! He was Dorian, for Heavens’ sake, a legend of the Multiverse, a Godking several times over! He’d stared down tougher odds and won out. He’d overcome greater power gaps! The head ape was descending. That fist was coming fast. He was barely clinging onto consciousness. This was it. Now was the moment where legends were made.

* * *

He consulted his behind. Sadly it was not forthcoming. The monster was halfway to him—he could see the qi trailing its boulder-like knuckles, each falling like tiny meteors—and he was still coming up sadly blank.

…Okay! Change of plans!

This might have been the part where legends were made, true—where the hero turned the tides, vanquished his enemies, and then perhaps struck a cool pose atop a mound of their broken corpses. The sort of thing that the poets got themselves off to. The sort of thing that tended to look incredible when it worked (which, as Dorian was quickly resigning himself to, was looking very unlikely)—and very stupid when it didn’t.

The smart thing to do was to take advantage of his one real advantage here.

The creatures thought they had him trapped. They ringed him, linking up and blocking out any exit route—and the only way he might escape, up, was occupied by a massive knot of quickly descending muscle. They were sealing him in a tight jar.

But the thing with this approach was that it necessarily created a shadow…a shadow which was about the size of Dorian’s fist now but was fast growing. Come on! He gritted his teeth, curling in, making himself small. The ape was feet from his head now. He could smell its smoky breath, glimpse the saliva slicking its perfect triangle teeth. The shadow was too small! It was nearly too late. It might already be too late.

The shadow had pooled to the size of his head now. Fuck it! He launched himself in headfirst, desperate.

Half his torso followed before he felt the impact. It struck him right in the chest.

Now up until this point he’d been very, very pleased with how his body had held up. Certainly these apes hit the hardest of anything he’d seen by brute force alone. Even tempered treasures would’ve broken under their blows—and he’d gotten off without so much as a scrape. Only a lot of pain and a healthy serving of unconsciousness.

It was instantly clear he would not be so lucky this time. He had a few things going for him. First he was rolling with the blow—it struck, but its force only flung him forward into the realm of shadow. He wasn’t there to take its full brunt. Secondly it struck his lower chest. As places to take a blow went it wasn’t the worst.

Neither of these facts were much comfort when he felt the shockwave rip through his body, heard the sickening crunch in his chest. He spat out blood. Fuck. That wasn’t just one or two bones. Some softer chunks within him broke too. Organs. Then his whole body was shunted into the void and the shadow closed up behind him.

He floated there in nothing for a few seconds, a shock of excruciating pain rippling down his chest. Then frantically he tapped his Interspatial Rings and popped his highest grade healing pills. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t die from this. It’d be a close scrape, to be sure—he certainly felt like he was dying. His chest was so caved in his organs, well, the ones he had left anyway, had rearranged themselves around the indent. But he’d make it.

The more pressing issue was where he was now.

He scanned around him with his spiritual sense. The shadow realm. A transit realm. This place was hostile to physical matter, and it only tolerated him for brief stints because of his bloodline. He didn’t dare test its patience. He had to get out of here, lets it dissolve him utterly.

But where would he go? There was a reason he couldn’t shadow jump all this time! The heart of a volcano was the worst place in the realm to find an absence of light. There was no exit point in sight.

He groaned, feeling his insides shift about within in a way insides were very much not supposed to do. He was in so much pain it had almost gone full circle. The part of his physical brain that handled that sort of stuff went out. He could hardly feel anything anymore—just an increasing tugging at every bit of his body, as though this realm were trying to yank him apart him particle by particle. He had to get out of here—straining his senses, casting about randomly, he probed again.

There was no exit still. But he did find a curiosity.

The shadow realm was a patchwork quilt made of two shades: shadow and non-shadow. Even dim light rendered a place non-shadow. But he found a place that was a third shade: a hole. Nothing at all. The shadow realm mapped cleanly onto the plane it shadowed—so this could only mean one thing…

That place wasn’t part of the plane at all!

With a burst of qi Dorian shunted himself toward it. He had a hunch he knew exactly what it was. It didn’t much matter if he was right or not. There was only one route here. Either he took it, or he died! It was like his decision to come to the Volcano, really. Or like his decision to brave the depths of the sinkhole. When faced with impossible odds you had to take insane bets.

He was betting here that this hole was not some sort of tear in the realm into which he’d fall and vanish forever.

He was betting this hole represented a portal. Exactly the nexus he’d sensed so far away.

The void dragged at him as he went. Even merely these scant seconds had him feeling a pressure totally opposite what the lava had inflicted on him—rather than a squishing in from all sides he felt like a chunk of dough flattened out and spread farther, and farther and farther—spread so thin that at any moment a hole would tear in the middle and it’d all fall apart. There was no long-winded deliberation, no plan, no pause. He went for it. He passed through the gap. His body and spirit met a thin film of brilliant qi which ensconced him, stretched around him, let him through.

It spat him out in a heap. He landed on all fours.

His hands met a disturbingly familiar feeling. Hot coals? He glanced down and saw a ground made entirely of the stuff, sanded over by a distinctive crimson powder. A powder that carried on the air, ever-present, like embers…

Well. Shit. He blinked.

He glanced up, and froze.

Before him stretched a landscape of reddish orange. What parts of the sky were visible beneath a night-black cloud layer were a dark, bewitching purple. Thick lava flows dominated the landscape, nearly segmenting it into a series of coal islands. In the distance rose bare plateaus of ruddy red stone.

Most striking was the air. It nearly choked him with qi it was so thick. He felt like he was in a smoke-filled room. It hardly seemed like air at all compared to what the Lower Planes had. Every breath of this sent a shock of scorching vigor rushing down his system. Even caved-in chest felt instantly numbed. This was not air mortals breathed. This was the air of gods.

I’m in godsdamned HELL!

He glanced around, dumbstruck. And by the looks of it—by the feel of it—no mean Lower Circle either. This was some Middle Circle. Heresy? Anger, perhaps?

Whatever the case, he couldn’t stay here long either. Not as a mortal. A few more breaths and this qi, too potent for mortal bodies, would start to burn him up from the inside. He glanced behind him. The portal was a subtle thing, a warble in the air. Nearly like the distortion of a heat wave. Easily missed.

Blue lightning rent the sky above, blanking the clouds with light. Silhouetted against them was a flock of grotesque outlines in the sky—things with a dozen wings and far more legs slowly drifting about.

Which was all the encouragement he needed to get out of here for good! He whirled around. He was already lucky the portal spat him out in a deserted stretch, rather than an Imp nest. Hell crawled with monsters. It might’ve been the most beast-dense set of planes in all the Multiverse. Any second now a stampede of demons might crest the horizon.

Blinking white spots from his eyes, he launched himself back through the portal, hoping against all hope that wherever he ended up was not filled with things that wanted to eat, kill, or maim him.

He landed in a heap for the third time that day. No lava beneath—good first sign! He glanced about. No monsters in sight—second good sign. He was in hollow, dimly lit chamber, it seemed. Smooth obsidian-like walls rose up around him, rising up into the gloom. All about them there was the groaning of churning magma but it felt distant somehow, as though there were layers of stone between them.

But what was this furious spark in his stomach? What was this incessant shiver, this upwelling of energy from his toes to his fingers to the roots of his hairs? He felt like a struck gong. Resonance?! It was the strongest resonance he’d ever felt—he could hardly stop his body from trembling if he tried! Could it be because the portal had spat him out in the heart of the volcano—the torchdragon’s natural habitat? Could it be because he’d entered its birthplace? It was unsettling. He couldn’t help but feel like knew this resonance somehow. Like he’d felt it before, somewhere in memory he couldn’t quite grasp.

He blinked, trying to suss out details from in darkness. It was unusually thick. Even his enhanced sight could only make out bare outlines…Come to think of it, this chamber’s qi did feel stupid dense. It almost felt like he hadn’t crossed over from Hell at all! It ground down upon him. He felt like he was at the bottom of a deep ocean floor. His eyes glimmered. This was it. The spot of his breakthrough, at long last! Oh, yes—this weird little chamber will do nicely. No threats in sight. No disturbances. A fantastically qi-rich environment. He was free to break through.

But just when he was about to let himself relax, let himself stretch a little and really settle down to meditate, a yawning sound echoed down the chamber—like the slow grating of something colossal, followed by a huge whooshing of hot air. Was it his imagination or did the walls of the thing flex and shift all about him?!

It was almost as though the chamber was breathing…snoring, almost?

And then Dorian had a deeply unpleasant thought. A thought that had his heart in his throat.

No fucking way.

He squinted harder, trying to pierce the darkness—darkness that seemed suddenly unnatural, like there was a dark qi tainting the air. Before his eyes, clean lines resolved in the darkness. Lines with which he was all too familiar.

Lining the walls—or what until now he thought were walls—were a torchdragon’s scales.

EIGHTY-SIX

BEYOND THE SKY (XII)

It was a tail. A big black spike-rimmed tail so big it nearly tripled Dorian’s height, coiling around him. Where he sat he couldn’t make out either its end or its beginning. The creature the tail belonged to was hidden from view too, but he didn’t need to see it to know what it was. His resonance told him. It was a resonance he felt at the sinkhole, and a resonance he’d felt whenever he found a scale in the Oasis, and a resonance that struck him when he first laid eyes on the Heilong Javelin.

…Fuck.

He was almost positive that he sat frozen right now right next to the creature known to him only as the Dweller in the Deep.

It was surreal finding himself all of a sudden next to a fallen god on a mortal plane. A god whose life seemed to intersect with this run so deeply that even being in its presence now made him feel a mite feverish. On the one hand he could hardly believe it. On the other he could totally believe it. He’d been drawn all along down the most powerful path he could find in this run—the torchdragon’s bloodline.

And now, if he was right, it’d led him straight to its origins!

He was still frozen here, out of shock or fear or caution he wasn’t sure. The thing was so close to him it could probably roll over and squish him! And it was without question the most powerful thing he’d found on this plane. Even here, sitting in its presence, he felt its aura slightly pressuring his own. It was a feeling he hadn’t felt in a very long time.

He licked his suddenly dry lips. There was a difference—a nearly insurmountable difference, a difference in kind—between a mortal and a god. Even a quasi-god and a fallen god. Once a mortal ascended their body was bathed in Law changed them at a fundamental level. Dorian might wield great power, sure. But this thing, even crippled as it was, might be able to command the Multiverse to destroy him with but a thought. It was simply different. Different in a way he dared not test. Not as he was now, at any rate!

Any moment now it’d wake, surely. Any moment the scaly walls about him would constrict and a sleek draconic head would peer over top at him with two slitted eyes like orange moons. Any moment a hellfire of acid ten times stronger than what those young torchdragons had spat at him would descend upon him. He hardly dared breathe.

Yet as the seconds went by nothing of the sort happened. The rhythms of the lava flows went on in the background. The walls swelled and fell, breathing in and out. A giant snore echoed up and down the space. That was all.

Slowly, gingerly, Dorian got to his feet, eyeing the tail as he did. Then soft as a grasshopper he leapt atop it.

He’d seen a torchdragon before. He’d seen it here and in the godly realms. But up close, seeing it from such a small body, perched atop its tail, he was still struck by the scale of it. Even by Godbeast standards this thing was a chunker. It was like the adolescent torchdragon’s he’d fought before, its body thick and slick and serpentine,, but this had six pairs of leathery wings sprouting from its back—wings poked through with holes. Scars. From afar, he could’ve mistaken the beast for a small mountain range if not for the tendrils of smoke rising from its nostrils. It was curled up, sound asleep.

He took a few light, testing steps. No reaction.

And then a light trembling spread through the ground, rattling all. Shit! He whirled around, searching for the source of the sound. He found nothing—it seemed to come from the volcano itself! There was a low rumbling, a growling of stone that seemed to come from all around him.

The world erupted in fire.

Geysers of lava flooded the air, walls of fire gushing up from all sides. Dorian hardly had time to react before he was ensconced in a molten cocoon. There was a spike of fiery qi. Then the burst crashed down upon him and the Dweller both. It left him spluttering, spitting out coals. It was a miracle he’d kept his footing. Then the lava receded like a falling tide and all was calm again.

Dorian stared at the Dweller with wide eyes. Surely…?!

But the creature remained stuck in deep sleep. He let out a breath.

He was somewhere in the depths of the volcano. Some lava flooding was to be expected. If that didn’t wake the beast, he was probably free to move about. Where was he, anyway? He glanced about, squinting.

Seemed to be a chamber. A cave—the Dweller’s lair, but it was bare save for its sole occupant. No treasure hordes here, just coal and stone and ash. The only decoration was an impressive sum of bones littering the grounds.

There was a light source: at the far end was a cave mouth veiled by waterfall of shining magma—a waterfall flowing upward. It seemed to be the only way in and out of here.

A few hops took him near a wall. Up close he saw the material: not stone, actually, but a purplish crystal so dark it neared black. On a whim he pulled out an artificer’s tool from his Interspatial Ring—a pickaxe of reinforced steel—and gave it a crack.

The pickaxe’s sharp head became a flattened nose. The wall wasn’t so much as dented. Dorian frowned. He called out the Javelin and tried carving an indent into the wall. He had a little more success there—a screech of bone later and he’d scratched out a clear white line—but he’d seen enough to know that tunneling out was off the table.

Next he inspected the entrance, veiled by the magma waterfall. This magma was different from all the rest—far brighter, glowing nearly pure white with strips of shocking yellow. It was far hotter too. It had his skin shriveling up as he neared it. It looked like the stuff one might find at the center of a star. It blistered his eyes just to look at it. Perhaps it was because it rose up from the core of the volcano? He probed it with a finger.

There was a hissing sound, an acrid scent. There was a warbling of air—the workings of a natural Law. Remarkable. It’s infused with the Laws of Fire!

He pulled out his finger, blinking. Hmm. All that was left was a stump. …Point taken! So that way’s out too.

He gave the cavern another once-over. Couldn’t go through the walls or the ground. Couldn’t go out its one exit. He appeared to be quite trapped.

He gave the Dweller’s sleeping body another side-eyed glance, helpless. This chamber was very nice. In fact its combination of qi pressure, heat, and bloodline stimulation made it the most suitable place to attempt a breakthrough he’d yet found! But he was hardly going to try it next to this beast. Screwing around with his Javelin was one thing. A full-on breakthrough, with all the qi and bloodline ripples it’d induce, was another entirely—and he had no clue just what advancing down this new path even meant! He was hardly about to risk waking it up mid-breakthrough.

Then a peculiar thought floated across his mind. He frowned.

Can I just…kill it?

He scratched his chin. It was still sleeping. If he was to try it, now was the time.

But it was one thing to string his Javelin through the body of a baby or adolescent torchdragon. This thing was simply too big! And it hardly presented him any opportune holes. Maybe he could try jamming his Javelin up its nose? But what if it got stuck, and then woke up, and then promptly caged him with its Darkness Laws and burned him alive with its Fire ones? He’d have to kill it without giving it a chance to strike back. Was he really about to one-shot this thing with its own tooth?

He wrung his hands. Yet what else was he supposed to do?! He couldn’t leave. He could sense it wasn’t just a matter of qi quantity. He was a being void of Laws. He could sense that that exit wouldn’t let him through unless he could match its Fire Laws with some of his own.

Then he had another peculiar thought. A thought that was perhaps even more daring than his last. He blinked.

I mean…

I can just sit down and try to break through. Right here, as it’s sleeping. In its embrace.

He’d simply have to swallow the idea that it might wake up. It was hardly riskier than trying to assassinate it, right?

Now that he thought about it, this place, the heart of an active volcano, was so rich in Fire and Darkness that he could try to weave them into his core as he ascended.

Which also meant that if he did manage to successfully ascend, he’d have Laws of his own to wield! Laws that would not only let him pass through that lava waterfall, but also perhaps even let him stand his ground even if the thing did wake. Or at the very least resist it well enough to make an escape.

Because frankly this was uncharted territory! Who knew how strong he’d be when he broke through? He certainly hadn’t a clue! And he was getting more and more impatient to find out by the second. Enough running.

Still he had his qualms.

Was he really about to attempt to break through right next to this sleeping beast? A beast that would without a doubt kill him as soon as it woke?

But the environment was so good, so rich with qi and pressure and Laws—and his Spiritual Sea was so full, churning with untempered qi—and oh, who was he kidding? He could feel himself talking himself into it already!

He’d already charged into so many dumb gambles. What was another?

Oh, to Hells with it!

He sat his ass down and closed his eyes.

EIGHTY-SEVEN

BEYOND THE SKY (XIII)

Out in the frozen tundra, a girl lay flat against snowy ground. Around her was a fresh graveyard, newly made. Hours before there had been only bodies. Then snow fell, and fell, and fell, gently and interminably, and piled up around them, slowly burying them in unmarked tombs. The girl herself lay under three arms-lengths of fresh-fallen sleet.

It might’ve been the only thing keeping her alive. She’d nearly frozen solid by now. She wasn’t merely unconscious—she was the closest thing a human could be to death without actually being dead. And even that state grew increasingly more uncertain with each passing second as more snow drizzled over her and the skies grew dark, foretelling a brutal night…

A sputtering spark of gold within her fed a weakly beating heart. It was the only thing keeping her alive—barely.

* * *

How to go from here? Dorian hummed, licking his lips.

Powering up in the Multiverse was simple, really! Get qi. Get laws. Get more qi. Get more laws. Win.

But how these principles were borne out admitted a dizzying variety. Everyone knew the way to get to the top of the mountain was to go up, obviously. But it was the path one took that made the journey—and some journeys led to higher peaks.

Dorian had no clue where this path led. In fact he was paving it one step as a time as he forded into the fog. He seldom liked to be the progenitor, the trailblazer. The first always made the dumb mistakes. Better to follow well-trodden paths. To inherit a lineage or a bloodline.

Unless the prize was so monstrous, so vast in potential that one could not help but reach for it. If he guessed right, he found himself now on the path toward one such prize.

An image from the past—from his last encounter with those torchdragons—came to mind: his flabby distended Spirit Sea and Core squeezing inward from pressure and heat, melding, condensing into something not only solid but also molten, supercharged with energy like flowing magma. Instead of a sky which spread outward, an unfathomably dense core which drew inward. A star.

But this star would need something to bind it together, to keep it spinning, to suffuse it through its breadth. Something that would further distinguish it from the Core—something that would give it that worldly essence he so dearly missed in his Earthen Core. Something that would at last give him a foothold into godhood and raise his powers to another level entirely. A Law.

He took a deep breath. He felt it all around him, tingling like static electricity on his skin. This place incredibly rich in them—on this plane there might’ve been no place where the Laws of Fire and Darkness were more prominent than the heart of this volcano. To take them in here was nearly as simple as breathing! He hadn’t been ready for it when he’d formed his Earthen Core. But now he could feel a cavity in his body, in his soul, waiting to be filled.

He was ready.

The only question now was one of choice. Which Law to infuse into his core? Fire or Darkness?

He would need Fire, of course, if only to get through that magma volcano. But it need not be his core law. Beings nearing godhood, and especially gods themselves, could imbibe multiple laws. Sometimes they might fuse them for greater effect. But the core Law would always be the most dominant, the most powerful, the one that defined the god. His bloodline had a special affinity for both Darkness and Fire, it seemed. Thus far he’d typed all his techniques toward Darkness—to weave it into his core would only bolster his shadow techniques. It needed little deliberation.

Darkness it was! And he’d weave in some Fire while he was at it. He wasn’t yet sure how to implement it. In a normal Sky Realm he’d make Clouds of other Laws, for instance. Some more obscure models of progression went with a Dao Tree representing the Core Law, with Dao Fruits as secondary laws. The basic idea was the same: lesser and distinct fragments of the Core. But here—well, his core would be a star, wouldn’t it? He had some ideas. But this was such foreign territory that he’d need to feel it out as he went.

Each progression scheme had its own strengths and weaknesses. A Sky’s was volume of qi and law. A tree’s was qi endurance and vitality. If he had to guess, his would be the incredible density of qi and law he could pack into the star, as well as its sheer potent energy.

He wouldn’t know until he tried, of course.

Let’s begin!

Last time this process started—in the throes of the torchdragons’ attacks—it’d been due to an overwhelming amount of heat and pressure forcing his core to condense. Right now, right here, there was more than enough. The only thing stopping him from crumpling over was his qi coursing through his body, running interference. Eleven times a typical Earth Realm’s powers went a long way toward resisting pressures.

He simply let it all drop.

And fires worthy of Hells themselves poured in. He felt instantly like he’d been dragged to a deep ocean floor, a dizzying weight dropping suddenly all over him—a weight he felt in his very organs. He rattled in a breath, then another, sucking in streams of air as though through a clogged straw.

He felt it most in his core. There it was—the lapping edges of the sea drawing in like a receding tide, glomming onto the Core itself as gales of heat rushed into it, infusing it with fresh energies. Dorian tried his best to guide it with his mind, rounding out the rough edges, shaping it into a rough sphere. Soon it was this misshapen mass vibrating with pent-up energies. The more he tried to force it in, to condense it, the more it thrashed against him. It was not unlike trying to cram a huge pillow into a tiny briefcase—bits and parts of it popped out no matter how hard he tried to hold it all together. He gritted his teeth, fresh sweat glistening his brow. Now was the time for a binding agent.

He reached for the Laws of Darkness and tugged. But he had but a loose affinity for them in this body. They came to him as shadowy tendrils, responding to him cautiously, warily, like feral beasts badly tamed. He started binding up his core with it—made a loop of Law around the mass, trying to strap it all together—

It burst.

There was a flash. A crash of light and brilliant sound. A bang! That shook the whole of the cavern, that sent him flipping head-over-heels and landing in a sorry heap. He looked up to see rivers of crimson qi rushing out into the ether, dispersing in air.

Shit. Failure!

But more important—he gave the Dweller a side-eyed glance. It was still sound asleep, eyes welded shut. Its only movement was the rising and falling of its torso as it breathed, smoke trickling from its nostrils. Dorian let out a sigh of relief. So, he had some latitude, then.

That didn’t go as planned. But then again this wasn’t the first time he’d failed to form a star. This was a wholly new path! Even he could hardly be expected to get it right on the first try.

But now he’d gotten a tantalizing glimpse of it. A tiny point of clarity in the fog, a foothold. He seized on it.

Again!

His eyes seemed to glow in the darkness. He had well under a week left. The passage of time had gotten away from him some—and who knew how much the jump to Hell had thrown things off?—but if he had to guess, maybe two or three days was all he had before he needed to get start heading back.

The breakthrough to Sky was the most time-intensive of the mortal bottlenecks. It usually took over a week. Sometimes a month, if you really wanted to get it perfect. And he not only needed to invent an alternative to Sky, but also to condense an unholy amount of qi into it in half the average time. A tall order, to be sure!

But if there was one creature in all the Multiverse who was born to race against the clock, it was him.

He leapt back into it practically frothing at the mouth, letting the heat and pressure descend upon his Core again. Again, they drew in, coalescing…

If I pull this thing off, who knows how strong I’ll be? Strong enough to contend with a fallen god? To win over a mortal avatar of a Godking, even?! He hadn’t a clue, but his blood boiled at the thought of it.

He was determined to make every second count.

* * *

A scout of the Azcan Oasis sat perched on a bluff on the edge of the frozen tundra, frowning at the horizon. Thick, dark storm clouds were creeping over the whole of the horizon. Storm clouds in the tundra, at this time of year? Hardly seemed right!

He drew out his enchanted eyeglass, a gold-rimmed monocle etched with glyphs. It magnified human sight, letting him see tenfold farther than he would’ve otherwise been able to. He pointed at the distance—and froze. His jaw went slack. The glass slipped from his trembling fingers.

“Oh, Dweller…” he croaked. Then, he scrambled down the side of the bluff as fast as his legs could carry him. Less than ten heartbeats later, he’d boarded his airship, gunned it to max speed, and was speeding back to camp. There he’d deliver horrible news—the Ugoc forces were but a few days out!

For those were not storm clouds. Those were hordes of countless dragons, and winged wyrms, and Vordors, so numerous and so huge they blotted out the light of the sun. Most were in the Earth Realm. Hundreds were well into Sky. Dozens possessed powerful bloodlines to boot. And beneath them ran thousands of Profound and Earth-Realm wolves with dulled eyes, all held under the control of Sky-Realm Shamans…

At the front of the whole thing, on the back of a quasi-God baby Phoenix—a magnificent creature of a bloodline on par with the torchdragon itself—was Nijo Ugoc.

He quirked his lips at the falling sun.

“That is enough for a day, I think,” he said.

“Are you certain, your honor?” said a pock-mouthed lieutenant beside him from atop a black dragon. He frowned. “I reckon we can push another thousand paces before the sun sets.”

“No need.” Nijo yawned. “What is the rush? Besides…”

He glanced at the grounds below, where the sands melted into snow. His gaze tracked upward, scanning the tundra splayed out before him from his Phoenix’s eye view. Then he lighted on what he’d been looking for—a curious trail of red among the white. Blood—and lots of it, leaking out of hordes of bodies freshly dead.

He smiled wanly. “I have some business of my own to attend to.”

EIGHTY-EIGHT

BEYOND THE SKY (IX)

In the middle of the volcano known as Drakestail Peak, one explosion after another rattled the earth. Rivers of qi were sucked in and blasted out and sucked back in again, like a whirlpool which couldn’t decide which way it wished to flow. At the center of it all was Dorian, brows scrunched and cross-legged, the whole of his mind stuck firmly on one task.

It was hellacious. His qi was monstrously dense, his grasp of Law tenuous at best. And Law would need to be the binding agent if this Star thing was to work! He was trying to hog-tie a bucking stallion with a ball of twine.

He’d been at it for hours. There was no telling time in this place but it could’ve been half a day for all he knew. He tapped his Interspatial Ring, yanked out an icy brew and took a swig of it, panting. He let himself take a bit of a breather—let his Core and Sea recover before he put them under another round of bruising pressure.

Clearly this way of advancing took a lot more understanding of Law—understanding he simply didn’t have! So what was there to do? To advance to Sky Realm one needed simply to dissolve the Core and the Sea and to drop in a dollop of Law as flavoring. Easily done. The only thing was that since it was a dissolution the consequences for failure were dire. Screw up dissolving the Core and you were stuck that way forever.

This way had more do-overs. But it wasn’t infinite. Even as Dorian waited for his Core to recover from this round of attempts he could see it wouldn’t—not fully. Stress fractures, searing lines of qi in his mind, spread.

Which at some level he’d anticipated. It was like trying to break through a brick wall by running at it headfirst.. Of course, there’d be damage! But being confronted with the physical signs was a stark reminder of the limits he was brushing up against. This was a new and dangerous path. He had little time. He had little Law!

Hmm. He scratched his chin. There was nothing for it, was there? This was an all-or-nothing affair. There was no going into it slowly or softly. Either he succeeded in a flash, or he didn’t. And each attempt wore him down a little more, and a little more…

It was looking disturbingly possible that he might come out of this with nothing but a broken core. He ran the odds. If he kept trying like this how likely was it he managed to do it after another, say, fifty tries? Perhaps one in twenty, or even less?

He steeled his nerve.

So often, the difference between a mortal and a god was the willingness to take that final step. To cross beyond the boundary of no return, to gamble it all. It took a kind of insanity, a radical irresponsibility—most who tried it died. Loss aversion! Many a god was made victim to it, to say less of mortals with all their mortal ties…it was above all selfish.

Irresponsible, selfish, insane…it might as well have been ripped from Dorian’s biography!

There was no hesitation in him as he crossed the threshold, laughing as he did. He opened himself wide up, and in poured the world. His body felt the stress instantly, buckling at the knees, stooping involuntarily. His Core and Sea were forced smaller and tighter until it was all one dense, volatile mass. He could hardly breathe. He could hardly think. Still he waited, letting the environment crush him further and further—until even his new treasure-like body, lacking qi or bloodline reinforcement, shuddered. Qi was the lifeblood of the body. Even so, his new flesh should’ve been able to withstand nearly any physical condition in this plane, qi or not.

It went to show how stupid extreme this chamber was. Not even a baby torchdragon could survive down here without qi, he suspected.

Around this point in earlier tries he’d be well into the tying process. Not now.

More!

His body, tempered by fire, was no longer durable in the ways flesh was durable. His flesh still felt like flesh, his bones like bones, but he was much more like a gemstone now—there was no melting him. All that pressure instead went into cracking him.

It felt like rivulets of magma was flowing up his arms and legs from under his skin. He knew that if he opened his eyes now he’d see stress fractures starting to creep up his body. He ignored it. All he had eyes for was the core within, growing dense, shockingly dense. From the size of a melon to the size of a grapefruit. The denser it got the more it boiled, the faster it spun, the hotter it got. Tiny geysers of hot inky qi erupted from its surface before being squeezed back in by the pressure.

Still Dorian waited. The pain had become immaterial to him. He was in so much pain all the time it wasn’t that it no longer hurt. Of course it hurt like all hells, but when didn’t it nowadays? Only when a chunk of his skin on his arm fell off like a cracked piece of eggshell did he start to get nervous. How much was he willing to give for this one try? As his core shrank smaller than the size of a fist—now it was really bucking, bucking for all it was worth—another chunk of skin fell off, then another. He could no longer feel his fingers. For all he knew his toes had already fallen off.

His eyelids went next, shucking right off his face, and he tensed. It would have to be this one attempt, then. He wouldn’t have enough body parts left for another! His body had started to tingle—at least in the parts he could still feel, as though his whole physical being was about to evaporate. That, or crack apart like a smashed vase. It occurred to him that he was getting eerily close to death.

He licked his lips on instinct and found that halfway through his tongue decided it’d had enough of his mouth. It hung out, lolling, no longer responding to him—the nerve endings had been seared off so he could no longer feel the pain, at least! Small mercies. Then it fell off.

Black spots appeared at the edge of his vision, and not just from his boiling eyes.

This is it. The physical limit. Any more, and he was dead.

He scrambled for the Laws of Darkness. Luckily there was so much of it in the qi bearing down on him that it was fast at hand. His would-be Star, Core and Sea and all, had now been compressed so tight it was but an angry black marble in his mind. He wrapped it tight with threads of Law. One loop. Two. They submerged into the thing, merging with it. It shook.

Dimly he realized he could no longer see. Or feel, or smell, really. Hearing was fast deserting him too. Soon he would be floating in a void of sensation. Only his spiritual senses would guide his way. And if he lost his footing here he was but another set of bones on the ground.

Three. Four. Five. Six.

Was it his hopeful imagination or was his core that little bit more stable? It no longer seemed like it might combust at any moment…

Yes, yes! It’s happening!

It was less a race against time now and more of a race against his own lifespan. At least when he still had access to something resembling a body he had some sense of it. Right now, there weren’t even vague impressions to go off of. There was only the beating of his heart. A beating that was growing erratic, off-kilter.

Seven. Eight. Nine.

He could now feel the presence of Law within him, flavoring the qi of his core. Every loop tied Darkness further into the foundation of his being.

His marble-sized Core, spinning fast, as now starting to glow with a soft sable light. The light of Law! To his delight, to his relief, a black star was quickly taking shape within him.

And even in this half-made state he could feel its potency. Even he could hardly bear to look at it head-on, and he owned the damned thing! It was like wielding threads of magma where before he’d had but weak embers—and as he weaved more and more Law in, that magma only grew more and more destructive…How would it feel if he teased out one of its tendrils and applied a technique with it?

He would’ve shed a tear, if he still had tear ducts. Or eyes, for that matter! It’s—it’s beautiful! He would’ve sniffled if his nose was still attached to his face. It was all coming together. Not stable yet, but he could see the endpoint from where he stood. Just a few more loops and it’d be over. A few more, and he would be a one-of-one in this Multiverse. A new type of being.

And of course that was when his heart—the ungrateful little shit—had the nerve to stop beating.

EIGHTY-NINE

BEYOND THE SKY (X)

He was this close! How dare that wyrmshit heart of his give out?!

He probed his body, and then realized it wasn’t entirely the organ’s fault.

Huh. It appears I don’t have any blood left in my body…

It’d all evaporated!

Then he came the rather startling realization that he had perhaps ten seconds of consciousness left. His thoughts were growing fuzzy, bogged down. In a panic he thrust out a thread of his still-stabilizing qi to his body. It was the only source of life he had left!

to his relief, it healed, mending and binding together. Deadened tissue nourished fast, swelling back to life like cracked, dried-out grounds splashed with rain. A few more tendrils of qi came out—as many as Dorian dared pull. The qi raced up and down his body, a surrogate bloodstream. His dying was not reversed. It hadn’t even really stagnated. But this bought him some time, at least.

Time to put out the other fires this measure had caused.

Because that small act had two large consequences. The first was that qi now flowed through his body again. Qi resisting the pressure on his body. Which also meant that pressure, which had done so well to mold his core, was now blunted.

But the rest of the qi in his core stretched and struggled against the seams of Law binding it together…

To make things worse, the second consequence of Dorian’s siphoning out some of this qi was that he’d destabilized the core! It was now a restless writhing thing. He hadn’t stabilized the advancement—now it was about to cost him. The strings of Law he’d woven so quickly now groaned like a dam straining before floodwaters. Any moment now the whole experiment might implode. Again.

Except this time there would be no second chances. He was more brittle than a wafer. This time if there was an explosion all that’d remain of him would be shards of bone and charred flesh.

There was nothing for it. He had to bail at least a little bit. It made his dead heart ache, but he yanked out a solid quarter of the qi in his nascent core—yanked it straight out of the bindings of Law. There would be no putting it back. He drew it in a slow arc around his body. He felt his organ systems gasping, reviving, felt fresh blood flow down his body and his heart at last stutter back to life.

His Core, too, finally seemed to be stabilizing—after he’d ruthlessly cut out 25% of its mass! The bindings of the Laws, which had been woven to contain far greater a star, were settling into it. It was now a quickly spinning star, still teeming with power, still shining deathly black light. Still saturated with the Laws of Darkness. That tiny goblin of greed within him was screeching, half in pleasure, half pain.

For it seemed to have worked! He was about to succeed. He was about to be a being newly made, a being now with qi run through with Laws, qi whose very nature had been bolstered and altered forever! It was as though he’d been burning with wood all this time and now had access to the world’s finest oils. And yet…

25%! Morosely he felt his life energies running through him, healing him, relieving his stress. Beautiful glorious life energies. Energies that he’d purposefully excluded from the Laws of Darkness, in order to save himself…energies that could no longer mingle with those within his new Star. Energies that would have no home.

[Rank-up!]

[Earth -> Star]

And whatever bittersweet feelings he had were suddenly washed away. All that shadow leaping, all that swimming through lava, nearly dying to those strange apes, nearly dying in this very breakthrough—all godsdamned worth it. Haha! He’d done it! Star! A new wondrous Realm, a realm beyond the imagination of any of the poor ants on this damned plane! Oh, and he could hardly wait to try his new qi…Laws changed everything. A technique manifested with Law-laden qi might look entirely different! Would his Yama’s Chains even be corporeal?

[Star Level: Dwarf]

[Darkness Law Saturation: 2%]

[Darkness Law Grade: Very Low]

Oho?

A level name was already recorded in the system. So, he wasn’t really the first to stumble upon this path after all! Some other sod had given this Star Level a name. Dorian had been about the Multiverse a long time. He’d sampled his share of cultivation techniques. Never had he seen this one. Must be some obscure, Realm-specific lineage—or perhaps. No matter.

If he had to guess—a very safe guess, given how almost all cultivation progression in the Multiverse worked—he’d simply have to pack on more mass to progress this level. Perhaps increase density too by binding in more laws? He could do that.

It was a pity about that 25% of un-Lawed qi still floating about in his system, though…sooner or later a cycle had to come to its end, and after saturating his body the leftover qi would have nowhere to go except out. All that qi—far more precious to him than limbs!—gone forever…

Unless.

For a moment his newly revived heart almost stopped beating again. Can I…?

He reached out with all his will and gathered as much of the qi as he could. He could hold it but for a few breaths between the palms of the mind. Lacking support, his body crinkled again under the brunt of the heat and the fiery qi. He paid it no heed.

For the qi he’d gathered up, the qi he’d cut out of his Star, was also drawing inward.

Now this qi wasn’t spinning as fast. It didn’t have that flagrant potency, nor did it shine quite like the star. But it was condensing into its own sphere. Almost like a second Earth Core.

With his mind’s eye Dorian watched his star carefully. If this model was set up as the name suggested…well. A star isn’t the only thing in the vast firmament, is it? The core Law is not the only one a god can wield. There can also be secondary Laws. A Sky Realm can have clouds. A Dao Tree can bear Dao Fruit. Couldn’t a Darkness-Law Star, then, have a Fire-Law Planet?

This time, reaching for the Laws of Fire was easy. There was nothing which served quite as well as a crash course in familiarizing oneself with a law as being cooked alive in it multiple times over! And in this place the air was choked with the laws of Fire. They were nearly overpowering. They rushed to Dorian’s beckoning.

He wove them one by one over the burgeoning mass of qi he’d cut out. It was but a third the size of its star cousin, and by now he was wise to the kinks of the process. Round and round the Laws went, binding over the mass in heaps, smooth as he could’ve possibly hoped. Like wrapping a gift it was—a gift from himself to himself, repackaging a part of himself he’d cut out into something new, something of its own: a domain of Fire-Law qi to draw from which shifted slowly about his body, drawn in by the gravity of his Star…

[Planet Level: Infant Dwarf]

[Fire Law Saturation: 1%]

[Fire Law Grade: Very Low]

He’d guess that the Planet Level was the qi mass and density metric. Law Saturation was self-evident. Law Grade was tough to encapsulate in numbers. Dorian preferred to keep his mental estimate at Very Low to Very High. But, of course, hidden in there were various Lesser Laws and Greater Laws of Fire, each of which needed their own comprehensions…some Godkings--his brother Houyi, for instance--liked their Systems to list out each sub-Law, its own degrees of comprehension, and so forth. Dorian had no patience for it. To him that sort of thing was rather anal and cluttering.

Now, orbiting the black star was a tiny planet which seemed to smolder—the way coals smoldered. Smoldering with the Laws of Fire. Made anew.

The breakthrough was, at last, done. He breathed out from regenerated lungs, and clouds of noxious smoke poured into the skies.

He grinned checkerboard teeth. He felt awful and wonderful all at once—wonderful since he felt ungodly levels of strength within him. He didn’t even need to test it to feel it! And awful, since he was sadly still confined to this fleshy mortal form, and even remade in magma, even with new supercharged Star qi coursing through it, it was only half-regenerated. Most of his toes still had no skin on them and chunks of his thighs were stitching back together. With the regeneration came renewed nerve endings, which also meant—joy!—starbursts of pain lighting him up from fingers to eyes to his half-formed ankles.

Then a very important thought struck him upside the head.

He looked to the Dweller, suddenly tense. He was nearly incredulous to find it still sleeping. To be fair, it’d been here a while. It must’ve slept through its fair share of upheavals. It’d take something quite dramatic, Dorian imagined, to wake it.

Quite lucky, all told! Dorian’s Law saturation was still infantile. There was no telling where the Dweller’s was! As a fallen God it could wield powers up to a Demigod’s if it so wished—if at the cost of its own lifespan. Its Law Saturation might even be past fifty percent! A fight with the thing, even at his current stage, would almost certainly spell a great deal of trouble.

It was then that he sensed something change in the tenor of the air.

He was wrong. His breakthrough had not left everything undisturbed. The Laws of Heat and Darkness in the chamber had been disrupted. There was a great vacuum in the air—a space that Nature could not tolerate.

Dorian leapt up, eyes wide—but he could do nothing as all around him as a shivering went up the spine of the floor, sending piles of bones click-clacking in an eerie dance. The walls of the chamber trembled…

* * *

Nijo, Prince of the Ugoc, trudged through snow that went up to his knees. He smiled. One could fly, of course. But there was something pleasant about savoring these tiny meaningless things. For what else was there to life? He stuck out his tongue, let a snowflake drift down upon it and slowly dissolve. How fresh! How lovely! How various! He sighed, still trudging. All life’s complexities could be reduced to the taste of a snowflake. It was all there, if only one paid attention.

Alas his journey was coming to an end! A few last paces took him up to an uneven blanket of snow. They were heaped over corpses, he knew—corpses of beasts. Natural graves. But there was only one grave he was interested in here, and its occupant was still alive. If barely.

Then he blinked once, very slowly. Twice. He turned his eyes to the horizon, one dark crease marring his brow.

For there had been a sharp twang, invisible to most yet loud as a foghorn in the space of Law. A great upheaval of Fire and Darkness in the far distance.

“Eruption?” He muttered. “Old friend—what are you playing at?”

NINETY

BEYOND THE SKY (XVI)

Now that Dorian was infused with Law he was exposed to a new world. It was like he’d been seeing in black-and-white all this time and could now perceive color. Laws of Fire and Darkness threaded the world around him, glorious tapestries suspended in air.

And now those tapestries were violently torn apart.

The ground shuddered. The walls hissed and bulged. Wisps of darkness scurried at the edges of Dorian’s vision like frightened vermin, and the flow of fire at the mouth of the chamber went blinding white.

It was like the whole world had begun to scream. And it screamed one thing: explosion!

Shit-shit-shit! Time to get the hells out of here!

Then he eyed the entrance again, eyeing the broken mess of Fire Laws swirling about like broken bolts of lightning. Wading into that mess—even with his new Fire affinities…Dorian gulped. On second thought, maybe staying put in this little chamber would be like riding out a storm in its eye. Maybe if he shut up and sat still everything would turn out just fine.

He was able to cling onto that warm fantasy for all of five seconds. Then it was like the chamber split from itself. A huge chunk of the walls detached, lurched to the side…

No.

Not a section of wall. Dorian blinked. His eyes had mostly regenerated, but the world still filtered in splotchy and fuzzy at times. The finer points were lost. The real wall was smooth seamless black. This moving chunk had subtle lines traced throughout its surface. Lines that marked out scales…

This was, in fact, a tail. The tail of the Dweller. Dorian’s heart sank.

His eyes found the beast’s face. Its nostrils were flared, harsh lines of effort scrunching its draconian features. It looked as though it were having a horrible dream—so horrible it was on the verge of waking…fuck! He edged slowly back, stepping out from the embrace of its body. Creeping carefully toward the wall.

It growled. The sound rushed down the chamber, harsh and heavy, echoing like a struck gong.

Then its eyelid snapped open to reveal one brilliant yellow marble of an eye. Its pupil was a yawning, empty-black fissure down the middle.

A fissure that leapt instantly to Dorian.

For a heart-stopping moment neither of them moved, and Dorian saw in that great black space his own reflection. He saw his own face, warped by the curvature. He looked rather like he was about to shit himself.

Then the eye narrowed, and Dorian sucked in a sharp breath. Here it comes! It was like all the color was suddenly sucked out of the room.

One moment there was Fire all around him, thickening the air. Darkness swirled at the chamber’s edges. Then it all blurred into rivers of light, rivers which rushed toward the Dweller. The Dweller uncoiled itself slowly, almost leisurely, as Laws rushed to its side, swirling around it in a shimmering coccoon. Its wings unfurled to either side of it, swallowing half the room. Its head reared up, proud and mighty.

It eyed Dorian. Dorian eyed it. They faced each other, man and fallen god. Each of them sensed something of itself in the other. Both were forged of Darkness and Fire. Both had the bloodline of the torchdragon. Dorian even wielded one of this creature’s fangs! He could tell that it didn’t quite know what to make of him. It was confused.

Then he saw something flicker in its eyes as it came to an opinion. A cold, brutal opinion.

Intruder.

Thief!

Dorian groaned. Fuck!

Then the Godbeast—his body’s bloodline ancestor—struck.

Fire and Darkness intertwined at its mouth. It screeched, a sound like a thousand windowpanes shattering at once. And with the sound came fire.

Black fire, red fire, fire interwoven in one dreadful black-red braid, two Laws woven together atop a deluge of qi. A bonfire to torch the Heavens, too vast and too fast to dodge.

Dorian could only trust in himself, trust his new body. Gritting his teeth, he countered.

His Star answered his call. Its planet’s qi, too, rose to his fingertips. He had but one blocking technique.

[Void Shield!]

A vortex of qi flared into being before him, a whirlpool of fire and brimstone. And its potency shocked even him. It felt like he stood before a tiny sun of qi. Its powers smothered him like a heat wave, made his hairs stand up on their ends.

Holy—

Was it his imagination, or did its qi feel even stronger than the Dweller’s attack?! But there was no time to consider it. Flamethrower bore down upon Shield.

This moment would decide everything. They met.

And his Shield held.

He watched, shocked at himself, as god-level qi struck his Void Shield—and was swallowed whole. Vanished without sound or fury. He saw the Dweller’s eyes, too, widen. It may have been a crippled god, but it was still a god! Its qi was tempered in the Heavens! No mortal of these feckless Lower Planes should’ve stood a chance! And yet—

The Star Realm had worked a miracle. Hells…it had bridged the mortal-immortal divide! Dorian cackled, struck by a heady rush of energy. He was tingling all over. This Realm is godsdamned incredible! He’d discovered something extraordinary—nay, something that breached the natural order of the Multiverse itself, a loophole in power! Who needed godhood when you had qi this strong?!

And then a hole tore open at the edge of his Shield. He froze. Uh.

A streak of flame poured through. Frantically he leapt aside, letting it splash against the obsidian ground. He couldn’t avoid it entirely—a gob still tore into his leg, and where it struck the skin blackened and deadened instantly. Fucking Laws of Fire! He let out a hiss. They burned like no other. It was less a flame applied to his skin, than the Multiverse commanding his skin to be burned. Which—having been burned by both methods ten thousand times over—Dorian could attest was far worse.

What the Hells?! Wasn’t his qi stronger than the Dweller’s? And his reserves were hardly running out. What gives?

He squinted at his Shield, and blinked. Ah.

His qi was not the issue. His Laws were. Mighty as his qi was, the Laws of Fire and Darkness wreathing it were but tepid trickles next to the Dweller’s raging rivers of Law.

He gulped as another hole—wider this time, tore open at the other edge of his Shield. Then a third, starting up the center. all right—perhaps I’ve slightly overestimated myself—

His qi might match up to a God’s but his Laws were woefully inadequate. It made for an unbalanced build, like a man with a giant’s upper body but a toddler’s legs! If this went on his Shield wouldn’t last ten seconds. Perhaps if he beefed up his Laws he could give the Dweller a good fight. Alas…

He turned an eye to the mouth of the shuddering volcano, where fires streamed upward. The volcano was on the verge of eruption, no? And now he had Laws of Fire—Laws to shield him from the worst of its heat.

Time to get the Hells out of here!

He dashed for the cavern mouth. He felt the last shred of his shield give way just as he wrapped himself in Fire Laws and plunged headfirst into the tide of seething magma.

Behind him came a bellow which shook the volcano to its bowels. Even amid a rush of molten rock he felt its vibrations rattling his bones. But it was quickly left behind as Dorian was shot up and up and up, riding a blast of the world’s biggest cannon toward the skies. In heartbeats he was gone.

* * *

Snow drizzled gently upon the tundra. Upon a blanket of other snow, which hid a mosaic of torn bodies. Upon a boy named Nijo—and the godking inhabiting him, named Jez—who was, handful by handful, digging. Digging up a body. It was perhaps heretical to do it. Jez prayed to the Multiverse for forgiveness. But he had dug so many graves for it, had put so many bodies in those graves. Surely it could permit him one reversal.

Plus, the body within was not even dead.

He dug and dug until he found a head. Then he cleared out the snow from the arms, the torso, worked down the rest of the body until she was exposed at last, fully, to fresh air. He looked down at her with kind, soft eyes.

There was nothing remarkable about her. A poor soul on an unimportant plane. The only trait that might benefit him was her utility. She had an unusual affinity for Jez’s powers and her head seemed rather empty. A useful tool, perhaps—that was all.

Jez shook his head. What a sad way to consider a human soul. It was how a creature like the Godking Dorian might think. It was the sort of thinking that might justify the devastation of an entire plane, of the destruction of living, feeling souls for mere power—oh, power, that most vapid of concepts, better wished for than had! It was the sort of thinking that might justify leaving Jez himself cradling the withered corpse of his own sister—his own very unimportant sister, a weak, small, fragile thing. Worthless to some. Not to him.

Gently he brushed the snow from Kaya’s face. He rested a finger on her forehead.

“Rise,” he whispered.

Her eyes fluttered open. For a moment her irises shone pale gold. Then they faded, leaving behind only confusion.

She stared blankly up at him. “Who are you?”

“Does it matter?” He shrugged. He cocked his head at her. In that instant of connection he knew her. He knew her past the level of the bones. He knew her very spirit. “You desire to hurt. It is what you enjoy most. Is this so?”

Slowly she nodded. She still seemed out of sorts. It was only natural to be groggy, disoriented. Being brought back from the cusp of death was a little like being woken from a deep sleep. In a sense he’d woken her from the deepest sleep of all.

He knelt down to her level. “Does it matter to you who it is you’re hurting?”

She frowned. “Not really.”

“Excellent.” First he pulled off his fur glove. Then he held out one small, pink hand. “Join me,” he said simply. “And you can hurt all you like. Join me, and I shall give you power to maim the world.”

INTERLUDE 4: CALM

Kaya thought about his offer. For a few seconds she squinted at him.

“I know you,” she said.

“Yes,” said Jez.

“You have the gold light too, don’t you?”

Jez smiled. “I am the gold light. I am joy. I am life. I am hope, eternal and everlasting. I am peace upon the Multiverse. And I am the one who shall grant you your deepest wish. You need only say yes.”

She didn’t yet, which surprised him. She should’ve felt a bond to him. Even a subconscious nudge. But as the snow drizzled down upon them both she merely stared.

“Why?” she said.

“Why?” Jez blinked. “Well. I wish for everyone to be happy. Forever. You are one of everyone.”

“But I hurt people.” She frowned. “That makes them sad. So…why are you helping me?”

This time he didn’t blink. “Sometimes,” he said, “To love someone is to hurt them. Sometimes hurting is necessary. I…”

He sighed. “You shall soon consider this absurd, I think. But killing is my least favorite thing to do in all the world. And yet it is the most important thing. It is, in a way, the virtue of the forest fire. We must clear out the old, overgrown trees that block out all the sunlight and stifle the rest of the forest. Only then can new life grow. Even if it means burning things.”

Kaya scrunched her nose. “Stop that—no more of these…no more saying things and meaning other things! Tell it to me straight.”

“Okay,” said Jez slowly. “I’m helping you because you are fire.”

For a while she simply stared at him. Then she grinned. “I accept.”

“Lovely,” said Jez, sighing happily.

Then he paused.

“One moment. I have some business of minor importance to attend to.”

He closed his eyes.

* * *

Zenith Realm, Upper Realms

When he opened them again he was in another body. Not an avatar. His true form. He floated mid-air, gazing out upon a ruined world.

Before his eyes, the Heavens burned.

Since the dawn of time the Zenith Realm sat above a vast expanse of cotton ball clouds. Now, those clouds were choked with smoke and stained red with the blood of gods.

Crimson lightning crackled through the gloom, the only lights beside the raging flames. Fire Laws ruled the land. Great boughs of the Tree of Eternity, poking up through the center of the Realm, were ablaze with the fiercest fires of the First Circles of Hell.

The Zenith Realm was made chiefly of mountains, mountains which had once teemed with gardens with the finest godly crop. Mountains that the strongest gods of the realm—the Godkings—called home! Now as Jez gazed out upon the realm all he saw were broken husks of rock. Mountains cleaved in two, sagging into the smoke. Mountains which had stood for millennia, mountains of myth, struck down by a slash of a sword.

His sword.

Phoenixes had once drifted among the clouds. They’d all since gone into hiding. So had most of the Godkings, in fact. It was nearly disappointing, the lack of resistance he’d found as he stormed this so-called Godly stronghold. Two or three Godkings had come up, offered him token resistance. Down they went. The rest had duly fled, hiding in their holes, wrapped themselves so tight in Laws that it’d taken an eternity to root them all out.

Jez sighed. He didn’t blame them. If there was one thing a Godking was a paramount expert in, it was survival. It was the only way any of them lived this long. They followed their nature.

The sad thing was that their deaths were the most necessary of all. The godkings upheld this world. They were emblems of the cruelty and exploitation that was the poisoned lifeblood of this Multiverse. To install a new kingdom, one needed to first kill the old kings. That was the way.

But they would not offer themselves up to him. So be it.

He stepped across air almost leisurely, striding toward the Tree of Eternity. The sacred flora that upheld the very structure of the Upper Realms—that formed the core of Zenith itself, that upheld all its parts, including the Unstuck Space. A place so deeply enmeshed in the inner workings of the Multiverse that it could surely never fall—never!

What he was about to do would seem so absurd, so impossible, as to be unthinkable.

Sometimes it is necessary to cut down old trees.

New life must grow.

* * *

Edge of the Multiverse, HouyI’s Island

“He can’t.” Horror was horrified. This was not unusual.

What was unusual was the rest of the emotions felt it too. They looked to one another in a huddle at the base of HouyI’s hill. None of them knew what to say. Even Joy—a creature incapable of feeling fear—bit his lip.

“He’s insane!” Anger pounded the ground with a fist.

“Ow,” said Loneliness. Anger paid him no heed.

“The Tree of Eternity is synonymous with Time itself,” snapped Anxiousness. His blue eyes darted to and fro. “What does cutting it down even mean? It’s a logical quagmire! The Multiverse will not permit it! …Right?”

“And let us keep in mind,” said Compassion, “That some of the most gruesome Godbeasts in the Multiverse have tried to damage it. None could so much as scratch the bark. Its leaves may burn, but its roots stay ever-strong.”

“Pray tell,” growled Anger. “Were any of these Godbeasts half as strong as that—that thing?!”

Compassion paused. He opened his mouth. Anger wouldn’t let him get a word out.

“He absorbed—cleanly absorbed—the powers of Godkings! Ate them! Like that!”

His eyes bulged. “We do not know what he’s capable of!”

“Well…” hedged Compassion. He cringed. “Perhaps.”

“Get your head out of your ass!” Anger was frothing. “The Fate of the Multiverse is on the line! Will we stand here and debate? And do nothing?!”

Then a calm, still voice cut through the mess.

“Please,” said Houyi, looking distinctly tired. “Cease your bickering.”

The rest of his emotions gaped at him. It was the first time in ten thousand years he had come down from his hill. Now, he stood there, not ten strides from them, resolution in the hard lines of his face. A quiver was on his back. His Overbow was clenched in one hand.

“Jez has gone too far. He moves to disturb the nature of the Multiverse. This, Justice cannot tolerate.”

He turned his eyes to them in turn. “Return.”

Anger dissolved in motes of red qi. Compassion went yellow. A flood of lights intertwined and arched to Houyi, settling into him. He closed his eyes, letting them in. Then the ground beneath his feet went, too. A blizzard of blue engulfed him, smothered him.

And then it was gone, and he was Houyi once more.

He gasped, blinking. Tears welled up in his eyes. He let one—just one—trickle down his cheek, this small concession to feeling. He was nearly relieved to find that after all this time he could still feel. Perhaps he was still human after all.

Then he wiped the tears from his eyes. He blinked, closed his eyes, let out one deep, heavy breath. When he opened his eyes again they were nearly as they had been before. Calm, cold, every atom of his being at the ready to do what had to be done. In this form—this complete form—Houyi had held the title of the Multiverse’s most powerful being for so long that the very concept of the apex had become inextricably intwined with his name.

Now it seemed there was a challenger. Houyi smirked.

The stronger he got, the weaker he seemed. Right now he’d feel to the ordinary cultivator no different from a mere mortal. He might have no presence at all. His dress was plain, muted leathers, as though he were some simple huntsman plucked straight out of an obscure, forgotten wood.

He reached out a finger and gave the air a little poke.

The sky split all the way open. It tore like paper all up-and-down its length. A canyon, yawning and endless, ran from horizon to horizon. Air screeched around it. Below the black waters trembled violently and thousands horrible godbeasts within scurried away, frightened.

Houyi cocked his head. It had been so long. He forgot his own strength.

He stepped into the void and was gone.

NINETY-ONE

STORM (I)

A few hours of sky treading later Dorian was back to the Oasis. The sun was setting, spilling harsh light over a bloody battle.

Not a big battle, nor a devastating one. A small wave of sandwolves, Vordors, and other lesser beasts splattered against the Oasis walls, guided by a small fleet of a dozen-odd shamans. Soldiers rained bolts of qi from above with their Wizard’s Sticks. Battleships shot down Vordors with ease.

Bin Heilong greeted him with a curt nod as he landed nimbly beside the man on a parapet. All around them soldiers tripped over themselves to get out of the way, awestruck.

“You’re late,” said Bin, mustache bristling.

“I missed you too,” replied Dorian. He gave the battlefield a once-over. “You seem to be doing fine. Why, it seems my presence is hardly needed!”

Bin snorted, but couldn’t put much umph into it. He was looking rather sick. “We’re repelled their probing strike, sure. Our scouts report a force of tens of thousands on the horizon. Hundreds in the Earth Realm alone—who knows how many in Sky?”

He crossed his arms, but only managed to look frightened rather than imposing—like he was hugging himself. “They are but one day away. One. Day.”

“Hmm.” Dorian scratched his chin. “And how many do you think you can take?”

“A quarter of their Earth Realm forces. If I am generous.” Bin swallowed. The man reminded Dorian of a scarecrow, propping himself up with nothing but sheer habit. His composure was clearly shot through. All the Oasis’s ships, all the Oasis’s men summed together—it wouldn’t be nearly enough. There was nothing anyone here could do.

“So the heavy lifting will fall to me then, won’t it?” said Dorian, smirking. The question was rhetorical, and both of them knew it. “You’ll need to handle the riffraff. I can’t be running around trying to stamp out every last Profound Realm cultivator trying to set the city ablaze. Hells—probably couldn’t if I tried! What are there, tens of thousands?”

The Soul Contract he’d signed weeks ago had frustratingly simple terms: he’d agree, on pains of death, to defend the city to the best of his ability. He could hardly protect a city from ten thousand cultivators striking from land and sky while also fending off the heavy hitters!

Bin nodded. “Crag has mobilized the Outskirts well. And the imminent threat has scared the guilds into falling in line. Thon of the artificers has been working his men half to death producing Sticks. The Noble Families stand at the ready. Our Heilong forces hold strong as ever. Rest assured: beat back the brunt of the Earth Realm beasts, turn back the Sky, and the rest we shall cover.”

“It’s a deal.”

Bin sighed. “Are you ready?”

“Not yet.”

“Not yet?!” Screeched Bin, nearly hysterical.

“Oh, relax! I will be. Some fine-tuning must be done. Consolidation. That kind of thing.” Dorian stretched, catlike, then clapped Bin on the shoulder. The man nearly fell over. “Don’t you fret. I have gotten strong. Stronger than any of you can possibly know! By noon tomorrow, not one of them will be able to touch me. Why, it’d take the avatar of a god to threaten me!”

“Do they not have the avatar of a god?”

Dorian licked his lips. “See, that’s the tricky bit.”

* * *

There was nothing to do but consolidate! Polish off the rough edges, put in some last repetitions, grind out a few skill levels, maybe mine the sinkhole for whatever was left. The bulk of the work was done. But first—

Night fell. Dorian staked out a sealed meditation chamber in the Heilong Estate, a cool windowless box of pure obsidian. His body had healed in all the major ways. His eyes worked fine, his muscles were mostly attached in the right spots. But he was still sore as hell. The residue of all that volcanic heat, of the physical trauma of being beaten by those apes within an inch of his life, still left a thousand micro-tears and pain points brimming up his body. All this time he hadn’t had a good few hours to really sit his ass down, take a breath, and focus on healing.

So he chugged as many high-grade healing elixirs as he could handle without vomiting, felt a spell of sleepiness strike him between the eyes, and let himself succumb.

* * *

At this point the pure white expanse of his mindscape had grown familiar.

He floated there as an avatar of himself. Before him was an avatar of Old Man Fate. Short, squat, white-haired and bushy-bearded in dark blue mourner’s robes. His eyes were even more soulful and teary than usual.

“Oh come now, Fate,” sighed Dorian. “Remember our first vision? You conjured up an entire tea house for me!”

He gestured at the white void. “Couldn’t be bothered to put in the barest of effort this time? A nice background would’ve done.”

Fate sighed. Dorian frowned. There was a startling dejection to him. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d seen the man’s lips droop so! This was Fate.

“I…forgive me. I am tired,” Fate croaked, blinking. “But if you would like a change of scenery, I shall oblige.”

Instantly the scene shifted. They stood within a smoldering, ruined hellscape. Blacks and reds and oranges clawed at the skies, tore the realm apart. Then Dorian blinked. His mind adjusted. Wasn’t that the Phoenix’s old peak? And there—that was Dimu’s pagodas—or what was left of them—each floor had been broken off, scattered lopsided down the side of his mountain.

This was Zenith!

For a minute Dorian was silent. “Well. I’ll be,” he whispered, whistling. “He really did it.”

He turned to Fate. “When was this?”

“Merely an hour ago. Seen from my scrying glass.” Fate shook his head. “Half of the Godkings of the Multiverse have gone into hiding. Those that remained were killed, or absorbed, or taken hostage. It…it is, to my chagrin, as I foretold!” His voice broke at the end. “I could not stop him. None of us could. In the end I was forced to flee…” His eyes scrunched shut.

“And it’s come on so fast,” said Dorian. He nearly snorted. “I’ll give Jez this. In speed, he’s outdone even me!”

Fate looked up. His eyes soaked in Dorian’s face. “This has unnerved you. At last.”

It wasn’t a question. Dorian opened his mouth to bite off some snarky retort. Then he checked within himself, and found the bastard was sort of right.

“Well, yes. I’d be a special sort of insane not to be.”

“But unnerved is all?” Fate studied his face. “You’re not afraid? Not panicked?”

“Panicked enough to join your resistance, at long last?” A hint of a rueful smile touched his lips. “Alas—no. I’ve cast my lot with the other smart fellows—fellows who’ve had the wherewithal to hide and wait out the storm! Whatever happens, I am quite certain I’ll be safe.”

“I see. Selfishness, then. To the end.” Fate sounded almost bitter. Then his eyes widened. “Oh—I—forgive me! I’m sorry. I…I have been under a preponderance of duress of late…”

Dorian shrugged. “Don’t apologize! It’s true enough.” Then he paused.

Fate looked near tears! He didn’t like the man—he found him rather annoying—but…ugh. Something about the sheer persistence of his optimism had ground Dorian down over all these millennia. He nearly found the man charming now, in a sad sort of way.

“Look,” Dorian said gently. “This will blow over.” He grinned. “It’s bad now. That much is obvious. But the Multiverse is far too big for one man to govern! Say he takes the rest of the planes. Even simply as a matter of logistics, how will he keep that big of an empire together without infighting? It’ll splinter under its own weight.”

Dorian shrugged. “From internal threats or external, one way or another, time will take care of it. And the bigger the empire, the bigger they fall! You’ve done all you can. Take my advice and wait it out, all right? These things pass. They always do.”

Fate sniffed. “You think so?”

“Of course!”

“I…don’t.”

Something strangely hard had come into Fate’s voice. “I haven’t come to recruit you, Dorian. It’s clear to me now that some causes are lost.” He swallowed. “I’ve come to tell you to brace yourself. It is maybe the last act of kindness I can impart to you for a long, long time.”

“Excuse me?”

“The storm has only begun. And it is like nothing that has touched the Multiverse before.” His voice firmed up. His pupils trembled. “Something vast and monstrous trembles on the horizon! My good fellow—you have never taken to heeding my words. Heed them now. Brace yourself!”

Now Dorian was frowning in earnest. “What, exactly, is it? Specifics, if you please?”

“I don’t know. I can’t know. You know that.” Fate swallowed. “Your brother has gone to stop it in person.”

Dorian froze. “Wow. That bad, huh?”

He raised an eyebrow. “And you think even he can’t stop this Jez? This upstart?”

Fate’s brows furrowed. “I don’t know,” he whispered. He looked like he might shatter at a touch.

“Well, you should’ve led with that!” said Dorian easily. The tension was going out of him. “We both know two things my bastard brother is good for. They might as well be Laws of the Multiverse! One. Whatever HouyI’s arrow strikes ceases to exist. And two—”

“Houyi never misses.” Fate swallowed again. “I know. I know. And…you’re right. I do have faith in the man. There is hope yet.”

“There.” Dorian shrugged. “We’ll be fine, then, one way or another. Is that all?”

“What I hope to be true,” said Fate slowly. “Is not the same as what I know to be true.”

His eyes locked on Dorian’s. “Brace yourself,” he said again. With that, the scene dissolved.

NINETY-TWO

STORM (II)

Dorian woke with a start, fully healed and very confused. For a few breaths sat there, still and silent. His mind felt like a clogged throat, choked with thoughts, and he was having no small difficulty swallowing.

Brace yourself. Fate’s words still weighed on him.

“Okay, then!”

Jez was a real threat! Noted. Perhaps Dorian had been wrong to dismiss the man so. Perhaps Fate had been right all along.

The question was—just what the hells was he supposed to do about it now?

He was already maximally protected. All his treasures were scurried away in the Multiverse’s most impregnable natural lockbox: the Unstuck Space. He was as braced as braced could be!

Plus, his brother was handling the man. In person. Overkill, probably, but Houyi always did like to do things right. There was no such thing as a margin of error with him: either it was done or it was not.

Dorian winced. He knew that aspect of Houyi well. Which was also how he knew the matter was over. He might despise the man, but there was no denying him. With Houyi there was no such thing as failure.

He hesitated. And if by some heavenly miracle he does fail, the rest of us can hardly do any better!

So—dire as it might seem—the best course of action was still to stay put, do his thing, and not make any sudden moves! He’d draw zero undue attention. With luck he might be able to skirt the fallout of Jez’s death. Perhaps he could even chart a course through the Middle and Upper Realms that skirted conquered territories? It was a pleasant if hopelessly naive thought.

Oh, look at me. Punching at ghosts. How is any of this relevant to me. He snorted, then left the room. Outside the sky was a watery smear behind a film of slate clouds. Probably he had run out of time. Today was the day. Before the day was out, it would all go down, and he’d know.

What matters to me is not the main body. I’ll be busy enough with this pesky offshoot!

In a way he liked the challenge. It roused within him a fighting spirit that only certain men knew—men who sought out the knife’s edge. He’d discovered a new route in this run already, a route that’d afford him endless possibilities. Frankly he was well on his way to a top-tier run with all his exploits this time around. He wasn’t about to stop now.

All that was left to do was some testing and fine tuning. How had his Laws changed his techniques? How might he use their funky new quirks in a new and improved style?

Some testing was in order.

* * *

He went out alone into the desert, flitting easily past the walls, past sands strewn with corpses, crusted over with dried riverbeds of blood. Viscous black qi slithered around his fingertips, draped his arms and legs—qi from his main core, a core now laced with the Laws of Darkness.

Qi with Laws was a difference in kind. He felt it even now, passively: it had a natural affinity with the world. He felt integrated into the fabric of the Multiverse, like one cog in the pan-cosmic machine.

But the difference would be made most clear once he tested his techniques.

He found an empty stretch of dunes. The early morning sun, angled at a slant, meant the desert was washed with long shadows—shadows of dunes, of chunks of bone jutting from the sands, of shelves of rock pepering the land. He licked his lips. First up—shadow jumping!

He probed out with his mind’s eye and snatched up a shadow. It came to him like a well-trained hound. No effort at all, as though it was meant to pool at his feet all along in the natural order of things. He stepped in just as easily.

The Shadow Realm, which was to him a noxious space before, now grudgingly accepted his presence—but only as a host might accept a guest. He was wreathed in Shadow Law, true, but he was not a being of shadow. At some point he would overstay his welcome. A horrible fate would befall him then.

But when was that point? Dorian flitted about the Realm of Shadow like a wraith. The resistance, he found, had shrunken by an astonishing degree. Hells—if he wanted to he could probably hop from this end of the Oasis to the other!

In fact he tried just that. With but a flicker of will he slingshotted across the Shadow Realm, aimed at the string of shadows made by the walls on the other side of the Oasis, the East Walls. Thousands upon thousands of strides away.

In the blink of an eye he emerged into the real world, stumbling to a halt in the sands. He whirled around. Behind him the East Walls rose up, a cliff of gears and steel. Soldiers manning the parapets gawked at him. And this isn’t even its limit! His shadow-jumping had evolved nearly to teleportation, it seemed—within limits.

Then a funky thought popped to mind. How many hops from here to the volcano? Hmm…

He had little to gain here by going back. There was no time to challenge the Dweller to a rematch, and the chances he could level-up enough to best the creature were slim besides.

Still, though, he filed the thought away in the back of his mind. One never knew when a nearly immortal creature capable of massive destruction might come in handy…

* * *

The rest of the morning was spent testing techniques. Most every one of them had gained a delightful boost from his Darkness Laws. Yama’s Chains was most notable: rather than needing to fork out gobs of his own qi, he could now convert pools of shadow into new links, extending his Chain! Which meant that at night-time his Chains would become a horrifying weapon indeed…

* * *

Bin Heilong came to deliver the news in person. Dorian knew what he’d say before the man opened his lips. It was written plainly on his bone-pale face.

“According to our latest scouting reports the Ugoc are hours out,” he croaked. “They may arrive before sundown.”

Dorian took a breath. “Very well.” This was it.

“All our preparations are made,” said Bin primly. “Our troops are at the ready.” He turned a stern eye on Dorian. “You’ve had a day. Are you ready now?”

“Nearly!”

Bin choked. “Y-You are aware that your fate is tied to that of the Oasis?!” His cheeks were ruddy. “You are soul-bound to defend Azcan to the best of your abilities! To die, if you must! How do you remain you so—so—”

“Nonchalant?” Dorian shrugged. “It does me no good to be nervous, does it? Besides…”

He turned an eye to the city walls. But he wasn’t looking at them—not precisely. He was looking beyond them, eyeing a signature he felt in his spirit. A resonance signature.

“I’ll be ready. There is only one more matter to take care of. It won’t take long.”

“What is it?”

“Well—” Dorian paused. “At the moment I’m…skeptical, you might say.”

“Of what?!”

“That I can beat Jez, of course! His avatar, that is.”

Bin looked like a strong gust of wind might scatter him like a sand sculpture. Dorian forged on, wagging a finger. “Gods are no joke, you know. Especially when you try to fight them as a mortal. I was reminded of that very recently! I simply don’t have the firepower.”

Bin opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, made a sound like a leaking pipe.

Then— ”And you thought to mention this now?!”

“Relax. There’s a few hours yet, aren’t there? I may not have the firepower now…but I will. Have your men clear out the area around the sinkhole, will you?”

A thundercloud of dread settled on Bin’s face. “Do I even want to know?”

“If I am to craft a secret weapon,” mused Dorian. “A technique destructive enough to slay the avatar of a god, a botched try might end the Oasis in a stroke.”

Bin couldn’t get any paler. There was no blood left in his face.

“So…sinkhole.” Dorian shrugged. “I’ll need Spirit Water as cushioning. As much as I can get.”

Bin was already turning away. “It shall be done.”

“Hey!” called Dorian to Bin’s departing back. “Don’t you want to know why I need water in particular?”

“I am going to vomit,” said Bin without turning. He leapt away.

“Fire!” called Dorian after him with a devilish smile. “There will be fire! Lots and lots of fire!”

NINETY-THREE

STORM (III)

As Dorian walked the main street to the sinkhole, there was not a soul in sight. Most everyone was grinding in a factory, manning artillery, conscripted into an army, or otherwise holed up. The whole city felt wound up like a clenched fist. The end was near. They all knew it.

He passed through the sinkhole gates, manned by two sober-looking guards. Then the great steel doors swung shut behind him and there was only him and the expanse of water before him.

They’d gotten the torchdragon corpses removed but he could still see the huge valleys their bodies left on the sands. Their blood still shimmered in the water like oil.

There was little here left for him. No torchdragons. Whatever critters remained were, to his current form, hardly worth his time. He was here for one thing only.

Closing his eyes he felt for his interiors, felt for that fuming ball of Fire Laws orbiting his Dark Star. He teased out a thread of Fire Law qi—his first time grasping such a thing, his first time manipulating anything fire-aspected since his Rust Tribe techniques, really. Then he let it out into the world. He pointed out a finger.

Out came a stream of crimson and white, like he’d opened a portal at his fingertip which connected to the heart of the sun. It scorched a brilliant line through the air, air which seemed to give way to it as servants do for an emperor, before burrowing into the sinkhole.

There was a hissing—no steam. The sinkhole waters didn’t quench the fires, didn’t evaporate. Instead his fires left a strange black line through the sinkhole before sputtering out and vanishing. It almost seemed an ink-trail.

The Laws of Fire commanded the world to burn, and so it did. Even water burned, whether it was in its nature to or not. That was something never seen in nature, something only producible by Law: burned water.

The trail dissolved, tugged away by the sinkhole currents.

Dorian flexed his fingers, nodding. He felt as Good. As expected!

Now, he could stop here. Name this ‘Finger of Flame,’ or something of the like. Anything could be a technique, even a strike this small. A technique was simply a moniker for an application of qi: it was all an invention of the mind. But this little outburst would hardly put a scratch on a godly avatar. He would finalize nothing until he himself felt threatened by the strike he produced. Again.

The next half hour or so he spent familiarizing himself with Fire Laws. He threw them out wantonly. He molded them into spheres, into spears, into pinpricks and needles and lashes. What to do? He could augment his Yama’s Chains, he supposed—add a sizzling flavor to the technique. He frowned. It was not as simple as slapping in some Fire and calling it a day. It would be like trying to change an iron sword into a copper-and-iron alloy. He’d need to melt it and rebuild it from scratch. No—no augmentations.

What to do, then, with this new capacity? What to make? He scratched his chin. There was no time to forge anything intricate. He was making a technique for maximum impact. It would be a club, not a sword. Nothing fancy: a simple tool to channel the vast sea of powers he had boiling within.

A sardonic grin traced his lips. What better technique as a base than the very first he’d ever learned in this Life?

[Ray]. Its main virtue twofold. The first was it was incredibly simple. ‘Channel qi in a beam at the enemy’ summed it up. Just what he needed! The second was that it was immensely scalable. If he tried a Fireball technique, the more he qi he poured in, the more unstable the fireball would get, for instance. At high powers all sorts of headaches arose. But [Ray] could work like turning on a faucet. All he needed, really, was the wherewithal to direct the beam vaguely in the direction of the enemy and let loose. It’d let him blast out an insane amount of power.

But Fire Laws by themselves would not be enough. A killer technique, he decided, would need to combine both of his strengths: Fire and Darkness.

Only—how would he put them together? He scratched his chin. Perhaps—

As a test, with one hand he threw out a blistering [Ray] of Fire. With the other he did the same, only with Darkness. They converged at a dune at the far end of the sinkhole. An instant later only a fathomless tunnel remained.

Hmm..

Good, but not quite the level of destruction he imagined. If he really wanted a world-ender he’d need these two to synergize—a two-in-one. But how?

Given a base technique he could probably hack together a synergistic technique in under an hour. But it got much more finicky when Laws got involved. Laws didn’t play nice with one another. If he wished to blend Fire and Darkness into a fusion Ray, it’d need a lot of designing and testing. And he had very little time.

For the hells of it he gave it a shot. Who knows? Maybe with my new cultivation system the normal rules don’t apply to me!

This time he fed qi from his Fire planet and qi from his Dark Star into the Ray. He tried treating them as one stream.

It exploded in his face.

He was mostly unharmed—qi was rather kinder to its owner—but he did feel very dumb sitting flat on his ass with his face blackened.

Okay, then.

Just to make absolutely certain he couldn’t hack together he tried it another two times. Same result.

all right then!

By now the sun was worrying far on its journey across the sky. Dorian frowned at it. How many hours left? Maybe three? He really should get going with this—

“Sir Hero! Sir Hero!”

The booming voice, amplified via qi, came from messenger atop a small balloon aircraft hovering a safe distance away. There was a very loud gulp, also amplified.

“So sorry to bother you! But General Heilong has dispatched me to inform you that a Beast Tide has been sighted by our scouts via scrying-glass! We estimate two hours until arrival!”

Dorian rolled his eyes. “Understood!” he yelled back.

“I—” Another gulp. “I have been told by General Heilong to ask when you shall be ready, mighty Hero?”

Dorian paused. What a ridiculous question. “Tell him not to ask questions he doesn’t want know the answer to!”

He could see the messenger’s tiny face pale from here. The balloon craft scuttled off.

Sighing, he turned back to the sinkhole. The problem of combination. Tricky, tricky.

He had all the pieces arrayed before him. He had them almost right. But how they’d all piece together was eluding him…he frowned.

In an ideal world he’d create some fancy twining technique. He’d braid Fire qi and Darkness qi together, spiraling together but not touching—it was a standard and powerful way of qi fusion. But the problem of intricacy stumped him again. Too tough to do. Too little time.

He sat there and thought.

And thought.

And thought.

He felt the sun’s light rays tickling his temple. A light wind ruffled his hair. He sat cross-legged on warm sands next to a sparkling pool. He could’ve been on a tropical beach. The world about him was blissfully unaware of the very literal life-or-death pressure he was under. It almost seemed mocking.

And then a thought lit up his mind.

He sat bolt upright.

An idea for an alternate construction popped to mind. One that would require no advanced planning on his end at all! Really it would use the same Ray template. His mouth went dry. It was almost too perfect! So perfect he was suddenly very worried it wouldn’t work at all.

The idea was very very simple.

His qi was all stored in a planet of Fire which orbited a star of Darkness. This lay within his body and soul, a natural geometry.

Wasn’t this already the twined qi structure he was looking for? Fire circling Darkness? He didn’t need to design anything new at all. The very nature of his path was that lesser laws orbited greater ones!

All he needed to do was to bring it out exactly as it was, drawing both at once in one contiguous stream from his core—and, critically, keeping the structure they already had! The result—in theory—would be a beam of darkness surrounded by a spiral of fire. Extending a star and the planet orbiting it in a flat plane into three dimensions. It would be a technique modeled after a solar system, a crescendo of Fire around a Darkness core. A [Galactic Inferno].

He was so giddy he didn’t plan, or prepare, or hesitate at all, really. He did. He grabbed at all the qi within him and yanked.

He opened his mouth. He was not sure why. It seemed a fitting path. Sometimes you went with your instincts on these things. And it poured out into the world.

He nearly shed a tear then and there. A wire of blazing red twined around a pillar of smoldering black left his mouth and, with astonishing speed, blitzed across the air and made contact with the sinkhole. It was godsdamned beautiful.

Only then did he realize, with some alarm, how qi-intensive the thing was. Even for him—this thing had yanked out over half his qi in a blink! It was too much, too fast, too powerful—he winced, trying desperately to hold the structure—

He lost control of it.

What happened next he wasn’t sure. It came to him as a blur of harsh sensations. A crashing, very very loud. Then his body felt like a leaf in a hurricane. He felt his body slap against something hard and realized with some consternation he’d been plastered against the sinkhole walls.

He felt himself slide down and land in an unceremonious heap. Spitting sand from his mouth he leapt up, eyes wide.

…What.

The sands that had surrounded the sinkhole were now terraformed. Pushed up against the walls.

He blinked again. He grew painfully aware that the technique had somehow managed to drain nearly three quarters of his qi in the space of five seconds. A staggering amount of qi—an amount of qi that could level a mountain.

…

And he saw clearly now where it all went.

The sinkhole was perhaps more aptly described now as merely a very big hole. Because all the Spirit Water within it had vanished.

[Level-up!]

[Galactic Inferno] Lv. 0 -> 1

NINETY-FOUR

STORM (IV)

It was beautiful and it was terrifying.

There was ash everywhere. Black misshapen forms were lumped about the sands. The walls of the sinkhole were glazed with a fine layer of soot. It all seemed to pulse with a dangerous gentleness, like hot coals, and what steamed off them were not smoke but vestiges of Law—tiny translucent flecks visible only to those well-versed in Fire. The sinkhole had in a stroke gone from holy font—the crux of all life in the Oasis—to a cursed land. If a mortal touched a finger to it the skin would burn like paper.

He’d managed to inadvertently make the place inhospitable! Oops? Meh. It was a rather moot point given the disaster trembling on the horizon. He waited idly for some backlash from his soul contract, the Multiverse striking him down for voiding its terms to protect, not destroy, the Oasis.

really? Nothing?

He shrugged. He supposed there was reason to let him off easy. It was unintentional, after all, and done in order to protect the Oasis. Perhaps—

The world warbled about him as though under a blistering heat wave.

FU—

He doubled over, gasping, feeling a spike of nausea drive through his skull. His soul felt very light, anchored to his physical form by flimsy strings—strings that felt like they were struggling to keep him attached. His vision grew hazy. His body’s sensations reached him from far away.

HRNGGGGG— FUCK!

He gasped, hacking out air, and waited for the feeling to pass.

And then—after an eternity—he snapped back to his skin. He gulped in lungfuls of air, hacking mightily.

all right! Get yourself together. It’s just a warning. A Multiversal finger-wag. It let him know he’d come dangerously close to voiding his soul contract’s terms. Soul contracts were strange that way. It was widely theorized that, like the System, they were not native to the Multiverse but rather coded into its Laws by some ancient Godking—something only possible in the Multiverse’s early aughts. The precise mechanism by which contracts worked was a matter of heated speculation. Most thought they manipulated strings of Fate. A few believed there was some semi-sentient judge embedded in the Multiverse thats presided over them. Whatever the case, transgressing them—as Dorian had learned from lots of hard experience in other runs—was sadly impossible. Even considering it, or nearly doing so by accident, had painful consequences.

There were no loopholes out of this predicament, to his chagrin! Coughing, he got to his feet and stumbled over to the sinkhole’s charred lip. He peered down at his own handiwork with morbid satisfaction.

Would it be enough? This was no mere water he’d wiped from existence. This was spirit water, water so rich in qi it sustained a civilization of cultivators! He squinted at the slag. Nothing could take this strike defenseless. Of that, he was sure. Not the avatar of a god, not a fallen god like the Dweller. This would even threaten full-fledged Demigods in higher planes. If he timed it right and unleashed it with Jez’s avatar in its blast radius, the god would have no choice but to counter or block. He was a Godking, and he could bring forth a great deal of his Laws unto this plane. That, paired with his unusual gold qi, made for a uniquely finicky problem. Still…

The utter blackness gaped at him. The spirit water had been charred to slag, and that slag had been charred to lesser slag, and then superheated so horribly it’d burst into a fine particulate matter.

He nodded. If this doesn’t do it, nothing I can muster will!

As far as he was concerned the matter was done. All the preparations were made. He turned back, steadying himself for the finale.

Then he paused.

He whirled back to the sinkhole and squinted at the Darkness.

He felt something there. A faint prickling at the back of his mind. In any other circumstances he would’ve brushed it off—but it came from a place where nothing, not even slag, should have survived!

What…?

He hesitated. Jez’s forces hadn’t yet come. Surely there was time for one very brief jaunt. He stepped in and was quickly swallowed by the dark.

Now that he’d so thoroughly woven Darkness Laws into the fabric of his being darkness felt more welcoming than daylight. In daylight he could perceive with eyes. But sight could be blocked, distorted, blinded. It was imprecise. In the darkness he mapped the world through a feel which extended far beyond any vision—he felt the darkness like a vast drape of his own skin, molding to the shapes about it. And so, he knew that this sinkhole went surprisingly deep. Almost twice as deep as the farthest he’d explored.

And then it stopped abruptly. He landed in a crouch on fuming hot rock.

Before him was a familiar sight. A tunnel, stretching far into the distance. He saw a few hundred spans before the rest was swallowed up by smoke and dust. And it was a sight, for it was tinged faintly red along its length. Its walls were molten rock. He had the impression he stood at the artery of some fathomless organism. And he knew where it led.

This is an underground tunnel. Exactly like the ones at the volcano. A tunnel liking sinkhole to sinkhole—and perhaps volcano to volcano…?

And then he knew what he sensed. The prickling had blossomed into the faint glow of a distant resonance. He knew, too, who he was Resonating with.

There was an electric shock, a starburst of recognition. His soul felt like it’d been stung. He frowned. He knew a third thing with certainty, then.

Phantom eyes peered out from the gloom. Right this instant at the far, far end of this tunnel, at a volcano he’d left not a day before, the Dweller peered into this same gloom. He felt its direction, its mindscape churning like slow lava flows. It was not on the verge of eruption anymore. It would not come for him. But they shared in that moment an implicit understanding.

The moment passed. It turned away, heavy eyelids sealing shut.

This tunnel, hollowed out and drenched in shadows, was nearly a direct route to the creature. To that portal to Hell. It would take but a few minutes of straight-line shadow-jumping and he’d be in the volcanic heart.

Alas he’d likely find no use for it. He was stuck firmly here. Contracts were contracts.

He, too, turned back. No more delays. It was time. Still, he filed this discovery away. Who knew? Maybe it’d come in handy.

* * *

Jez waited for the final battle, emptied of thought and feeling. The time for feeling was done. He’d cried. He’d knelt. He’d made graves. He’d sought forgiveness. And with a heavy heart he’d forgiven himself what he was about to do.

Now all that was left was to execute. He stood mid-air, hovering high over a vast and empty stretch of desert. His armies were arrayed behind him, one thick dark line of horrible beasts and riders, of shamans and tribes and followers stretching from horizon to horizon. All simmered in quiet preparation. They were but an hour out from the final Oasis in the desert. Once this last desert holdout fell his armies would sweep out across the plane and stain it gold with his powers. It, too, would fall under his dominion.

One girl would not sit still. Kaya, Io’s sister, was a natural vessel for his energies. She could not sit still. This was no lull for her—he watched her far below, a tiny dot hunting down the wretched forms of a pack of wyrms. Where she passed blots of red pricked amid their brown squiggles. He felt her mind: a boiling cauldron of feral instinct. She’d given herself over to it freely, easily.

It was an enviable life. To be able to escape one’s troubles by reducing oneself to one’s basest instincts. In a way it was what he’d done. He’d turned to a radical love, early on. But sincere feeling, alas, was not enough to change the world. It was but a spark. Reason would serve as the kindling.

He smiled kindly upon her. Sometimes he, too, wished he could descend to a level such as hers. Make of himself a dumb brute, marinate in ignorant bliss! But then the Multiverse would return once more to its base inhumanities. Someone had to love the world more than it loved itself. Someone had to serve as its

He supposed his self-conception was similar to his opponent’s. Fitting, then, that they would meet at the end of things.

He sighed. It was time. He closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, he was in a different plane. A much, much, higher one. A once awesome, holy place, now ripped open, scarred forever, its mountains sliced open, its gods slain, its clouds stained brooding black. Zenith, the fallen home of countless Godkings.

He stood now, mid-air, gazing upon its heart. The peak of the Tree of Eternity loomed. Its boughs, so vast each of them could support its own little realm, burned before his eyes with fires drawn from the cruelest depths of the Nine Hells. But the tree itself still stood, mighty as ever.

It would not fall. Not without a final touch.

His hand closed around the hilt of a sword.

Then, at last, the man he was waiting for arrived.

The realm tore open before him, jagged and screeching. It looked like the opening of a great black eye with no pupil. Then a pupil emerged. A simple man stood there, motionless at the center of the tear. He stepped out. The world sealed up behind him.

The man was plain, dressed in plain clothes. And yet there was no mistaking him. His gaze was utterly flat. It was a gaze a dragon might wear as it gazed down upon some feckless human knight.

He went by many names. The Sentinel at the Edge of the Multiverse. He Who Plucks the Stars from the Sky. And yet perhaps the most awe-inspiring of them all was his name itself. It startled the hearts of gods and mortals alike. It had come to mean the infinite, the absolute, the ultimate, the end. It meant the one above all.

“Greetings, great Houyi,” said Jez with a soft smile. “It is an honor to meet you at last. Shall we begin?”

NINETY-FIVE

THE END (I)

Dorian sat cross-legged at the edge of the blackened sinkhole. His eyes were shut. His breaths were steady. A cocktail of elixirs roiled within him, healing elixirs, qi elixirs, recovery elixirs—all to prime his body for a drawn-out battle. He sat there, digesting, waiting.

And then the horn sounded. A crass, grating groan on the air.

His eyes snapped open. His lips curved to a hard grin. At last.

The Javelin burst into being in a flash of smoke and Darkness, rearing above him like a hungry serpent, sunlight glinting off its cruel point. He stepped into its shadow and was gone.

An instant later he re-emerged atop a parapet on the Oasis Walls. Ignoring squawks from the Sticks-wielding soldiers about him, he looked due west.

It seemed, at first glance, as though the horizon were pulling inward: in the distance an endless wall of dark smoke raced toward the Oasis. But Dorian’s serpent-eyes pierced the veil. Beyond the smoke were frothing hordes of sandwolves. Behind them were hundreds of Earth-Realm Shamans riding Earth-Realm wyrms, spurring these pests to action. Beyond them, huge footsteps of some massive, unseen beasts shuddered the sands, echoing across the plains.

A few well-placed techniques of his could wipe out half their fleet, Dorian surmised—at the cost of a big chunk of his qi. But he’d have to leave that to the Oasis’ own soldiers.. He couldn’t afford distractions.

For far above these ground troops, riding the top of the storm, were the true threats. Through the smoke he made out the wings of dragons—some webbed, some scaled, all the size of a small mountain, all brimming with Sky-Realm qi. All wielding Laws that would threaten even him. There must’ve been thirty-odd dragons in total, and each, he sensed, was the equal of one of those Hellish apes which had nearly ended him in the Volcano. On their backs rode Sky-Realm Shamans with their own host of Laws and techniques. These were the true elites of the Ugoc.

And they, too, were but mere distractions when set against the avatar which lay in wait…

Is this the plan, then? First wear me down with your lackeys, then swoop in to finish the job?

To either side of him Yama’s Chains flickered into existence. Swallowing up the shadows cast by the Oasis Walls, they stretched as far as the eye could see to either side of him, smoking with dark qi. Darkness Laws bound them down their length like deathly brambles.

Within him the Dark Star ran hot. The Fire Planet about it simmered, eager. His eyes flashed. A cute plan. But I suspect what’s about to happen will come as a bit of a shock.

* * *

Zenith Realm

“You knew I was coming,” said Houyi flatly. His peasant’s robes fluttered softly in the ashen breeze. Behind him loomed the Tree of Eternity. It managed an aura of grandeur even as it burned.

“Yes,” said Jez. “I admit I’ve planned for the possibility.”

“As have I.” A cold proud smirk graced HouyI’s face. “I have watched you, young Jez. Ever since your first incursion upon the Middle Realms I have traced your progress. Your methods intrigue me. They are quite remarkable. You ought to be commended.”

Jez smiled. “Why, what a kind thing to say! I’m honored.” He shrugged. “In truth it’s not so special. There is one core problem plaguing this world: it is needlessly cutthroat. To grow bigger we must eat one another, slay one another, kill, steal, rape—how awful!” he sighed. “My powers are built on a simple philosophy. To radically oppose such a worldview. My powers are founded on connection. On love! On collaboration, not competition, you see.”

“I do.” Houyi cocked his head. “And this has vaulted you from the Earth to the Heavens in but a step.”

“The premise is quite elegant,” said Jez. He held out a hand. Atop it hovered one gold sphere of qi. “I am the first, the prime. Even if I recruit but two friends to the cause…” Two new spheres materialized above the first, tied to it by thin strings of qi. “And they recruit but two more…”

Four new spheres were fixed atop the two with four new lines, like a family tree. Jez’s smile grew wider. “The growth, you see, is exponential. We stand stronger together.”

He paused. His smile grew wan, a smidge melancholic. “And this is why I have already won, great Houyi.”

“Oh?” HouyI’s face was nothing like the impassive monolith it had been mere hours before. Now, it was lit up with emotion. He snorted, eyes flashing. His lips were a mocking slant. “Have you, now?”

“Within me,” said Jez softly, “Lies the powers of one hundred thousand cultivators of the Lower Realms. Within me lies the powers of six thousand gods. Dozens of Godkings among them. Together we make The Infinity.”

He let his words sit heavy in the air. If they fazed Houyi at all it didn’t show on the Godkings face. “No one, not even one as great as you, can stand before our combined powers.”

Still Houyi was silent.

“And so, I come to you with an offer. An offer I have made to dozens of Godkings before. An offer I humbly extend, now, to you.” Jez held out a hand. “Join me! We both seek to bring about a more just Multiverse. Our ends are the same, are they not? Join me, and it shall be done.”

His eyes glistened.

There stretched a long and terrible silence.

“Convince me, then,” said Houyi at last. “What of those black-hearted knaves who join you for power, and power only? You have welcomed more than a few into your fold. Is this just?”

“A fair concern. But those who come to the Infinity with black hearts shall not stay that way. That is its beauty. It is not like a religion. It is so much more!” Jez’s voice trembled with reverence. “To join the Infinity is to give of yourself fully to it. To make your qi our qi. To make your Laws ours. Not even your identity is exempt.”

He let out a happy breath. “To join the Infinity is to be reborn. It is to renounce the old ways, and to accept a new way of loving-kindness. They shall be as new limbs added to the main body. In time their black hearts shall be recast in gold.”

Houyi regarded him. “You truly believe this?” He sounded amused. “You think you can change the hearts of men. You think you can change the order of the Multiverse.”

“Of course! Most every creature can be made to love. But for those rare few who cannot…they shall be excised, as tumors, for the health of the whole.” Jez sighed once more. “A sad necessity. But you, of all creatures, ought to understand.”

“I excise those creatures who pose an existential threat to the Multiverse,” said Houyi. His eyes narrowed. “I am a gardener, removing weeds so that the rest of the flora may flourish. You are an arson. You preserve the few you approve of. You mean to set fire to the rest. This I can no longer tolerate.”

There was a hard edge to his voice. The only sound was the crackling of Hellfire rippling down the boughs of the Tree of Eternity.

“We both pursue a more just world,” continued Houyi. “But there must always be a balance between the ends and the methods we use to achieve tem. One injustice cannot dignify another.”

The air between them stilled, unnatural. “You intend to chop down the Tree of Eternity. That which upholds this plane.”

“Yes.”

“It would mean the end of Zenith,” said Houyi. “All of the Godkings here—severed from the rest of the Multiverse. Shunted to a place outside all Law, outside even Time and Space. Unreachable. Irretrievable. You would, in effect, be killing them. You would collapse an entire Upper Plane.”

Jez shrugged. “I don’t deny it.”

“Then I, Houyi, say you have lost all sense of balance.”

A bow appeared in one of HouyI’s hands, an arrow in the other. “And for that I shall render judgment.”

Slowly Jez shook his head, resigned. “I suspected as much.”

Houyi notched the arrow on the string, calmly, almost leisurely. His form was perfect, the placement pristine. He could’ve been readying a shot at a sitting duck—not one of the most powerful beings in the Multiverse. Still Jez made no move to dodge. Nor did he lift a finger to disrupt Houyi. They both knew it would’ve been useless.

Instead—”Why act now?” said Jez sadly. “Why is the life of a Godking of Zenith worth so much more than the thousands he has murdered to arrive here?”

He meant the question rhetorically. He was surprised Houyi answered.

“You think I act to preserve the plants,” said Houyi. The bow rose, arrow notched, until Jez was squarely in its sight. “I act to protect the garden.”

“Then we shall never come to a resolution.” Jez turned his gaze upward, forlorn. “I mean to upend the order of the Multiverse. You seek to preserve it. And now you aim to kill me for it.”

The drawing of the bow was HouyI’s only answer. Eerie how ordinary it all was, how deceptively simple! Like an innocent little brook a child might splash into, only to find it hid a thousand-li trench rife with seething currents.

Jez sighed, spreading his arms wide. “There is no use dodging, is there?” he said. “They say Houyi never misses. They say you peer deep into the past and future. They say you take into account the position of every particle for a thousand li—that you run ten thousand simulations of the shot, and only when each one strikes true does the arrow leave your fingertips!”

“They underestimate me,” said Houyi. His grin was wicked, fiery. In that instant he seemed almost indignant. “I am far more thorough than that.”

The bow was aimed, pulled, ready. “This arrow contains three-quarters of my being. Law and qi all placed in one vessel.”

He licked his lips. “I shall honor you with the most powerful arrow I have ever unleashed.”

Still Jez made no move to defend. He simply blinked. “You truly believe you can kill me? I, who holds within me the power of a thousand deities?”

Silence.

Then—

“You are young,” said Houyi. “And so I shall forgive your ignorance.”

The arrow trembled, and for an instant the whole of the Realm seemed to collapse to that spot, the point where it hung taut on the string. The air around it turned to mush, liquified, swirled around it like frothing waters around a whirlpool. The power leaking from that infinitesimal point exerted so much pressure that the very fabric of existence could not bear it. Form forgot itself. Atoms scattered to the void. Jez’s eyes widened.

It made sense. The careful gardener didn’t need to snip the weed by its stem. He pulled it up by its roots. This arrow didn’t seek to kill him. No being in the Multiverse had enough qi for that. Instead it would simply write him out of existence.

“Ah! I see,” he said. He stared at the arrowhead with a mix of awe and wonder, the way a child might stare at a sunset. “How utterly beautiful.”

Then the arrow left the string like the expression of an immutable law.

NINETY-SIX

THE END (II)

Horns blew. All along the walls soldiers readied their Sticks, qi techniques boiling feverishly at their tips. Thousands of eyes watched the line of beasts draw closer.

Then the sands at the forefront erupted.

A new horrible species reared up from the sands. Like wyrms blown up to ten times their natural size, eyeless, toothless, screeching murder, streaming waves of sand. Their foreheads were shiny dark plates like massive beetleshells grafted onto the skin. Battering rams.

General Bin roared a command, the Sticks discharged, the world was rocked with qi and noise and screeches.

Chaos erupted. The battle began in earnest.

Dorian turned his eyes from the ground. He’d need to trust the Oasis defenses to hold. The sky demanded his attention.

Keeping pace with the ground fleet were the vanguard of the Sky-Realm dragons: two ugly lumps of gray skin and grayer wings. Steel rimmed their wings, flecked their tails, tipped their massive snout. Wielders of the Earthen Laws?

They proved him right an instant later. Their mouths opened, and a muddy avalanche descended upon the world. Horribly heavy, bloated with Laws which granted it an unnatural weight. If this mass struck the Oasis Walls it’d flatten like it was made of straw.

Void Shield!

A glut of shadow coursed up to meet the blast, fanning out until the darkness blotted out the light of the waning sun. It swallowed the avalanche soundlessly, easily. For a moment the rock-dragons looked as baffled as their craggy faces allowed.

Then the shadow winked out. Along with the attack.

And in a strike Dorian knew everything.

These things were not the Dweller. Their command of Law was nowhere near a god’s. The dozens of them together might hope to trouble him—but two?

He drew his hands together, and his Yama’s Chains whipped across the air. The dragons hardly had time to move before they were struck like flies by a swatter.

It was comical seeing things so big be flung aside so fast. Two geysers of sand cratered in the distance, then more as the huge bodies skidded across the dunes. Dorian blinked at his own Chains. Slowly he grinned.

It’s as I suspected, then! We are not of the same level.

As Realms went, Star eclipsed Sky. It was an old cliche to frame the paths of cultivation as different paths up the same mountain. While the basic idea was fair, in truth this was an oversimplification. Really the paths of cultivation were different routes up a mountain range. Some routes led to higher peaks. Already the difference was clear. Dorian breathed higher air than these creatures of the conventional Sky Realm.

The next wave struck at once. A scattering of dragons, some sleek, others ugly, all unleashing blasts of Law-wreathed magics. Dorian found himself the center of an all-sides assault. Sleet, fire, lightning, stone screeched at him.

Another finicky constraint: there was no dodging. Dodging meant letting the dragons blast the Oasis. Dodging meant violating his contract to protect. He’d have to swallow these head-on.

Which meant he was about to get a lot of run out of his Void Shield!

A dozen-odd shining pillars of Law gouged trails in the air as they descended upon Dorian. A dozen-odd shining pillars sank into the swirling whirl of shadow before him.

And vanished, like that, like stones dropping into a pond—but without even the sound to mark their vanishing. It was as though they’d passed into another world. Gone. Dorian bared his teeth at them, and he saw in their slitted eyes naked disbelief.

[Level-up!]

[Void Shield] Lv. 1 -> 2

Wonderful. Then he reached for qi for a counterattack, felt the depths of his reserves, and paused.

That little stunt had blanked out thirty percent of his qi. He didn’t let his sudden antsiness onto his face. He was meant to save a goodly chunk of it to blast Jez’s avatar with! No more eating attacks head-on. No more probing, screwing around. This had to end fast.

There was only one course of action here. Javelin snaking high above, Chains curling at his sides, he took one massive leap. Right for the dragons’ midst.

The strategy was simple. No projectile strikes—used too much qi. No Void shield blocking. Same reason. So, rather than stand here, where he was forced to block and strike back, he’d wade into the fray with his Javelin and Chains headfirst. He’d have at them in close combat. No time for anyone to charge any big beams. No time for long-winded feats of Law. This would be grimy and dirty and brutal: his raw powers versus their huge numbers. It was like charging into a thornbush with an axe. It would be bloody and awful. A horrid mess.

Just the type of fight I like.

Dorian smirked. He liked to play around with his fighting styles, sure. But at his core he was exactly what his older brother, Houyi, was not. In his basest mode he was the antithesis of order. Soon these beasts would know the true meaning of chaos.

The dragons greeted his charge with unhinged jaws overgrown with dagger teeth, raising talons like scythes. Then the violence began.

* * *

Zenith Plane.

The arrow moved through space. Jez and Houyi both saw it pass smoothly, with shocking slowness, through the air. Yet Jez knew dodging was impossible. If he tried he’d find himself quite stuck. A relaxed smile graced his face. He let his arms droop at his sides. This was a sort of illusion. It wasn’t that the arrow was slow. It was neither fast nor slow—it moved at just the right pace. It only seemed slow because it skewed reality around it. The eyes of the Multiverse itself were trained on its passing. The whole realm seemed to collapse to its form as it crossed halfway between them. Three-quarters. Then at last mere hairs’ breadths from Jez’s beating heart.

Jez closed his eyes. He put gratefulness in his mind. He let love soak his being. Love to the Universe. To his followers. To himself. And most of all to the man who was about to make love the final emotion he felt.

The arrow tapped gently on his chest.

The world in which he existed tore apart. A grotesque sphere blotted out the place where he stood, reality fraying at its edges. The sphere crumpled inward like a piece of parchment crumpled up. Crinkling into nonbeing. In the tiniest fraction of an instant it was gone, leaving nought but a jagged hole behind. Something was made nothing.

And that was that. One of the most powerful beings in the Multiverse carved away. The arrow didn’t slow. That small act seemed to have barely exhausted its energies. It flew into the void and was gone. The realm sealed up after it. Nothing but a shimmering line of light marked the spot, a scar in the fabric of the Multiverse which would never heal. Some wounds ran too deep. But it was necessary, and it was done.

Houyi let out a breath. He closed his eyes. Three-quarters of his qi gone in a flash. Utterly necessary, in the end…

At the Edge of the Multiverse, with his long eye peering across its breadth, he had scouted Jez these last few centuries. He had mapped the world around the boy. He had charted the past and the distant future. He had played out countless scenarios, had let a thousand variables dance across the surface of his mind. The cognitive load had nearly overwhelmed him. But it was done. Of all the futures he’d forseen—and he’d seen far past this moment—this was among the most bleak. He had hoped not to intervene in person. Alas.

The bulk of the work of the hunt happened before he so much as touched his bow. The act itself, the arrow leaving the string, was but a formality.

Sighing, he made to leave.

And froze.

* * *

His head swiveled slowly to look at that shimmering white scar.

A tinge of gold glimmered at the tip. Then it spread downward until the whole line bore a signature color with which he was all too familiar. He had seen it so often these last few millennia that there was no mistaking it.

His suspicions were confirmed but a moment later.

The scar tore back open. A being stepped out.

It was not the same body. That much was instantly obvious. Leathery wings extended from the fold. A body thrice as big as a man’s, red-and-black, furred legs like a goat’s and sleek, head like a dragon’s. A demon—but not any mere demon. Houyi knew it on sight.

“Yama,” he breathed. He had gone very still. “The Demon-King of Hell.”

But something was not quite right, and it took him a second glance to place what it was. This thing was not alive. Its body was held together by seams of goldlight: where the joints connected, patching up tears down its legs and chest, sewing on a broken horn.

That was not right either. The body was not alive. The soul within it was. He saw it in the eyes. They glowed with gold light. The creature opened its mouth.

And Houyi knew who spoke before he so much as heard the words.

“I must thank you, great Houyi,” said Jez. His voice was of three pitches, one screeching, one low and hoarse, another level and even. Blended together they were agony on the ears. “To bear witness to your arrow is an honor few receive. I shall cherish it for-ever.”

Then, the beast leaked. It quivered as though struggling to contain its energies. It steamed., trickles of gold spread up from it, and Houyi felt from them a potency which dwarfed even the mightiest of Godkings. It was power no one creature should have been able to hold. Like a man grasping hold of the sun. And yet—

“How?” said Houyi softly. He would not lower himself to croak. In that instant he kept his emotions on as tight a leash as they were when he’d had them split from him. He stared at the beast. Now, more than ever, reason had to reign. He took everything in. Reason. Only reason would save him here—would save the Multiverse here. He had to—

“I must admit I obfuscated a corner of the truth, earlier. I must apologize. I am not in the habit of doing so. But it was necessary, to force you to exhaust your energies on a pointless task. To corner you here, on this plane, at your weakest.”

Jez cocked his head. “Truthfully I have transcended being. I am unique in more ways than you know. The creature you know as Jez is not a singular being. I am the Infinity. You may think of me as a parasite, if you wish. I consider myself the host.”

He smiled. “So long as I exist in any-one, across the Multiverse, I cannot truly die. I am eternal. I am infinite. And that is why you were fated to lose from the start. That is why I am fated to become the Multiverse.”

Houyi was silent. Jez sighed.

“You have shown me your greatest strike,” he said softly. “For that I am most grateful. Please—let me repay you in kind.”

The air was very still.

Jez’s finger touched the air, drawing a line. Where his finger passed a weapon was unsheathed, like he’d drawn it from nothing at all: a blade whiter than white, older than time, incandescent in the light of the dusk.

NINETY-SEVEN

THE END (III)

There were times, in battle, for thinking. For strategy. For sussing out the strikes of one’s enemies and planning counters. This was the sort of fighting generals taught, the sort of fighting found in textbooks: clean, direct, predictable.

Then there was whatever the hells Dorian found himself in now.

No time for thought. No space to execute. He let the thinking part of his brain go silent.

Pure instinct enervated his limbs, and he acted. The Javelin soared, his Chains rippled to and fro, and he was lost in a storm of shadow and teeth. Slap down an earthen dragon. Deflect the tail of another. Leap into shadow, re-appear behind the fleet, ram the Javelin into the small of a frostdragon’s back. Relish its splintered howl. Vanish again into shadow as smoldering claws rent the air. Weave across a cobweb of qi beams. Cut, stab, crush—

A spear of pain down his left side. A claw, raking him up the back and gouging out its pound of flesh. A week ago that claw would’ve driven straight to his heart. He whirled, found the offender—tiny black spiky dead-eyed thing, a Sky Realm dragon with a mouthful of Death Laws, Laws which lingered in his wounds—he fed the beast his Javelin. His blow struck true, piercing the chinks of its neck. Down it went, speared through, batlike wings spasming uselessly. Dorian laughed.

He rent and broke and strangled and danced. He was cut, sliced, pounded by the clubbed ends of massive tails, had his jaw broken and re-aligned and broken again. He left it hanging there. He was unhinged. The world had become a confusion of torrid feeling. He let himself burn up with it.

And one by one his enemies fell before him, great bodies sundered from the skies, crashing into their own armies. The air was choked with dust and screams, lit up with blasts of qi, torn up with expressions of Law.

But slowly, at its higher strata, it began to clear.

Three dozen became two became one. The neat thing was that the start was the roughest. From there Dorian’s work only got easier. He could see, through blood-filmed eyes, that he’d put the fear in the rest of them. Six left. Three shamans coaxing their dragons around, three more on their own, all sporting a crushed limb or poked-out eye. They circled round him. They made to pincer. Their hearts weren’t in it.

He laughed again, blood spurting from his open lips, and descended upon them again.

So he finished off the rest of the appetizer. Head cooling, breaths heavy, blood slowing, he took inventory.

Limbs—mostly intact. Cuts—too numerous to count. Ribcage crushed. Most of teeth missing. Shadow-leaps had eaten up another chunk of his qi. So had sustaining his Chains.

There was one left, one he’d left alive, the runt of the bunch. An thunder-dragon scarcely into Sky. The Shaman on its back looked nearly juvenile.

Dorian looked him in the eye, saw the youth flinch. “Tell Jez that we both know who really decides the winner of this war,” he said. “Send more men and I’ll decimate them in turn! Is this his so-called love? Is this compassion? Tell him to stand behind his ideals and come himself. Let’s end this bloodshed for good.”

The young shaman nodded quickly, spun his dragon about, and raced off.

Dorian breathed out.

Eh! Probably a useless gesture. Probably Jez would keep throwing lackeys at Dorian until he’d whittled him down totally, then finish Dorian off. It was the smart thing to do. He shrugged. Whatever the case, his body was scarcely holding itself together at the seams. His reserves were hardly inspiring either! He squinted—no new wave of Sky Beasts on the horizon? Good. Perhaps he’d have a little breathing room to recover some—

A din of screams below, an eruption of golden light. Frowning, he glanced down. His eyes widened.

Wait. Is that…?

Kaya was there, cackling madly, streaming all over with gold. So much gold she could’ve been a statue cast in it. Every time her fists connected it was like a cannon’s blast. Azcan warriors were sent flying like dolls. There were no Laws, but the force was comparable to a Sky-Realm technique.

And she was inflicting it on Azcan warriors.

* * *

Dorian blinked. He swooped downward, treading on air. “Kaya?” He shouted. “Sis! What in the Nine Hells are you—”

She didn’t hear. She seemed as he had been, in fact—she was utterly lost, in some other dimension. She only had the mind for violence. Her eyes were so gold he could hardly see her irises.

Except this shouldn’t have been possible. He was quite certain her brand was atypical. It was a Blessing! It should’ve granted Jez no control over her.

Then why…?

…Ah.

It wasn’t that Jez was controlling her. She’d ceded control utterly. She’d given herself over to the madness. In a way it was similar to what he’d done in battle, but she was so knee-deep in it she couldn’t pull herself out of it. Or maybe she didn’t even wish to. Looking at her now Dorian saw euphoria written plainly on her face. She had in this moment achieved what all living things needed—happiness. Somehow this violence made her whole. How could she quit it?

Dorian sighed. While it was cute, in a way, her discovering her meaning in life and so forth was proving quite the inconvenience to the Azcan forces. Already his soul contract was starting to sizzle in his mind. A warning. all right, all right!

He dropped down, landing before her in a plume of dust and sands. She blinked up at him, stunned. There was recognition in her eyes. The sight almost seemed to shock her out of her berserker frenzy. So, not all gone, then.

It was good news! There’d be something to recover, hopefully, once this whole thing blew over. For now, he could hardly waste more time on this. He punched her in the face faster than she could react.

A little too hard—he heard a bone crunch sickeningly under his fist, winced—oops? She dropped. Casually scooping her up, he vanished into a pool of shadow.

He re-emerged at the lip of the sinkhole and unloaded her. Then he took a moment to think, staring down at the smoldering ruins.

There’s just too much to recover. Too little time. He groaned. Even going close combat, forgoing the use of qi techniques, he still had too little for comfort. Given the sheer amount of qi he needed to recover even top-grade Elixirs—which were meant for Earth-Realm Azcan fighters—would take hours to fully heal him.

And Jez might arrive within minutes. No. …Fine! He gritted his teeth. He’d been hoping he wouldn’t have to, but…I’ll do it. He tapped his Interspatial Ring and pulled out his last remaining vial of Devil’s Promise. He measured out the necessary amount, then downed it in a gulp.

[Bloodline Density]

[100% -> 98%]

He could feel his heart throbbing as he watched the number go down. …Or maybe that was from the blood loss? Regardless, this time there was no bloodline Essence influx to replenish the burned bloodline essence. Each percentage drop meant his qi got that much less powerful.

But—

A good tenth of his qi rushed back into him, like that.

[Bloodline Density]

[98% -> 96%]

Another tenth. Now, he was up to 80%.

[Bloodline Density]

[96% -> 94%]

90%…He frowned. Given the amount of Devil’s Promise left in his system he was going to overshoot, it seemed, by about 10%. What to do with it? He supposed he could try to use it to increase his Star’s capacity. But it’d only yield a marginal increase in usable qi. Most of the qi would be expended in the enlarging.

Then a really dumb idea came to him like a hammer blow to the head.

An idea so dumb it simply had to be done.

He nodded, grinning. If he had to bet in the battle ahead he’d put his money on Jez. He was not at all certain of his prospects—plus, who knew what other hordes the god had in reserves? He had to complicate things. Make this not a straightforward head-to-head.

And one way to do it was to add in a third player. A chaos agent. Something to wreak havoc, make openings, and maybe—just maybe—make things messy enough for Dorian to capitalize.

The only issue was, to bring this third player in Dorian would have to spur it to action! Which meant antagonizing it. Which also meant this could easily turn on him. This could easily end up in a very sad two-on-one.

Eh. What’s another risk? He’d taken so many this run he could scarcely believe he still lived! He’d been twice as cautious in prior runs and died far earlier. It was almost as though there was some quirk of Fate this time.

Shrugging, he dropped into the darkness of the sinkhole. The wind screeched by him. A smell like brimstone enveloped him. Sulphur stung at his eyes. Seconds later, he dropped to the ground.

[Bloodline Density]

[94% -> 92%]

He was up to full power now! And there was still qi coming in. It’d come for another 10% or so. Time to make good use of it.

He stepped into shadow, stretched his Nightwalking as far as it could possibly, go, and leaped.

He emerged in a tunnel filled with brimstone and sulphur. The walls were all glowing molten rock. In other words, almost exactly like the place he’d just left. It was tough to tell how far he’d gone—probably pretty far? That had been one Hell of a leap.

Then he made another. Exited at a similar-seeming spot. Hotter here, though—closer to magma? A good sign.

Another leap. Rocks glowing brighter, veined yellow rather than red. Hotter still.

Four more leaps.

And then at last, just as he was starting to think he’d overestimated the range of his upgraded Nightwalker, he stepped out of shadow and came face-to-face with the Dweller in the Deep. Literally. He stood not ten strides from its massive head. That sleek arrowhead face was as ugly as he recalled! Its shocking yellow eyes went wide. Its nostrils flared in surprise, sparks swirling mid-air. Dorian noted this was not the space he’d found it in initially. This seemed to be the heart of the volcano. Islands of molten rock floated amid a boiling lake of lava. The Dweller stood on one such island, staring at him in surprise. Above was the mouth of the volcano, leading to open air.

Dorian had, what, 4% qi overrun left? Not counting the qi it’d take to jump back?

He opened his mouth.

A [Galactic Inferno] poured out and slapped the baffled beast in the face.

Dorian was gone before he could witness the aftermath. Laughing—he made sure the beast could hear him—he dashed upward, Cloud-Treading, and was out the volcano in a blink. Behind him came a roar blistering with fury. And then a crashing, thundering sound as the beast gave chase.

Excellent!

With his new Nightwalking abilities even dim light could serve as an entrypoint. And under cloud cover, studded with shadowed rocks, the side of the volcano had plenty of shadow to work with. But he hesitated, waiting. He felt a furious glut of bloodline rising from the bowels of the volcano. In seconds it had breached the open air, body rising like a giant column of swirling smoke. There was an earth-shattering bellow. A challenge. They locked eyes. He gave it a shit-faced grin.

He stepped into shadow and was gone before the inferno of Fire Laws could scorch him.

He re-emerged far along the underground tunnel. It really was a convenient road for him—drenched in shadow, linear, an easy route straight home. He heard another roar, softer now that there were so many layers of stone between them. But this one sounded even angrier. Excellent!

And then it moved closer. And closer. Flying toward him, tracking him via his bloodline.

He grinned.

So it was pursuing. Over land—even better! Before it encountered him it’d first meet the back of Jez’s army. Some delightful chaos ought to follow.

Preparations were made. This contingency was set into motion. He was hale as he could reasonably be, with a full stock of qi to boot.

He could only hope that Jez really would choose the silly option—that he would forgo throwing his minions at Dorian. That he would answer Dorian’s challenge. No other military leader would, of course. It was bad strategy. But something about the man made Dorian think he truly did hold to some childish idea of honor, and virtue, and love. That if he could end this war early, he would.

Ten heartbeats and a handful of shadow leaps later, Dorian was back at the sinkhole. Two quick leaps took him to the top of the Oasis walls, where he could sight the battlefield.

Against the sunset, wreathed in a corona of gold, was a familiar figure. Stridingleisurely across the air toward the Oasis. Toward Dorian. Thousands of strides apart, they locked eyes. Jez’s eyes were pools of molten gold. He smiled at Dorian with a warmth so genuine he nearly believed it.

…Well, shit! What do you know? Dorian smirked. Let’s do this.

NINETY-EIGHT

THE END (V)

How annoying.

If he threw out another technique he risked getting it ripped from him, turned on him.

If he tried close combat—frankly he didn’t fancy his chances against that sword in close quarters.

So what’ll it be? [Galactic Inferno]? He scratched his chin.

Now didn’t seem like the right time to unleash his trump card. Not when his enemy was stood there, a safe distance away, and inviting him to strike.

No. He ought to unleash upon Jez in a moment of weakness, up-close, for maximal effect.

He chewed on the problem, frowning.

Meanwhile Jez cocked his head. Below, hordes of his beasts poured through the Azcan walls like floodwaters through a broken dam.

“I eagerly await! You do not have the luxury of waiting, I’m afraid…” Jez said.

Don’t I? Dorian squinted at the horizon. But alas! No sign of the creature he hoped to see. …Fine. I’ll go it alone.

He turned his gaze to Jez once more, and started to plan.

The god seemed oddly content to let him do it, like he was observing a curious specimen in a laboratory. There wasn’t a hint of hatred in his gaze—the sort Dorian might expect when confronting his family’s murderer. It was all slightly unnerving. Usually Dorian was the one doing the unnerving.

A model of the battlefield materialized in Dorian’s mind. An idea branched out, cohering, playing out into a grand strategy. He saw it all laid out step-by-step—a web of techniques, counters, counter-counters…

Yes, yes—this will do. This will do quite nicely!

His eyes flashed. If he can keep a straight face after this I’ll eat my own core.

They stared each other down, neither moving. Dorian feigned calm. Jez looked calm. Yet an incredible tension hung between them. There was a gravity to this moment, like the feeling a man has as he stares into an endless abyss—the feeling before he leaps. It verged on unbearable.

Then Dorian broke it. He struck.

He raised his hand, and the world grew black. Darkness Laws sullied the air like a shale of oil spilling into water.

[Darken the Sky!]

Shadows swam up from the sands. Shadow streamed down from the clouds. Jez blinked, watching them coalesce around him, a cage formed of the Laws of Darkness—not so close that he could touch them. Not so close that he could slice them, and make them his own. But they fenced him in in a loose sphere.

The arrogance of this Jez—letting him set up on the battlefield, for free! Not raising a finger to prep! Why, I’m nearly insulted! In a duel it used to be that no one, not even the Saints, could afford to take me lightly. Have I been away so long the world has forgotten who I am?

Time for a reminder.

He whirled into shadow and vanished—

—and came out right above Jez, spraying a tongue of flame at him. Jez glanced up, brow furrowing, sword hand reaching up to slice—

—and Dorian cut it off. Vanished it before Jez could strike it. A feint. In the same instant he dove into another hovering pool of shadow, and was gone—

—and came up under Jez, his Javelin spearing up at the man at lightning speed.

Jez glanced down. Up came his hand again, sword hand whipping down—

—but Dorian threw a Yama’s Chain into the shadow-pool beneath him in the same instant. It came out through the pool above Jez. Yama’s Chain smashing down, Javelin spearing up. A pincer.

Now, he saw Jez frowning in earnest. But the god had fast reactions. Dorian would give him that! The golden Chain, the one Jez stole from him, flew up to block his own. Jez’s sword flew down to block the Javelin.

And then both Dorian’s Chain and his Javelin retracted. Vanished to smoke.

they, too, were only decoys! Techniques to bide time. Time for more techniques.

Four Chains struck out from shadows all around Jez. There was no time to slice each of them Jez threw up both hands. Golden, veined shields like the chrysalis of a butterfly ensconced him neatly.

But the Chains never met them. They, too, vanished. For they were also feints. Jez laughed, delighted.

He was forced to cut himself off an instant later as nine tongues of Fire-Laws rushed at him from all sides.

Laws which also vanished as soon as he threw up another shield. Soft sparks of qi splattered against it, useless.

And then the attacks poured on in earnest. Streaming in from all sides, one after another, a rising storm of Fire and Darkness—

A storm of fakes. Jez looked faintly amused at it all.

Then Dorian threw in a real strike. A super-charged Yama’s Chain thick with Darkness Laws that didn’t vanish with the rest—that gored against side of Jez’s Chrysalis. The shield shattered. Jez whirled around, eyes widening. The sword flew up in a slash—

The Chain smoked away before he could touch it.

This was Dorian’s route of attack. Feints, misdirection, unbalancing. And they did draw out an effect from Jez—even if he still seemed strangely pleased as he reacted. The idea was simple! Feints were false attacks—attacks he merely pretended to commit to. So, they also cost him little in the way of qi.

But they served a critical purpose. They made the enemy feel like a leaf in a howling storm, and that made all the difference. They made it impossible to tell fake attacks from real—to even discern where and when the true strike would come!

And more than that, they forced the enemy to dull their own senses. To second-guess their own reactions.

It was clear it was working. As more and more illusions bore down upon him Jez was struggling to keep up. Normally this was where the panic would set in. But he was still smiling. Like this was all some grand game to him, and he was playing along. Dorian frowned.

“A wonderful display,” said Jez. “As frenzied as legend says! Yet you won’t defeat me with mere lights and shadows…”

He sounded amused. “Are you stalling, Dorian?”

Dorian snorted. Of course not. Well—mostly. There was, to Dorian’s great annoyance, still no Dweller on the horizon to spice things up—what the hells was taking that thing so long?—but no matter. At this point, he hardly needed the Beast! All this feinting was more than a light show. It was a setup.

Four Yama’s Chains rushed out, coiling around Jez, constricting fast. Jez blinked. Instantly his sword whipped out, carving a line of pure light. But Dorian let it carve into his qi, cleanly cleaving his Laws of Darkness. His Chains went limp, quickly felled, falling away. Jez looked surprised that Dorian had let it happen so easily. The Chains shivered, taking on shades of gold…

But of course those Chains were not the true attack. They were only very big, visible distractions.

The instant Jez committed to his slash, the Javelin pierced out at blistering speed from a shadow right behind his head, a spear laden with Darkness and Fire, howling with qi.

Jez whirled around. Then he saw he was a fraction of a heartbeat from being gored by the Javelin. He grimaced, serious for the first time this whole fight. His hands shot up, and from them poured a sheet of shining gold qi. A sheet which layered onto him like a second skin.

But, of course, this Javelin was not the true attack either.

The feints bought time for this blitz of Chains.

The Chains bought time for the Javelin.

And now the Javelin bought time for the strike Dorian had been charging this whole time.

If he’d thrown it outright it would’ve been obvious. Easily blocked, easily anticipated! Jez would’ve had all the time in the world to dodge.

But at the highest levels tiny margins made all the difference.

One by one the strikes flowed, granting him a little more momentum—a little more time. Time that added up slowly, surely…

Dorian smiled savagely. Gotcha!

He let loose, and so much qi left his body at once he nearly blacked out.

Jez was still throwing up his defense for the Javelin when the [Galactic Inferno] poured out from the shadows behind him with the force of a falling star.

Then things happened very quickly.

Jez felt it before he saw it. It must’ve been hard not to—like feeling the heat of the sun on his back. He knew instantly. Dorian saw his eyes go wide. The Javelin drilled into the shield furiously. A shower of gold light flew up. There was no time to cast another as the [Inferno] fell upon him. There was not even time to turn! In that moment Dorian saw Jez’s tiny body silhouetted black against the shining mass of qi behind him, a mass rarely ever seen wrought upon this Realm. The only bright spots were his eyes.

They locked on Dorian’s. They softened. He looked grateful.

Dorian was struck then by how calm his eyes seemed. This was not the look of a god about to lose his prime avatar in a Realm. This was the look of a man who’d had a grand time playing a fun game—and had lost like a gentleman. Graciously.

Then his eyes hardened.

It was the look of a man who had decided he was done playing by the rules of the game.

A horrible premonition came upon Dorian.

Then it was like the whole plane gasped. Time slowed to a crawl. But there were no Laws here. No. It was a dilation of space and time, caused by the influx of an amount of qi so huge it distorted the fabric of reality.

Then Jez burned. There was suddenly so much qi in him that his body could not hold it all. Then the image before Dorian switched colors. It was Jez who was the beacon in the dusk, his body shining so bright it was dissolving before Dorian’s very eyes—so bright it was blinding even for his enhanced eyes—so bright it made the Inferno behind him seem a dark backdrop in contrast.

At a speed no creature under Heaven should have been capable of Jez whirled around, raised his sword, and slashed.

NINETY-NINE

THE END (VI)

There was a slash like no other, a slash to end the world.

The world was reduced to two dimensions. Sound lost meaning. Dorian’s vision turned black-and-white. All else was static: static on his tongue, his skin, crackling across his skull.

Before his eyes, one piercing white line met the surging black-and-red of the Inferno.

The line drew up in one smooth stroke. Laws broke. Thick cords of qi were torn apart. The line reached the top and was done.

For an instant the Galactic Inferno hovered there, that great mass of fearsome qi, still struggling forward, as though unable to believe it had just been sliced in two.

Then, it fell apart.

A corona of scalding heat. A rush of shrieking air. One moment Dorian hovered mid-air. The next he was smashed headfirst into the sands, skidding across a dune, flipping on his head once, twice. All about an explosion of qi and Law sundered the world. He was thrust under a mound of sand with the force of a falling comet, and all went dark.

Seconds later, he popped out, dragging in breaths, groaning. His body felt as though it’d been scraped raw from the inside, then flayed for good measure. It was a minor miracle his limbs still bent the right way. Spitting out a mouthful he tried to get his bearings. He rubbed sand from his eyes, joints screeching in protest, and frowned. He rubbed some more.

It wasn’t his imagination. The surface of the sands glistened like the top of a frozen lake. That blast was so hot it had turned the sand to glass. To his side, the whole front face of the Azcan wall was knocked over. Its sides struggled in vain to stay upright. Nothing stirred—not a man, not a beast. Fresh skeletons, bones half-melted, were strewn about in heaps. Turgid clouds of stinking dark gas—the meaty parts of bodies sublimed in the blast—floated free into the skies.

Dazed, he gazed out at a land without dunes. A land made flat. A glassland.

At its center, not twenty paces from Dorian, was a stump of a man. No legs. One arm. Half his torso remained. His insides leaked slowly out of him. Jez’s smile was much less kindly now that he did it with no teeth.

He spoke. A garbled mess of syllables came out. He frowned, made a hand gesture. One moment.

And then gold flared at the stumps of his torso. Gold wreathed his sagging gums. Gold qi wrapped his arms, and where it touched fingers grew back, clear-skinned and whole. The start of a leg, bones and thighs and hamstrings and tendons formed before Dorian’s very eyes, lengthening visibly.

Dorian drew in another dragging breath. He gaped. By now Jez had regenerated a tongue and half his teeth.

“Well played,” said the god. This time his grin was monstrous. Genuine, but monstrous. “I hadn’t thought I’d need to resort to that.”

Dorian stared at him. One eye twitched.

“That,” he croaked, “was stupid.”

“If it is any consolation,” said Jez with an embarrassed smile. “Against any other god, you would have won.”

A faint buzzing sound filled Dorian’s ears. “No,” he said. “No, no, no. I refuse to accept this.”

Jez blinked. “Pardon?”

Dorian waved a trembling finger at him. “You undo that nonsense this instant!”

“Ah. I’m sorry,” the god said gently. “I know this must be quite the disappointment. I…”

He paused. His eyes turned up, unfocused, glimmering gold.

“Oh,” he said softly. He turned back to Dorian. “Please excuse me. I must finish up my business in the Upper Realms. And this task will require the sum total of my concentration. In the meantime, I shall have to bind you up. I hope that’s all right.”

Jez had fully healed now. Fully healed. From his body Dorian could sense the same qi aura he’d had as before the bout. It was as though he hadn’t been in a battle at all.

Dorian, meanwhile, was still at less than ten percent of his qi. His body felt like it’d been stung all over by a hive of wasps. He couldn’t resist in the slightest as Jez waved a hand, and a cord of gold thread wrapped his arms and legs and hands. Then drilled into the sands, piercing glass and diving farther, anchoring him to some bedrock layer.

“Don’t waste your time plying the shadow realm. These restraints anchor you in body and soul. You cannot escape them.” Jez shot him one last apologetic glance. “I shall return to finish this shortly. Please, bear with me?”

He sat in a meditative posture, closed his eyes, and was still.

Far above, a hot gale of humid wind blew gently.

* * *

What the FUCK.

Dorian started to giggle. Then, he laughed. Then, he started to choke, lungs burning up, hunching over.

Well, shit! He looked down at the ropes binding him, then at Jez. …What the hells was I supposed to do?!

Jez had that this whole time. He could draw upon an infinite pool of power—at will! Dorian shook his head, bemused. The only limit was his body’s ability to hold it. But what did that matter? Let his body burn up—he could always regenerate it instantly, too, apparently!

FUCK!

He kept giggling.

All he could do was throw up his hands. Not his real hands. Those were bound. He was exasperated, amused, nearly hysterical. He couldn’t even bring himself to be mad.

* * *

From the distance he could faintly hear the sounds of human wails. He heard far more roars of beasts. The fleet forms of dragons drifted over the far side of the Oasis, spraying fire and bursts of Law.

Probably they were so deep in the Oasis already that they’d been shielded from the blast. Good for them!

At least now his Soul Contract could hardly fault him. It specified he defend Azcan to the best of his ability. The best of his ability right now was nearly nothing. What was he supposed to do? Wiggle aggressively at those dragons?

Speaking of—the longer this went, the fewer sparks of qi flew up, the softer the human cries got. High above, a dragon roared its displeasure in the distance. It sent down a shower of Fire-Laws…

* * *

“Hold, you gormless fucks, hold!” Screamed Guild Head Thon. A web of blue qi shimmered in charged air, streaming from dozens of Sticks held aloft. They held up a translucent blue dome. Dozens of wide eyes watched as a line of shining red touched the tip of the dome. It was surprisingly gentle. There was a crack.

Crag frowned at the crack. Eudora Azcan gasped at it. Her father, missing an eye and an arm, fell to a knee, head bowed. Lin cried out, shivering as she braced behind a shield artifact. She knew it wouldn’t save her. She clung tight to it anyway, hoping despite it all, eyes squeezed shut. She couldn’t stop the tears.

Then, the dome blew open, and hellfire fell from the heavens.

* * *

There was a string of sharp bangs. Flashes of scalding light and voices, high and desperate, crying out. Dwindling. Then one last awful crash, and all was still.

* * *

And then…silence.

Dorian felt a bond within him break. His Soul Contract. His eyes widened.

Wait.

A Soul Contract could only be broken by one side: the contractor. His contractor was the people of the Oasis! All of them.

Which could mean only one thing. They’re all dead. The Oasis lord, Lin, princess Eudora, The Rat-King, Crag, Martial Elder Kal, Guild Leader Thon…

To his surprise he felt a tinge of regret. Just a tinge. A bittersweet realization followed.

If he was to defend Azcan to the best of his ability, and Azcan was gone, what was there to defend? The contract was voided. The contractors were gone.

I guess that’s one way to get out of it? He snorted, giggling more. Fail utterly!

He kept giggling, and giggling. Then the giggling tamped down. Then he was silent. And at last he arrived at the rather depressing conclusion that he was at last, finally, totally, utterly done.

Nothing he could conjure now could hold up to that dumb cheat. Next life, priority number one was to avoid Jez at all costs.

He sighed and waited for the end.

And then his eyes shot back open. He was struck by an awful piercing feeling, like a limb of his was being slowly sawed off by a blunt knife. But it was hardly physical. It was mental. In the realm of the Soul.

He sat bolt upright. His face went bone white.

What had Jez said? He had some business in the Upper Realms to finish?

Hadn’t Houyi gone to battle the man to stop him from cutting down the Tree of Eternity? The Tree which upheld the Zenith Realm itself?! And by extension the Unstuck Space?

The Space which held all his godly possessions—including his main body?!

He committed suicide. No hesitation., he went instantly. Triggered his soul to fly free. A buried spell of the Ninth Order, a spell of Godking origin, shone deep within him with Laws of Fate and Time and Life, Great Laws incomprehensible to his current form. Laws wielded by the highest gods. There was a flash of qi and emerald light. His eyes rolled back. His body slumped forth.

His soul streamed up from his body, seeking its origins the way a moth seeks flame—

CRACK.

In the space of his spirit there was a severing. He was overwhelmed by a pungent feeling, something like nostalgia. He felt like a very old man whose younger years receded quickly from memory, fading away, winking out, until nothing but empty space filled the gaps. No. NO.

The flame was snuffed out. His soul, floundering, snapped back to his tied-up body.

His eyes snapped open once more, wide and bloodshot, and he gasped. He found himself trembling.

The horrible implications hovered above him.

Two things must have happened. He would not have believed either one—not in ten millennia—had he not felt it in his very soul.

The first was that he could not feel any connection to himself. He was cut off from the Unstuck Space. The return spell was broken off.

Which could only mean one thing. Jez had gone through with it. Somehow that insane bastard had done it.

It meant one more thing, too.

His brother had fallen.

And, at last, his mind circled around to the grim conclusion slowly, shiftily, like a prisoner being marched to his hanging.

If I die here…now…

That’s it.

ONE HUNDRED

THE END (VII)

His smile slipped off his face.

Tied up in the middle of some shit Lower Realm? Put down like some common hound? This was how he’d go out?!

And Houyi, too—how in the Nine Hells had he let this happen?! The evidence was plainly laid out. Yet Dorian could still not get a firm grasp of it. It simply made no sense. His brother was like the rising sun! It didn’t simply stop.

The thought sank like a stone down his throat, stuck there. He swallowed. He felt it settle heavily in his chest. Could it?

He glared up at the skies. At the Upper Realm. How could you let yourself lose to this—this smarmy upstart?!

To his surprise, a sharp pang of some foreign feeling pierced his chest. A feeling he hadn’t felt in a very long time.

Fuck. You’d better not be dead, you bastard. I’d never forgive you.

Trussed up like a hog bound for slaughter, left stranded in the desert of glass—really it should’ve been comical! He found most dire situations at least a little silly. Yet right now he grasped for humor within him and found nothing. Something about the looming mortality of it really put a dampener on things.

He swallowed, grimacing. He looked down at himself.

Oh, to hells with this!

Even hogs had the self-respect to squirm until the knife came down.

He started to struggle. Buck, thrust up against the golden rope with all the might of his reforged body, gasping as he did. Each of his hands could crush a block of steel like an egg. His legs could dent the Oasis Walls on their own! And yet the rope held firm.

He cursed. Suddenly, he was in no mood for jokes. Sunlight winked down at him, mocking him. He bucked again. Nothing.

He cast about, desperate. No shadows nearby—all was flat. He squinted at the wrecked lumps of metal hundreds of paces away.

[Darken the Sky]!

Then, he dragged out a shadow, yanked it all the way beneath his feet, and tried stepping in. It admitted him.

For one blissful moment he thought Jez was wrong. He thought he was free! Then he looked down.

One gold rope anchored his ankle. It ran up his body, bound his soul. It yanked him like a leash.. He was thrown unceremoniously back into this Realm.

FUCK!

What else was there? Nothing in his Interspatial Ring would make any difference now. There was no Devil’s Promise. No more bloodline burning, no last cheap tricks. All he had was a piddling sliver of qi left in his body.. It was regenerating naturally, but it was still no more than ten percent.

He opened his mouth, drew it all up in one glut, and let it loose. [Galactic Inferno]!

A stream of Black and Red splattered against the thread binding his leg. Then it faded out, the thread still intact. It was less bright. That’d knocked it down a few degrees. He yanked on it again, and it felt firm as ever. He sighed. Whatever damage he’d done wasn’t nearly enough. He’d expected as much.

And now he was really out. There was barely enough qi in him left to manage a handful of shadow-jumps. Groaning, he let himself fall on his side, spent and bruised. His head throbbed awfully. His whole body throbbed awfully, come to think of it. Black spots started to riddle his vision, swimming at the corners of his eyes. There was one particularly long one in the middle, just peeking over the horizon. He squinted at it. It almost seemed like…

He blinked. The line came into sharp focus.

He started to laugh again. Hysterically, heaving side-to-side. There was nothing else to do, really.

The godsdamned Dweller!

He tried to make rude hand gestures at the beast. He only succeeded in flipping himself on his face. Spitting out sand, he squirmed back upright. Couldn’t you have come any earlier?! Heavens!

The timing was fantastic. He might as well have been served up on a platter for it!

He kept laughing, and laughing, and laughing.

And then he choked. And frowned. He glanced at the Dweller again, meandering closer, and saw spurts of Darkness and Fire qi streaming from its mouth.

He glanced at the cord at his legs. The slightly dimmer bit, the bit he’d damaged with his tiny Galactic Inferno, with his Darkness and Fire qi.

He glanced at the Dweller, Darkness and Fire streaming from its mouth. He glanced at the cord. His eyes went wide.

* * *

There is not a chance in the Nine Hells this is going to work.

The Fate of the Multiverse, it seemed, was about to rest on one thing.

Whether Dorian could outlast a cord.

How the hells am I going to do this?! The setup would have to be perfect.

First—the bare essentials he’d need for survival. His brain. His core. And maybe his heart? The lower half of his body was mostly optional. He’d live to grow them back. The setup came to him easily, a stroke of inspiration.

His penchant for dumb good plans might—might—just save him. It would take some luck, of course. He was beyond caring.

First, he drew a small pool of shadow behind him. If things went to play, he’d go in headfirst, like a diver entering a watering hole.

Then he waited, and waited, and waited, his tongue like a chunk of dried wood in his mouth. Seconds stretched out to tiny eternities. And then at last the Dweller was in range.

They locked eyes.

Dorian stuck out his tongue. Then he turned around and bent over, exposing his ass to the creature.

They didn’t speak the same language, but some gestures were universal.

Behind him came a roar. A very, very angry roar. All about him glass cracked, splintered, shattered. He winced. Whispering an apology to his poor behind, he braced himself. Here it comes!

This position served three crucial functions.

First, obviously, it enraged the creature! He meant to goad it into unleashing its most potent attacks. It could just chomp him up, of course, but he had a hunch…

The eruption of qi behind him would put some volcanoes to shame. Yes! Laws flared around it, infusing them, charging them, building to some superheated monstrosity of a blast. It felt for a moment like he was mooning the sun.

The second function was to protect his vital parts. Head and core. Present his lower half—which included the cord—to be struck by the technique first.

The third function was to get himself in position! His head was already a mere inch from the pool of shadow. His torso was angled to dive straight into it. He was but a flicker of will away from escaping.

In the second before the strike, two things happened in rapid succession.

Drawing on his reserves Dorian did a rough estimation of qi. He put all he could spare into a [Void Shield] covering only his legs and ass, leaving the cord exposed.

Then there was a flash of light to his left. A smiling Jez returned with the sort of self-satisfied face one wears when one is ready to unleash a long-winded monologue.

His gaze flickered to the dragon. His eyes widened. His gaze flickered to Dorian and the position he was in. They widened further. They locked eyes.

Dorian gave him the man his very best fuck-you wink. He tried to insert some menace into it. Some promise of vengeance, perhaps. But it was rather hard to look intimidating in his current position.

Then, he promptly took it up the ass.

Fire and Darkness descended upon him. The blast ran straight into his Void Shield, was halted for but a fraction of a second. Then it crumpled like old paper and engulfed flesh. Dorian screeched.

In the same instant it relieved him of his body parts below the shin.

But not the rope. The rope held tight for a fraction of a second longer—just long enough for the fire to take him up to the hips.

Then, mercifully, it gave.

Jez shouted something incomprehensible. He threw out a hand.. Strings of gold lashed out at Dorian. But it was too late.

Dorian’s head dipped into shadow. His torso followed easily, propelled by the blast.

His mind, his spirit, his legless body all craved oblivion then. But he couldn’t rest now even as the pain rose in a searing white tide, threatening to blank out all thought. He gritted his teeth. Just a few more…!

The first jump took him to the bottom of the sinkhole. And then he was gone, gone along that route he’d tread mere hours before, slingshotting himself through the Shadow Realm to freedom. His one way out. Tears stung his eyes. He would’ve whooped if he wasn’t about to pass out.

One jump. Two. Three. The rest streamed together. It was in a sort of half-conscious haze that he finally reached the mouth of the portal. Vision swimming, head pounding, he launched himself through that gap between Realms.

The last thing he remembered doing was driving his Law-tipped Javelin through the portal’s open mouth, severing the threads of qi that held it in place. Cutting off the doorway behind him as he went through.

He blacked out before his head hit the soil of Hell.

ONE HUNDRED ONE

EPILOGUE?

One plain arrow flew through the void, slow and heavy, like a battleship cruising inky seas. Its aim was true as it traced an arc through the Multiverse…

* * *

“Again.”

Dorian rushed at his brother, teeth bared, smiling wide as a jackal. The storm began. Feint jab. Feint jab. Cross to the body, pivot, jab-cross-head kick and a dip out, smooth as you like.

Houyi looked positively bored.

Block. Block. Dodge, dodge-dodge-block. Then, timed in perfect unison with Dorian’s dip, a vicious stomp to Dorian’s midsection. Wheezing, he was sent sprawling across the training field.

Dorian cursed, scrambling to his feet. Houyi looked on impassively. “Again.”

“How?!”

“You’re predictable.”

Dorian spat out a clump of weeds, then glared. “Oh, come off it! I had no pattern. I wasn’t even thinking as I moved! That was pure improvisation!”

“It’s sloppy.”

“I won the City Tournament with that ‘sloppiness,’” said Dorian loftily. “The martial elders said I’m a genius.”

Houyi arched a brow. “That says more about them than you.”

“Hmph. Why do I get the feeling you think every way of fighting that isn’t yours is sloppy?”

“Because it’s true,” said Houyi with a shrug.

“Prick.” Dorian snorted. “Tell me how you did it.”

“It’s simple.” There was that look again, that expression which on a less regal face might be a smirk. On his it was a sort of subtle smugness. Infuriating.

“There is no such thing as the new,” he said. “Innovation is an illusion. It is a recombination of old parts. There are only so many patterns of footwork, so many optimal paths to strike with the techniques at your disposal. You can play with timing, angles, and distance. But there are only so many moves.”

“And?” Dorian raised a brow. “Old Pangu had just one move—[Fist of the New World]. He used it over and over! Everyone knew it was coming. They still couldn’t stop it.”

“I won because I know not only your toolbox, but also how you will use it.” Houyi stared flatly at him. “I have in my mind a complete model of your mind. I know what you will do before you do it—I know what you will do before you know you will do it. Thus, the instant you set foot on a path, I am there to meet you at its end. When you decide to strike, I have already thrown the counter. I see the future and the past. In the end I always win.”

He crossed his arms. “This is what you ought to aim for. There is no future in chaos. Your style is childish. You should have discarded it long ago, little brother. So, I have said to you again, and again, and again.”

Dorian considered this for a long moment. At last—”Nah,” he said, smiling. “I’m just not good enough at it yet. I’ll catch you one day. You just watch!”

“You’ll never learn, will you?” Houyi shook his head, gave a long-suffering sigh. Then a slow, begrudging smile spread across his face. “Fine. Go on, then. Surprise me.”

* * *

Very few things in this Multiverse could put this expression on Jez’s face.

His mouth hung slightly open. His eyes bulged, twitching, threatening to fall off his face. He stared at the spot where Dorian had winked at him. At the patch of glass where a shadow had once been, then winked out. At the charred clump of gold qi-threads sticking to the ground, swaying gently in the lazy winds.

He kept blinking. Blinking and staring. “How—?”

Then, a shadow loomed over him. A grating screech blasted him, loud enough to splinter the glass he stood on. He turned to face this strange newcomer—this pet of Dorian’s he’d apparently summoned from thin air to free him.

A dragon. Sleek curves made its face.. Its spines jutted like a shelf of knives, masterfully crafted. A lovely beast, well-made.

Then, it opened its mouth and made to scorch him.

He sighed, raised his hand, drew a clean horizontal line. The scene stood still. Jez waited. Then gravity finally took its toll. The great neck, head and all, slid from the lower half of the body and thundered into the sands. The body still stood upright, balanced nicely on big deadened hindlegs. Well-made indeed.

Jez turned back to the empty spot, the spot Dorian had been.

“Heh. I see. Well done,” he whispered, eyes twinkling.

Slowly, to nobody in particular, he clapped.

* * *

Kaya woke and immediately wished she hadn’t. Her head pounded something awful. Her vision was littered with yawning black holes. There was no spit in her mouth. She felt dry as a rotten carcass. She groaned, propping herself up to her arms. It was about as far as her body was willing to go.

“Good evening,” a voice said softly. She looked up.

It was the strange man with gold eyes, silhouetted against a sky the color of burning. Jez. The one she’d struck a bargain with! It all seemed so distant now, now that the rush was past, and she was all hollowed out.

“Wh-where am I?” She croaked. She felt as beaten as a strip of old jerky. She could hardly swivel her head about. What she could see made no sense. A big ol’ hole in the ground, steel walls torn up, broken, sagging open like tent-flaps along jagged zippers. The sound of silence, heavy as fog, hanging over it all.

“This is the Azcan Oasis,” said Jez. “Or rather, what’s left of it.”

His words floated in one ear and out the other. They made no sense. She frowned. “What?”

“It’s all gone,” said Jez with a sigh.

Kaya opened her mouth. No sound came out.

“There was a duel between deities. An attack went awry…I’m sorry. When godly powers enter mortal realms these things happen.”

She looked round again, slower this time, struggling to take it all in. Her head pounded, fiercer now. She hadn’t much connection to this folk—in fact they’d been asses to her since the moment she’d come!—but still…

“I wish it weren’t this way either.” Jez’s eyes seemed to glow in the sunset. “I’d like to make a world where this sort of thing never has to happen. Where each and every creature is free to pursue their joys—free from the oppressions of the powerful! Where we can all share in the wonders of qi. But many people don’t like that. And sometimes there’s no other way.”

Kaya took that in silently. They sat there for a while, letting the acrid smell of smoke, the ruined sights, the warm colors of the sunset wash over them.

”This duel,” she said softly. “Was one of the deities you?”

“Yes.”

“Was the other my brother?”

No hesitation. “In a manner of speaking, yes.”

She lunged for his throat. She hardly made it a foot off the ground. Gently he caught her arm and lowered her back down. “You’re injured,” he said, brows furrowing. He looked genuinely concerned. “Rest. There will be time to hurt me later.”

“You!” She snarled. “I-I shoulda known there was something off about you! About all that—that gold stuff!”

The city burned. It all felt like a fever dream, these past few weeks, like she’d been drunk off something far stronger than wine and was only now sobering. She lay there trembling.

But still there was an itch prickling at the back of her mind, strengthening by the second. A want. The gold qi, it felt like living. It felt so right. It plugged some hole in her she didn’t even know she had. Yet…

She growled, shaking her head.

“Your brother,” said Jez sadly, “Is dead.”

Her head snapped up. Her eyes were wide, red-rimmed. “Huh?!”

“You’ve noticed the changes, surely.” Jez cocked his head. “For a decade and a half Io was one way, I’ll wager. And these last few weeks he became another. Am I right?”

Kaya gaped at him. Her heart lurched. It felt like someone had taken a hammer and split her head clean in two. She instantly felt defensive, and yet—yet—

He’d just something some dark horrible deep-down part of her thought. But up till know she couldn’t bring herself to face it, couldn’t make herself believe. But the ugly thing was out there now, hanging in the air.

“How’d you know?” She whispered.

“I didn’t kill your brother. The monster that wears your brother’s skin did. He’s a tricky one.”

“…”

“A monster I’ve been tracking for quite some time, a monster who has long schemed cruelties like this. His name is Dorian. He is in truth a Godking—among the most infamous Godkings of all, one who leaves great suffering in his wake wherever he goes. In my perfect world there won’t be anyone like him.”

Kaya stared up at him, wide-eyed. She was finding it hard to speak. She was finding it hard to think.

“At first I wished to convert him…wishful thinking, perhaps.” He chuckled ruefully. “Then, I trapped him. I thought I had him! But even at the bottom of an ocean he can find a breath of air, it seems…he’s gone, now. Far gone.”

He chuckled, eyeing her.

“All is not lost.” His hand hadn’t left her wrist. “As Fate would have it, we have a body that shares blood with his own! A sibling. Through the use of your shared blood, and a great deal of scrying, perhaps we can track him down again.”

“…”

“Will you help me?” His eyes met her own. “Will you help me avenge the death of your brother, and bring justice to Dorian for good?”

* * *

Dorian found himself in a blank white space he was frankly getting sick of.

Another damned vision?! He was in the middle of bleeding out! He hardly had time to waste on this nonsense. As far as he knew, his body—the mangled remains of his torso—was lying facedown in literal Hell! He was minutes from bleeding out. That was if the djinn and imps and drakes and all manner of awful critters didn’t take him first.

“What now, Fate?!” he snapped.

A figure materialized before him in plain cloth dress, plain face. Dorian stopped cold.

“Not quite,” said Houyi dryly. “Greetings, little brother. How have you been? Still keeping up with your footwork drills, I hope.”

A beat. Then, Dorian tackled him. But in this unreal realm their bodies were both ghostly. He went straight through to the other side.

Houyi raised a brow. “I see.”

Dorian crossed his arms, looking as cross as he could manage. “How could you let yourself lose to that—that—smiley moron?”

A snort. “You hardly did any better.”

“I—” Dorian spluttered. “I’m not you, you buffoon! You’re Houyi! In your duel with the Raindragon King you modeled every godsdamned grain of sand on the beach! You look decades ahead. How the hells didn’t you see this coming?!”

“I did,” said Houyi, rolling his eyes. “Sometimes, foresight is not enough. You can know what your opponent will do. You can know how and when they will do it. Yet, in the face of absolute power none of that matters. I had to pick my battles.”

“I see,” said Dorian.”So.”

“So.”

“It has been a few millennia. It’s well past due we caught up. But, unfortunately, I’m about to bleed out. In Hell. So, time’s rather short.”

“Ah, yes.” Houyi smirked. “And you’ve landed in a most ironic Circle of Hell, I must say. Fate has a sense of humor.”

Dorian ignored the jab. He sighed. Idiot brother. Fate of the Multiverse on the line, and he still had time to jibe. “I liked you better split up.”

“So do I,” said Houyi. “Unfortunately, that is no longer possible. I’ve been wounded rather horribly. And trapped, for good measure. I shall be of no use to your dying body. I shall be of no use to anyone for a very long time.”

“So, I’m fucked. We’re all fucked.”

“Not necessarily.” HouyI’s eyes twinkled. “You are right in a sense. I did see this coming.”

“But what’s the use?!” cried Dorian. “You failed!”

“Not necessarily.” An enigmatic smile. “This duel between Jez and I is, shall we say, unfinished. How it ends depends on you.”

“What in the Nine Hells is that supposed to mean?!”

Houyi scratched his chin. “There is a way out,” he said finally. “Seek out the Infinity Hearts. They are the locus of his power. They must be dealt with. But first—you shall not survive in Hell long in human form. And a human with a bloodline transfusion shall not cut it. You will need a dragon form. Rather fortuitous you’ve got a torchdragon lineage. After that…”

He frowned, then shrugged. “Too many variables. Too hard to calculate. I’ve done all I can. There is a resistance. Fate is doing his best, and at last others are listening. Do try not to be eaten in the meantime? You have landed in a rather thorny spot. The power vacuum you left has led to a mess. But it is your own doing, I fear…Perhaps it’s fitting you’re left to deal with its consequences. Best of luck.”

He paused. “Oh—and…” His expression softened. “It is wonderful to see you again after all this time, little brother. Truly. Do take care.”

“Wait—”

The scene dissolved.

* * *

Dorian woke up, and immediately wished he hadn’t. His head pounded like his brain was trying to break free of his skull. He groaned, flopping on his back, and opened his eyes.

And frowned.

He glanced back up. The portal had dropped him in the same plain: smoldering red rock, broken up, floating on a lake of sluggish magma. A ring of volcanoes gurgled shining lava in the distance. He squinted. It was a strangely familiar plain, now that he had a second to really take it in…He squinted harder.

There were bodies here littered all about the plain, coated in a thin layer of volcanic ash. Dried-up remnants. Strewn like torn puzzle-pieces on the molten ground. A few limbs here, a head there. If you squinted, you could make out the vague outlines of Igrits and Djinn and gargoyles.

…

He could not believe what he was seeing.

If he was not mistaken—if he was where he thought he was—this level of Hell was filled with warring demon kingdoms, hordes of roaming djinn, lairs and dungeons even he hadn’t dared touch as he ascended. Where every passing beast could be a demigod, where dead Godkings made long-buried tombs, horrible spirits and ghosts ruled the skies. Where great opportunities and greater dangers lurked in equal measure. It was the most treacherous, most vile layer of Hell.

He knew this because he had died here many, many, many times.

He knew this because—more pertinently—he had just been here.

In fact, he was not fifty strides away from the spot where, mere months prior, he had stabbed Demon King Yama through with a sword the color of blood.

“FUUUUUUUUUUU—” was all he got out before ash rushed into his mouth, choking him. Above him coal clouds shifted in a starless, sunless sky.

So began Dorian’s adventure through the Ninth Circle of Hell!

Again.

The final run began now.

ONE HUNDRED TWO

DEMON FOOD (I)

Molten Plains, 9th Circle of Hell

Dorian flopped about, gasping, feeling like a slab of meat left too long on the grill. Beneath him lay a vast stretch of molten coal veined with fissures, shifting uneasily atop a sea of churning magma. Hunks of the stuff jutted up everywhere, clumping into hills, gently rising and falling with the currents. A floating wasteland spurting with lava, stretching far as the eye could see.

His stumped arms throbbed. His stumped waist leaked. His intestines oozed slowly out of him. Even the air hurt to breathe! Its sandpaper smog grated his lungs, brought up coughs flecked with blood. His skin was cooked red and tiny sparks of qi singed his hairs.

His weak human body couldn’t cope! It simply didn’t belong here. He groaned.

First things first! He needed a new body, and fast. A dragonform, like Houyi said. What else had his blasted brother blabbered about? Something about Infinity Hearts, was it? The source of HouyI’s power?

A dizzy spell struck. The insides of his head rattled like a gong. He fell over, hacking up a gout of blood. He groaned, flopping to his back, breathing heavily, trying his best not to throw up what was left of his lungs.

He was reminded of how he started this run, back in the desert tribes. Poisoned. Dying, underground, in a scorpion’s hive. There had been some fun to it, way back then! Survival had been a game. A fresh challenge.

That was before his soul got cut off, of course. Before he was left stranded here.

Now his death would be painfully permanent. That stark fact sucked most of the whimsy out of it, truth be told.

He glanced down at his stumped self. An image came to mind: of himself wriggling furiously as some gargoyle sauntered up to him, bent over, and swallowed him in a gulp. At least it’d make for a funny way to go?

Not much comfort, but you took all the scraps you could get in a time like this. Laughing at his own plight was still laughing. And if he didn’t even have a little laughter left in him he was done. What else did he have?

He looked back down at himself. Not limbs, certainly. His bottom half was slowly sealing, sparking with Darkness and Fire, whatever little qi he had left trying furiously to sew him back up. Trying and failing spectacularly. It was like a very fat man trying to squeeze into pants a few sizes too small. Despite his best efforts, body parts kept spilling out. Dorian stared at it. He felt for his qi reserves. Empty. He glanced at his stumped arm. It had once had a hand, a hand that’d wore an Interspatial Ring full of all sorts of goodies that would’ve been quite handy right about now.

Alas, also gone.

He wiggled his left stump. He wiggled his right stump. He frowned.

It seems I’m fucked.

* * *

Well. He’d died before, and it wasn’t so bad. Wasn’t like life was so much better. The only way he could bear living was by doing these runs! Over and over and over. Up, down, up, down…all that running…maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to let himself relax, close his eyes, sink into that warm blackness…

Bleh! Who am I kidding? Wheezing, he propped himself up to his elbows. He was godsdamned Dorian, renowned trickster, Godking of Time! Sure, he’d been…rather horribly beaten…but despair? Utterly ridiculous! He refused it on principle. He’d made it through worse before—

He paused. He wiggled his stumps again. He frowned. …Have I? It was rather hard to conjure up any examples. He had been in worse situations than this, of course. Those he could think of quite easily. But they all ended up with his (usually gruesome) death. Half the time he went out while shitting himself.

At least I haven’t got enough intestines left in me to shit myself. Another scrap of comfort, he supposed. Now, he had two. A few more, and he could start a collection.

He shook his head. He was getting delirious. Maybe it was the blood loss. Or maybe it was the painfully recent loss of everything he held dear. Which was to say, himself. All his bodies, cut off like that! And his entire estate, too, his many mounds of treasures, his servant…

It was a lot in one go, even for him.

He giggled. He giggled some more. Then he burst out in hysterical, shuddering, hacking laughter. He suspected he was in shock, a least a little. He suspected he was spiraling, quite a lot. He frowned. Maybe it was the blood loss.

Enough nonsense. He forced himself to think. Think. Think, or die. That much was plain. All this—this—gunk of the mind, this loss of his bodies, this loss of his brother—all a very unfunny joke. A joke he resolved to laugh at later. For now—Something actionable, moron! How do I fix this?!

He wracked his brain. A long, weighty pause. He wracked some more. …

There was one tiny bright spot. He clung to it.

He knew this place. Hell. Knew it like the back of his severed hand. He knew, too, of a thousand items that’d fix him up in a flash. There were the Swamps of the Damned, for instance, with their juicy Blood-Boiling Fruits: devilish things that’d have him healed in minutes (at the cost of taking on a few curses.) There were the Twilight Caverns, studded with their thousands of crystals—each of which was enough to boost an untrained mortal to the peak of Sky!

The problem, of course, was that he had no way of getting there. Or not dying along the way, for that matter!

If only I was at full strength! He groaned. Then he at least stood some minuscule chance.

He was so drained of qi that he scarcely had an idea of how to move. Obviously limbs were out of the question. As for shadow-walking? In Hell? Even gods would be foolish to try that. This was not the lower realms. In Hell’s shadow-realm lurked creatures stripped from children’s nightmares. Obscenely powerful wraiths with lots and lots of teeth, eager to seize any hapless interloper.

At least he could ride the Javelin. It wasn’t nothing, he supposed…

He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

This…this is somehow even worse than the start of my last run! Forget living to see tomorrow. It’ll be a minor miracle if I last ten minutes! What the hells am I supposed to do?!

Nothing for it. He’d have to be in stump form until he scrounged up some other way to heal, somehow. And he suspected his lifespan in this form was on the order of days. Maybe hours…

Sharp grating noises filtered to him, a background hum. It was the theme song of this realm: all kinds of horrid shrieks and screeches and howls, ground up in one uniquely noxious concoction. It was ear-splitting at first, every time. You got used to it after a while. It brought to mind another stark fact. This place had among the highest monster densities in all the Multiverse…

The ground shifted beneath him. His eyes went wide.

Sheer instinct saved his life.

His Javelin was there in a spasm of shadows. He clung onto its long chain best he could with his arm-stumps. Then he shot straight up.

Just as the ground beneath him erupted. The stone layer bulged up like a red-black tumor, then violently tore apart. A great big head rammed through—a rocky craggy thing, jaws flared wide, two beady yellow eyes burning, geysers of magma splashing all about it as it arched for him. Hellwhale!

The Javelin shot up fast as it could, Dorian in tow. The jaws rose around it, farther still, and Dorian saw four long fins broach the surface. Its whole body seemed forged from ash and brimstone and obsidian, the base elements of Hell.

The jaws snapped shut, body hanging at the peak of its leap. Then gravity wrestled it down. The beast bellowed, furious at the loss as it sank back into the depths, leaving nought but an upset pool of magma in its wake.

Dorian started a sigh of relief.

The sigh cut off before he finished it. He realized just how high up he’d gone. There were no clouds here in Hell. The closest thing were the endless streams of ghosts churning high above. He saw them a stone’s throw away, a layer stretching horizon-to-horizon, an endless sea of swirling gray whirlpools, of ghastly, moaning faces coursing by.

In a panic he tried to arrest to Javelin’s motion, send it arching back down.

It wasn’t the ghosts that scared him! It was what lay above. The air up here was infested with creatures he had no business tangling with. And he was getting awful close.

Shitshitshit! With luck he’d pull out of this before—

A screech from up high. A shadow blotted dark gray against the ghostly stream. Dorian shoved his Javelin to go! With as much mental force as he could muster.

Just as a great feathery head burst through the cloud layer, beak flared wide. Its whole body was some shifting molten silver, feathers like plate-metal lining its comically wide wings. Quicksilver Roc!

It came so close he saw his watery, terrified reflection on its shining feathers. Then it dove past, making a slow loop.

The grounds erupted again. This time in two places: two Hellwhales breached the surface like mountains rising out of the ocean, jaws unhinged. One clamped a Roc wing as it passed. The other spewed out a great big glut of smoldering Fire Laws. The Roc thrashed, twisted, slashed at the Hellwhale clamping it with its other wing, edged with shining silver qi. Geysers of gold blood spewed out from the whale’s side. It held firm—

Even as the other whale’s technique engulfed the Roc’s head and did its horrible work. The Roc thrashed, howling, choking, melting. Then, went limp. The technique sludged off it. What had once been a proud, sleek head was now a sagging mess.

The whales dragged it under. That was that.

Fucking Hell!

From up here Dorian got a good eyeful of the place. Demons everywhere, swarming under the lands, clogging up the skies, always hidden just out of sight—if they bothered to hide at all! And that wasn’t even counting the things on the land itself. Motes of crimson light were everywhere—prickling the shadows of volcanic ranges in the distance, dancing atop the broken coal-plains before him. Little sprites of fiery hateful qi, scarcely sentient. Each one of them was more than enough to end him! And these were the lowliest creatures Hell had to offer.

Dorian hung low in the air, breathing hard. This was the only thing he could still do: cling onto his Javelin and flee! Hardly a plan…

Then, the grounds just below him started boiling and trembling again.

FUUUUU—

He bolted.

A third scrap of comfort: he was small, which meant he was very mobile!

He whipped over a rocky ledge, taking care not to go too high, went over the other side—

Where two gangs of stone-skinned gargoyles were busy tearing each other apart, limbs flying, blood splattering everywhere. Screeches clawed at his ears. Godly Laws shivered the air. Nope!

He made a quick left-turn, skirted a long spine of coal—then veered up as he almost whizzed straight into a crowd of cackling Hellspawn. He went up mid-way to the clouds, trying to get a breather.

The land below was mostly flat, fissured like it was the dry skin of some slumbering giant, studded with hunks of rock, and—from his vantage up here—festering with beasts! He tried scouting out a direction to run. Any direction.

And wherever he looked was a battleground.

Demons. Demons everywhere. Creatures made of dripping oily qi, slick and black, white bones peeking out, each one more bizarre than the last. To his left wolf-bear hybrids tore at eagles with human faces. To his right a two-headed feathered serpent lay waste to a horde of Hellspawn. A massive gorilla with elephant’s tusks was busy nailing a baby Hellwhale to a slab of coal. Chaos!

This was Hell. Overrun all over with demons. And where there weren’t demons, there were Spirit Beasts waiting to make a meal of you. For those at the bottom of the food chain there was place to rest—or even so much as take a breath.

At least he was also very weak and very small. These beasts were all at least peak Sky. Most radiated the aura of a demigod. With luck, he wouldn’t be paid too much attention—

Two gray beaks broke the ghost layer above him, leaking green slime. Baby rocs. Hungry baby rocs, staring straight at him. They dove.

FUCK!

He gunned the Javelin and sped on through the Multiverse’s most deadly obstacle course, screaming as he went, weaving between warring monsters, dodging juts of coal, hanging on for dear life.

THANK YOU FOR READING SPEEDRUNNING THE MULTIVERSE 2

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