The [Dao of Suffocation] burst out against Fu’s foe to no effect, marking how depleted his mental energy had become in the last stretch of hours.

Marking progress against him.

This thing did not speak. It did not gloat in the face of his impotence. Only move. Measured paces, a tireless stalk. A march that swallowed Fu’s best efforts to flee.

[Half Cloud Step] drove the fisherman over the nearest wall, clearing the cavern’s surface with a single evocation of cloud to have him land safely. Where he collapsed once more, wiping the blood from his upper lip.

A half-smirk now revealed.

“We almost have it, Hushi,” he breathed, leaping to his feet. The octopus impressed his own mirth, and detached from Fu’s neck to fall into the slackened douli. Here, he worked his arms into rhythmic motion, helping his cultivator’s breath to descend into a less frantic gush.

Over the course of thirteen breaths, Fu calmed to neutrality. A tranquillity perhaps, of shared kinship with biding time by his nets.

And then he mounted the far-side wall, bearing himself on all fours. What came next was a steady inhalation, where [Air Qi] breezed through his lungs to settle his [Inner Qi]. An initial reminder of quietude, and a now-practised circulation that had it fade into a sort of sleep.

Allowing him to stalk the cavern’s surface unimpeded.

From here the formation of stone pushed towards the lantern-lit wall at an incline, and this is where he made towards. A purposeful breath was taken each step. A reinforcement of this technique, and reminder that this was well tended.

Not at all what the Clouded Court Squads had tasked him with achieving.

But close, if his [Ink] were to be believed.

The Heavens do not recognise it as the [Clouded Ghost Arts], it lacks the signature Qi patterns to make it so. Thus, I must practise until such things become clear to me. A… general prowess.

Fu was resolved on this, and had set forth seeking the tools that would confirm his ability was growing. Ahead, at the fringe of the nearest lantern’s light, he saw it. Them.

A pair of watchful prisoners, shuddering at the creature’s silhouette beyond them.

The [Demon] that was not.

Nearing pulled the prisoners’ voices into his ears, marking them as fools to pollute their [Senses] with pointless speech.

“It comes again, senior, I’ll warn the others.”

A scoff sounded. “And leave me to its mercy, hah. You know how it works, meat, you’ve more years. Shit tasks are yours.”

“Yes, senior.”

A second scoff.

“Senior,” mocked the voice, and Fu saw its owner as he neared the lip of the passage. An older man, of similar years to his own. His [Spirit Beast] unseen. He had left his comrade at a junction’s mouth, right on the border of darkness.

Five strides from passing Fu’s position above him. Too short a distance, for the fisherman was unprepared.

Emotion slackened the hold on his [Unaligned Qi Suppression Art]. As if an injection of such things had his Qi tremble, and rouse. The same was said for exertion, though he mused that excitement may well have its hand in this.

So it was that he waited in the darkness, trying to still his heart for the coming actions.

Hushi. The moment arrives.

The bobbing of the man’s head passed by him, and as it did, Fu dropped.

With half his soles to catch the weight, he dashed. One and a half strides. Then a wetness, where his hook bit deep into the man’s shoulderblades. Penetrating and bursting to be withdrawn as Fu’s hand sealed any sounds that might come from this target’s mouth.

He was cradled to the stone amidst a rising heartbeat, but Fu maintained his calm. After all, frustration here would be his undoing. Thus he banished his thoughts upon returning to the gloom, and merely waited.

A set of heartbeats passed, profound things that Fu could not help but count.

Ten, twenty, thirty, forty, and then finally, the second cultivator gasped out in observation.

This man rushed to his fallen comrade, edging at five strides with his hands raised in a guard. His head, a pendulum, vainly trying to pierce each inch of darkness above the passages.

“The [Demon]” he exclaimed, as if remembering the reason for his watch. A thought pulling the colour from his cheeks.

Fu stole to the passage’s edge, and descended. A hop, and a looping of chain. His weapon went taught as he yanked his opponent down and to the rear. Pressure mounting as the prisoner pushed back.

Flailed. Kicked. All in useless protest against the man to his rear.

And then he stilled, let down to the stone much as his comrade had been.

Impressions of the chain were set into Fu’s palms where he had clung so tight, the links denting his calloused flesh. But he only sighed, and set to claiming whatever seeds the man might have on his person.

A quick act, given how close the [Demon] had now come. For its march had delivered it into the light now, not ten strides distant.

The woman was scarcely clad, and set aglow with fissures of greying light below the filth that kept her decent. Fu held an eye to her as he searched the furthest body, and she, him. No [Demon], but something else entirely.

A corpse, with anger the only remnant in her deadened eyes. And one that fell upon the recently slain prisoner. Her hands were set in cumbersome motion, prying open the jaw there.

Fu saw this, and watched the thing that had slowly pursued him for many hours now… snap.

She spasmed - it spasmed, regurgitating a-

[Spirit Beast]?

A worm of matching grey hue dropped from her throat, entering the gaping cavity below. Birthing another spasm in the second corpse, and a rise, as it shuffled to its feet.

Fu quickly felt the cool, ever-present [Intent] of the first multiply. A twinned force now, to impress on the edges of his own. Enough to unsettle him, and to have him rejoin the darkness atop the walls.

🀦

Cultivation atop the walls would only draw the attention of the Qi-seeking [Spirit Bats], and so had spent the last hour in greatest silence. Recuperating his mental energy in mundane fashion. He was flat to the stone, with his gaze skyward, yet altogether peaceful.

Meditative.

The [Unaligned Qi Suppression Art] had become second nature to him, surprising, after the short span of time that he had used it in practice. But now he could lie still beneath the ceiling of foes, upon the edge near the prowling corpses, or steal close to the prisoners without Qi forewarning them to his presence.

He fiddled with the seeds in his pouch, counting them with the surface of his thumb. A rough dozen.

Practice would see his total rise, and so he moved on.

As he did, Fu placed passages to his left, following the slant of distant lanterns to orient his place. The shadows cast at all sides had grown less erratic as the hours passed, devolving into stationary things.

Sure signs of the initiates’ progress.

We lag behind, I am sure of it.

Fu dropped himself to the nearest passage, extending his [Senses]. In equal practice, Hushi drew the air currents their way, delivering an unwashed, salted stench. It was near silent, void of breath or motion. But there.

And the pair closed in, stealing once more across the wall’s surface.

The reduction in [Senses] hampered little in the coming strides, for he saw a figure move then, mounting the opposing wall. And this figure saw him in turn. A silhouette against the black, but clad in no visible rags. Their robes, clear and solid in the last sway of movement.

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A moment passed in mutual observation. And a slow motion came, revealed under the sheen of a small [Spirit Beast’s] glow. The glinting of metal.

But Fu shook, and made on his path towards the lanterns. Placing this figure to his rear, keeping his ears keen. With ten strides between them, he could hear the foot-

He pivoted when the footsteps disappeared, and a half-skid sounded. Fading almost at the moment of its arrival. Twice more Fu repeated this process, soon realising the skill of this shaded figure.

A match to my own pace, using my own footsteps to cover the sound of their own. Is this person practised in such arts?

There was a sudden disruption to the air at his side, prompting Fu to roll backwards. Another silent thing, in the shape of [Spirit Bat]. Fu stymied his curse, settling his heart instead. His testing had made too much noise.

Distraction. What a fool.

In minutes fraught with thoughts of the figure behind, Fu reached the edge of illumination. A perch before the largest junction to date, and a cesspool.

Pungent enough to catch his throat.

The arena was well-lit from a central lantern, hung on its own monolith of stone at the space’s middle. In its light lay the bodies of dozens. Prisoners, stacked with abandon. Their blood, a pool to stain the earth below.

But whatever force had befallen them was now ended, and in timely manner. For Fu was witness to the final blows of massed prisoners, piling in frenzied slaughter over the last of the moving corpses.

Twenty, in all, with breadcrumbs of their bouts cast in bloody spectacle from each of the five passages about them.

Fu suppressed his Qi again at the trepidation. He would bide his time. To face so many was a fool’s errand. Thus he retracted his feet, peeling back to turn. Where he caught the motion of the shaded figure, its hands morphing in illegible patterns.

A technique? Do they mean to attack?

The hands came again, slower this time. More simplistic, which Fu mused to be for his own benefit. One angled palm, near triangular to direct him to the lantern. Clean strokes, sliced motions, and almost readable meaning.

Confident.

As this language was foreign to him Fu could only shake his head. His mind was clear. An unnecessary risk.

It was strange to him then, that he didn’t move back. Nor did he shy from the edge more than was necessary to keep him from sight. The prisoners had fallen back, warily. Settled into pits on the floor, conversing in agitated tones.

Well fixated on the yawning passages.

The air displaced across from Fu, heralded by a chorus of exclamations and a wash of darkness as the lantern’s flame was quashed. Plunging the area into deepest black.

And Fu’s foot had him launching over open air.

Queer, he found himself thinking. Because his heart pounded with an image of his Placement, and the success of combat. The thrill. Queerer yet, his [Qi Suppression] marked this as natural. For the first time, going undisturbed by such emotion.

He swept down like a malefic breeze, slicing the throat of his first prisoner before either initiate’s presence was known. A swift cut, emptying the man of blood and causing his [Spirit Stoat] to struggle to the stone.

[Half Cloud Step] allowed Fu to drive his feet down at pace, and return to the wall’s safety in another moment. It laboured his breath by three puffs, and the suffusion of Qi drained at his command so he might slip into a suppressed state once more.

But it was managed.

Fu stole five strides to his right, tracing a silhouette that flashed into the junction. His silent comrade in the act of dispensing death. A glint of blade and they were gone.

Thus the fisherman swept down once more, and again, until his fifth attempt had placed him atop the walls with pursuers at his heels.

A glowing orange claw ascended the lip, and Qi flourished as the accompanying prisoner cleared the height. Not half-blinding when darkness had been Fu’s sole sight.

“Bastard!” came the frothing insult, and the kindle to an aura of heat.

The air boiled with each step taken by this prisoner, fleet, for he and his [Spirit Hound] were in a headlong rush. It forced Fu to roll backwards, fleeing from the boundary of several strides that marked the edge of intolerable heat. With a showing of [Might] to match his own, the hound blurred to Fu’s heels with jaws set to bite.

And Fu’s emotions spiked as he swept it aside, a sloppy imitation of his [Stifling Stream Revolutions]. The bridge of his foot was seared at the connection, and-

Suddenly the orange [Spirit Hound] was engulfed by bats. Swarmed to disappear his hue under the silence of wings, where a whimper could barely break free. Second came the pained cry of its cultivator, overcome by the sensation shared by their link. But Fu blocked this sight by leaping across passages, passing two to arrive at the junction’s off side.

Below, the prisoners had arrayed themselves in a ring. Outwards facing. Their shoulders banded so close that daylight might not escape the cracks were any in supply.

Fu noted how grim each expression held in the muted glow of their [Spirit Beasts], and another queer sensation rose to see what effect he had instilled.

Half their number, felled by a pair one tenth of their original size. By [Foundation Realm] initiates. Untrained. The Clouded Court Squads… it is a thought.

The flesh at Fu’s foot was a torment. Raw, and already blistered. Yet he dropped to the junction regardless, casting his chain out with the [Dao of Reach] to ensnare the legs of the closest prisoner. Some twenty strides away.

As if his foe’s heads were on a swivel, they rounded with alarm.

But Fu saw their reluctance, and with a burst of strength from [Half Cloud Step], dragged the man into the gloom. A scream left the man’s lips, and a small, teal [Spirit Insect] raced from his rags to do what it might.

Foolishly arriving into Hushi’s arms in a single jet from the octopus, where the life was crushed from it in seconds. A burst of violence that saw the screaming end just as Fu touched down on an adjacent wall.

A second burn then surfaced on his skin. Benign, unlike the first.

🀦

An increase to his comprehension of the technique… it was the fastest that Fu had risen through the ranks. Bewilderingly so. For the contents within the collection displayed on his [Ink] were slow moving things, and had remained mostly stagnant since their acquisition.

It was another ponderance to add to his growing vault of questions, though he knew not when they might be answered.

As such he shrugged it off, and felt satisfied that this crucible was enough to temper his skill to this degree. Fu then turned his attention to one of the monolith’s sconces, and added his own seeds to the blaze.

Not a moment after his silent companion had dispensed with their own.

With a healthy delay between them, Fu re-entered the mural room. A gentle climb that brought him into the light. Yet this time, no carrion cultivators did descend to take advantage of his labours. Only the figure and their shrouded [Spirit Beast], buried beneath a cloak, drawn high.

In truth as Fu sat to reflect upon the [Clouded Ghost Arts] he had to battle a growing sense of discontent, which was doubled by Hushi. The mural ahead was frugal in its secrets, offering no more insight than his previous visit. Thus, he recalled the unnamed senior’s words in favor of re-reading the poetry inscribed there.

Hone its foundation, have it imprinted on your [Ink], and bear it with grace.

Was the foundation of this technique not [Qi Suppression]? And was it not already imprinted on his [Ink]? Fu did not wish to claim his mastery of it, or presume to have met the requirements, but failed to see what else he might do to pass the trial.

However, he would not waste his time here.

Fu entered the suppressive state once more, and he felt his Qi vanish. All the while, fixing his eyes on the mural ahead.

Minutes passed.

And more.

Yielding a further lack of progress in his insight. Yet still he gazed onwards, his eyes drying under the scrutiny. Growing blurry, and… and- On the periphery of his notice, his fellow initiate’s Qi had vanished.

A static feeling. Subtle, as he mused the art should be, but noticeable.

And perhaps because of this, a reaction came across the mural. A morphing of the poem’s characters that revealed another line, juxtaposed above it. Some cool, blue light enough to have it legible in the sconce’s glow.

“The grace of a ghost is held in patience.”

Hushi roused at his words, the change hidden from him until he peeked out from the douli. But he offered nothing besides his curiosity.

Grace. Then I am to be patient? To wait?

Fu ill-favoured the conclusion he drew.

In the passing of minutes his contribution of seeds was spent. A drawn out time, given how many he and his fellow had traded for it..

The seconds gave rise to a nervous sweat.

But the laboured noise came as he knew it would, sounding the changing of walls. The rush, and grind of stone rushing inward. Against every rational thought however, Fu turned to face them. This battering ram that now charged him, with only a half guard raised to defend against the mistake he may just have made.

Though the [Unaligned Qi Suppression Art] held steady, despite this.

The towering stone-faces increased in pace, severing thirty paces, twenty, and so on until Fu’s death seemed imminent. Yet he held still, braving the force.

Fu closed his eyes, calming the shudder that might undo his suppression.

Then, calming a further elation that might do the same.

As there had come a second grinding at either side, where the walls had parted as though he were a staunch rock against some incoming river’s flow.

It had bisected to leave him unscathed. And what was more, he could now lay his gaze on the figure at this fresh corridor’s end. One hand, beckoning him forth.

So Fu approached in respectful fashion, his head low, his pacing modest, and was prompted to meet this figure at the hidden edge of an opened doorway. They exchanged nothing but silent greetings, and proceeded onwards only when the other initiate had joined them in turn. Ushered then, to the balconies above the sanded pits.

Where the effeminate senior loomed, his back turned so he might preside over the sounds of further contest below. “Twenty eight hours,” he said. “It seems that no geniuses have arrived in this latest batch of initiates. A pity.”

Twenty eight hours? Was I below for more than a day?

The senior named them both. “Neither of you are the first to progress to this stage, yet neither are you the last. This, in and of itself, is commendable. If disappointing.” An emotionless tone rang out as he spoke, one long deadened to such disappointment, it seemed. “Nonetheless, you have attained the foundation that was tasked, and this daoist would extend congratulations.”

The Qi suppression wavered in Fu as pride touched him. A rare disarming of his calm from such unexpected words.

“Gratitude, senior. This lowly junior is undeserving of your attention,” he thanked, bowing lower.

For her part this Niharika said nothing, sharing in gesture alone.

“This marks the initiation to the Clouded Court Squads as half met. An [Art] is our namesake, disciples, and prerequisite. Ghosts. More is drawn from this than silence of step. To become what is expected of you, all must be cast aside. Vessels,” voiced the senior, accentuating the last word. “Void of pride.”

Fu tensed.

“Hear this, and know it. In three [Seasons], you are ghosts, and in the fourth, fledgling spectres of this vein. The shadows to the true Serpents that bask in the sun.” He rounded then, and Fu felt the warmth of a hand suddenly upon his crown. “By the [Dao], and on your Qi, swear it disciple. Swear that you will die your first death this day, and rise as an instrument of the Cloudy Serpent Sect. To know glory only through unseen acts. To tend the dark that our brethren’s scales might shine ever brighter. And to speak only silence when asked upon such matters. Swear it, and join the Clouded Court. Lest you would rather forfeit your life.”

And so Fu brought his Qi to bear, and spoke this oath. Verbatim. Feeling a second set of chains coil around his [Dantian], like fangs, scoring against tender flesh.