[Venerable Reed Sage] fumbled with the Middle Grade Spirit Stone in his hand. An object of middling Qi for one as close to the Heavens as he.

It crumbled into dust, cascading between fingers.

“Ah-” he said, forlorn. “Disciple, was I not clear on my instructions? What trouble is so great you must break me from seclusion?.”

His [Star Folding Refinement Array] collapsed into darkness at the woman’s approach, the accumulated Qi dispersing as the vessel’s boundary was breached.

“The revered alchemist is losing his touch,” she sneered, strutting with her razor-edged companion close behind. Her passing polluted each of the [Array’s] arteries in passing, scripts of priceless [Dao Principles] made solid, now sullied with [Ice Qi].

And she took great joy in seeing its corruption.

One by one, the carefully inscribed characters on each surrounding surface clouded with frost. Their tone now a shallow blue. Washing all sides of the ornate, tetrahedral dome beneath which these cultivators stood.

[Venerable Reed Sage] shivered, clearing his throat. “Disciple,” he said, batting his aged eyes. “No, not a disciple. [Dances Upon an Ivory Sea].”

If I am to fall prey to such advanced age- I’d rather shatter my [Dantian] than live to have mothballs clout my mind.

Before the man spread a wide cauldron, gushing plumes of steam from its socket in the marbled floor. The contents charred, and the artefact, ill-tended.

[Sullen Saber] shared his disapproval in a minute shift of weight, a teasing thing, that this senile fool had no hope of parsing. As such her tone carried mirth when she spoke next. “I’ve little wish to trade pleasantries, Sage, you should know why I have come.”

The doddering old fool dashed the last filings of Spirit Stone from his fingertips, and his hand rose as if a thought had just struck him. An acuity returned.

“T-The pursuit of new refining methods oft leaves my mind wandering,” he said, offering no bow. “[Dances Upon an Ivory Sea], restrain your [Origin Qi]. This [Array] has not survived since the [Summer] of Sorrow just to be unmade by you.”

At her rear both [Spirit Dugong] bristled at the disrespect shown to their cultivator. No matter who it was that addressed her. She silenced them with an affectionate touch. “Oh, are such things so brittle?”

“Sensitive,” he returned, seeming to compose himself. “It is unexpected to see you so far from the Divine Clouded Mountain.”

“We stand in [Summer], Sage. Save sudden change for that which has passed, for the [Season] it is claimed by,” she said. “As stated, you know why I have come.”

[Venerable Reed Sage] stole twenty strides in one, putting his attention to one of his frozen sets of characters. Golden Qi, blossoming, as he wagged a finger in the air. “I would ask, first, for the reasons behind this request. [Dances Upon an Ivory Sea] is wise for her years, regarded in all circles as a genius. Unrivalled beneath the Heavens. So too, was the fulcrum for your task set half a century passed. [Once-Beggared Ghost] had seen to it.”

The woman caught a flash of his gaze. A leer.

An effective fuel.

“My taskis well underway, Sage.”

A second character was now tended to, beset upon by a second stride. “There are rumblings that even the numb might feel. The [Mystic Realms]. I applaud the boldness of youth, truly. Destabilisation in a form that wagers no small tribulation of [Karma].”

His Qi-rich finger wagged, and [Sullen Saber] offered in his silence to rid the dusty corpse of a head.

“[Once-Beggared Ghost] has yet to attain such progress,” he added.

The goading. Bah. These fucking fools.

That any of these idiots believed the others to cherish them was laughable. She wondered on it.

A deception of sentimentality, the mortal vice.

How old monsters affected their air of it- and expected those around them to do the same. No mortality remained in those fools, nor notion of it. It was a mask, as their youthful bodies were, their demeanour, the fealty they thought themselves due.

A mask, that [Dances Upon an Ivory Sea] looked upon now. Much like her own.

“The house of [Plum Axe Zhu] troubles her, does it?” she said, having him believe she was indulged.

“A pillar is not so named for its instability. Our supporters have warned of middling progress in his domain. Yet to know our comrade’s ways this is not unforeseen. Theirs is a subtle corruption, and that which escapes the notice of experts, by nature, escapes the notice of inferiors.”

The third character was reached, that closest to [Sullen Saber]. Here the injection of Qi returned the lost warmth within the [Array], cleansing it of blue light in favour of the Sage’s own gold. As it did, a series of marbles condensed in the space above them. And [Venerable Reed Sage] flooded the [Array] with his [Intent].

In no less than seven spaces the weight of his soul commanded these energies to condense, birthing a corona. A swirl of liquid gold, conducted now by a series of minute gestures.

[Venerable Reed Sage] wound fingers amidst his own glow of Qi, as though fastening an unseen string. Compressing, twisting and knotting at a pace difficult even for the woman’s [Senses] to comprehend.

The Qi orchestrated in these seven spaces, and she saw there seven pills.

“[Sublime Frost Condensation Pills],” she remarked.

“A mere byproduct of the cleansing.” [Venerable Reed Sage] had the pills come to rest in his hand, dispensing a frown.

No mere thing. What a farce. To flit between incompetence and incomparable skill, it is a poor performance he plays.

One such pill could bankrupt a mid-sized Sect in the Clear Sky Empire, and was a peerless treasure. Indeed, in her younger days she had gathered many donations to afford her own supply. To an [Ice Qi] cultivator, or those of related [Dao] it was-

[Sullen Saber] urged caution.

The Sage was indeed dangerous, to have her mind wander so.

“Do you stall, Sage?”

“The reason for your visit, even in whisper, places feet at the mouth of a dragon’s cave,” he said. Another weaving of Qi erupted from his palm, brought to bear with no more than a flash of his sleeve.

A vast sea churned at the edges of where all now stood. Cyan, beneath a golden sky. The immensity of power here had [Dances Upon an Ivory Sea] cringe, for even her own [Dao] were not so profound as to afford her an [Inner Realm].

Sole warden of this place, a tree of crooked trunk stood. A base representation, or shade in how its scale appeared normal. Mundane, even, to untrained eye. Not that such a soul might walk this land.

Thus the woman expanded her [Senses], baulking as the titan it was became revealed.

Within her, the [Boundless Ying] turned cold.

Before any reaction could be taken, before she might call [Sullen Saber] in silent screams to annihilate this possessor of eldritch, mesmerising force, [Dances Upon an Ivory Sea] mastered herself. Suppressing the grip of fear that she had long thought lost and vanished.

“Step forth,” the Sage intoned, filled with much confidence. “I would hear with clarity what rumours have left untested. Speak, from the mouth of one on the path that I might sift through the whispers of foolish youth.”

This voice- A predatory thing, stoked memories the woman had long banished. Of voices similar, and deeds-

[Dances Upon an Ivory Sea] drew in a gasp, one she hoped muted. Here, she felt… young. To be reduced to uncertainty and wistful thought a second time. “A schism predates my interference with the Clouded Serpent Sect, deep seated. With but a few whispers and bent ears they have walked into my palm. Orthodox against Unorthodox, fueled in homage of the twin serpents. Elder [Gleeful Viper], and [Thrice Clouded Boa].”

“This is known.”

The woman’s [Dantian] frothed. “Yet clarity is asked for. Perhaps, Sage, you should straighten your thoughts before demands are passed from your tongue.”

Above, the golden sky darkened.

“A-ah,” retracted [Venerable Reed Sage], donning his futile mask. “Please, continue.”

“Tensions boil in recent [Seasons]. [Gleeful Viper] has made a push, revealing her frustration, and in doing so has unmade her Sect. The lines of allegiance have drawn to the surface, all for the sake of her progress. You spoke of [Karma], Sage, and boldness. My tithe to the Heavens will be paid in less than a century. Her own will last millenia.”

“Whispers have reached even here, at the farthest reaches. Yes. Elder [Gleeful Viper] has gentiled her Sect’s southern border. Cities in the hundreds were claimed for the sake of her cultivation. She forgets that tall trees attract the wind.”

“The snake is a fool. Inviting ruin by staking all on one throw.”

“Yet moved she has,” said the Sage. “And therein, whispers rise.”

“Sects. Already are they the domain of the talentless and unambitious. The Clouded Serpent Sect is among the greatest powers of the Empire- now it inspires ridicule. She claims a new breed of servant, a mock disciple.” [Dances Upon an Ivory Sea] was almost brought to laughter at the notion. “Millions gathered, branded by a [Three Eyed Spying Array], and in doing so has dredged up a spectre.”

The surrounding waves, she noted, it was as though they receded at these words. Where churning waters had sent their spray across the [Inner Realm’s] island before, they now seemed… hesitant.

Beneath the canopy [Venerable Reed Sage] drew forth a branch, and it writhed upon contact. The trunk unwound about itself, splaying its canopy. Lengths descended, willow-like, constructing a cage of trailing cables upon the shoreline. Here the leaves shook with awful vibration, a script of gold upon each.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

[Dances Upon an Ivory Sea] impressed on her [Spirit Dugong] the desire to be near, and drew on her [Origin Qi] to have the temperature plummet. Her next breath, frigid.

Golden light jolted through the trailing willow, and in the passing seconds she saw it morph further. Its trunk reshaping to form an oval lattice, a frame that drew its power from the surrounding energy.

Clouds appeared in its center of a hue to match the light, ever-changing. A shrouding of mist, and oblong shapes. Drawn in as though this lens was a mirror of some soaring [Spirit Bird], now in rapid descent.

She saw the Divine Clouded Mountain approach. The segments of its divine carcass, the myriad structures, all blurring in lines of gold. Until it stopped.

Held above a mundane pagoda, which in turn became the sole article to be seen.

[Venerable Reed Sage] constricted his pupils. A reduced, mortal gesture for one that might glean dust from a thousand li away. “That the-” No guise quieted his evident confusion, no mask to behold. “Among the [Scrying- Truly, there are more mysteries under Heaven that I might dream. For I see a phantom stand as though distance was limpid water.”

“You insult me, Sage, to second guess my account,” she said.

His furrowing of brow seemed to block notice of this remark. “A troublesome omen. To appear now, this can be no chance thing. Word was never spread of hands dipped in the golden basin, thus her loyalties are unguessable. No, it was a chosen fall to obscurity,” he dithered. “As closest, what have you discovered?”

“A contract of debt is held by the Clouded Serpent Sect for her disciples’ continued life. They were involved in the [Gleeful Viper’s] foolishness, and are bound until it is repaid. Clearly it is no simple thing if she allows it.”

“My resources must be re-dedicated,” the Sage caught himself. “Our orchestrations must shift away from the Clouded Serpent Sect. Our agents must be recalled, and our efforts must be put towards another pillar lest we risk her ire.”

[Dances Upon an Ivory Sea] scowled. “Already is it set to fester, Sage. What I set to personally cannot be unmade with a flick of your sleeve. The rifts I have fostered will soon collapse inward. Do not doubt my diligence, insulting me further.”

“Humble apologies, your talent does not escape m-”

The [Inner Realm] lurched as though it were a mere ship. Run aground.

A shifting allegiance was marked in the surrounding Qi, for the gold quickly fled. Traitorous in how its true colours revealed.

Some off-hue of blossoming cherry trees.

At her side, the Sage’s face flushed in tinges of purple. Consternate, with cords formed from bulging veins at his temples. “Clad yourself,” he warned, imposing a [Dao Principle] foreign to her, imperceptible in effect.

But this stalled not the shifting frame, nor the pictures within. This eagle-eye, wrenched by the very tether used to view it.

The fucking fool. He dares command me?

[Dances Upon an Ivory Sea] expelled a breath.

The danger was palpable.

What she called forth was her own [Dao], a darkened [Winter’s] night. A void of no starlight, save for the tumult of sprouting crystals that reflected this cherry light.

It severed her vision of the scene, yet allowed the words beyond to pass freely.

“This humble alchemist would give his apologies,” offered the Sage.

An impossibility surfaced, as then [Dances Upon an Ivory Sea] was set to shiver.

Involuntarily, by temperature alone. Some bite of primordial cold, putting her spine to chill and nape to moisten.

Enough to catch her breath in rapt ecstasy.

From beyond her screen a second voice sounded, delivering a single, derisive word to begin. “Youths,” it said. “One might think immortality would grant time to reflect on manners. Hmph. You tempt much, if you knew who it was you sought.”

“Ask anything and it is yours, if only you might forgive this transgression,” returned the Sage.

“Presumptuous.” The cherry Qi rumbled, and at the edges of the [Inner Realm] this colour sprouted. Rising in droplets from the ocean itself, until no space existed without these myriad orbs. “To think you might hold something I desire,” the voice,- she, continued.

[Dances Upon an Ivory Sea] saw pimples rise on her own flesh. This woman stirred a primal desire in her. One she could not place.

“Senior,” pleaded the Sage.

The woman continued. “Say no more, boy. Lest you seek to entwine our [Karma] further. Already I feel it setting, a vulgarity of threads. You will sever them, with haste, before they sully the work of lifetime.”

“It will be done.”

“Yes, it shall,” the woman said. Humming with disapproval.

🀇

The sediment gathered at the bottle’s base clearly struck like a discordant note. Sour, and enough to put many experts’ lips to pucker.

“A poor harvest,” chided one of the gloom-dwellers. A guard, as it so happened, and the sole one of five that did not loiter on the City Lord’s steps.

“Please, master cultivator!” pleaded another, this one not counted among their uniform. Though close, if one might count how forcibly entrenched she was in the leader’s lap. “These wines are intended for the Lord’s kitchens.”

One of the lackeys rose, pushing off the slumbering hide of her [Spirit Hound]. “Boss,” she purred. “I’d be suspicious of that one there. If she’d not offer sustenance to those who shield her from the [Demons] out there- well. Snakes stalk tall grasses.”

“Indeed. She owes a debt of gratitude. That she does not reeks of conspiracy,” affirmed the Boss. His grasp on the woman’s wrist turned rough, jerking her to arm’s length. “My junior here is prudent, speaking well. It is just like our foe to be shrouded in a commoner’s garb.”

“Corruption runs skin deep,” purred the lackey again. In a step she cowled by the woman’s back, where her fingers ran softly through the accused’s hair. “We must be certain that so delicate a flower is not tainted.”

Yongwu Long snorted at the Boss’ side, fingering one of the bottles. “Ah, what a poor representation of your City Lord. Shameful. Why, does she know of the rapists at her gates?”

The entire collective flew back ten paces, weapons drawn, teeth a-gnash.

“Name yourself, cultivator, this is the abode of the City Lord!”

Long snorted again, tapping the dregs of spirit wine into his mouth. But then he appeared to the rear of the one who had spoken. “Perhaps these flaps upon your head are for decoration.”

“You are courting death!”

A spark of golden Qi rung out as his jian met a poorly raised saber. The guard, a [Spirit] cultivator, poorly equipped for his [Formation Realm] reflexes. Only able to deflect the coming strike.

But Long streamed, shifting past his block in measured steps to cut him down from the rear.

Four cries sounded, tightening the noose around him.

Two of the corn-fed fools rushed in concert, attacking at his east and west. Their Bonds, [Spirit Hounds], pouncing to close off his movement.

He merely stepped from their path, weaving between two sets of snapping jaws. Weaving between the thrust of steel-tipped spears. Angling his body just so. The exchange passed three more times, six, nine, and twelve. Sloppy strikes, unguided and base.

The first of these to meet his jian was the largest [Spirit Hound], who had the edge split it from belly to throat. Embers of [Light Qi] gushed from the gutted thing, and its cultivator belched blood in matching style.

Both, felled before they could unleash whatever [Art] was mounting.

His attention turned to the second, incensed to rage at the death of her comrade.

A [Dao Principle] surfaced on her spear, etching a stream of azure characters down the length of the shaft.

Piercing.

Long scoffed. “A fitting form for a hare,” he said. “A turtle, less so.” A series of strikes came, impossibly swift. A bolstering [Art] drove the cultivator’s arm to thrust thrice in one movement. Yet they came wide, embodying his foe’s uncertainty.

Past strikes.

For they struck where he had been, not where he was.

A half step rushed the first by his nose, the second, his shoulder, and the third rammed at empty space entirely. It was here that he appeared in her guard with a vertical slash, felling her in the same manner as the beast.

He flicked her blood to the marbled streets.

“Hold there, bastard!” the boss grunted. A formidable axe was at the end of his arm, levered against the mortal woman’s throat. “If you care-”

“I do not,” he responded. Still, he thought it amusing that one could be both so shameless and leave one’s guard so wide open.

At the moment he made to move however, his [Spirit Carp] impressed a notion. One among this crowd of three held fortune.

Long whispered his [Dao] to the edge of his jian, interring it there. A script faded into view as his words finished, and each character radiated in hues of gold.

[Golden Demon Crosses the Stars].

Under persuasion of his [Might] alone, Long’s step had him arrive behind the guards.

The [Spirit Hounds] traced this with sluggish eyes, mustering but a half-turn in retaliation before his blade lopped free their heads. Having them topple and plod with a moistened thud. A precursor to the deluge of blood that frothed in their cultivator’s lungs. The pair, crashing down in similar fashion.

A sheen of sweat cooled Long’s forehead as he put his weapon to rest. This technique, his [Sovereign Demon Sword Arts]-

This body is ill-tempered for such a strike. [Formation Realm] is a shallow well to draw from.

Unbinding herself from the bloodied corpses, the woman to his rear sobbed. “Master cultivator,” she wailed. “Gratitude, a thousand times! Gratitude!”

Ah.

With a small flick of his toe, Long sent the boss ten strides distant. Granting him the space to approach.

His [Spirit Carp] impressed upon him once more.

He offered her his hand, raising her up from the filth. “Think nothing of it.”

“No- no, Master, I am indebted. You have done me a service I might never forget. What they had in store- I am to be wed tomorrow, and-”

Long’s hand clamped tight around the woman’s face, muffling her cries as his jian skewered five inches below. The gold of his [Dao], twinkling, as it surfaced on the far side. Her blood trailed for several moments, gushing until the [Principle] took effect.

A small crystal took shape at the tip of his jian, a crimson gem coalesced from what vital juices had been spilled. And he crushed it after removing her from the blade. Suppressing a shudder as energies rushed to sate him.

The fresh smouldering of his [Ink] could wait.

He arrived at the City Lord’s court in less time than it took an incense stick to burn, his journey unmolested. Perhaps dissuaded, by the five heads he carried at his side. The sight put many gazes to the floor, and further informed him of the guard’s allegiances.

Confirming how low a settlement he had entered.

Here was no estate, but a dilapidated warren. Beyond the entrance’s facade he stepped upon crumbling marble, and passed by crumbled pillars. Grime marred the once-pristine stone that held untended shrubs on the approach, and the open plaza was strewn with barely-begun scaffolds now long abandoned.

Even now as he stood in the fractured shadow of the sloping rooftops, the [Summer] sun bled through. As such, Long was forced to block it with a hand. “Fetch me the City Lord,” he called, addressing the blotch that stood where light had temporarily stained his eyes.

The cultivator there quivered. “T-he City Lo-o-ord is no-o-t in resi-dence. Anothe-e-r [Demon T-i-ide] is risen-n.”

Long laughed at the hound of a man, despite the news. “Then I’d speak to the next in command. Her aide? A Secretary? Why, don’t tell me the [Dour Faced Strategist] has fallen so far from grace that protocol is no longer observed.”

“A-a momen-t, ma-aster cultivator.”

Already the heads gathered a swarm of flies, and Long tossed them before the City Lord’s doors.

[Summer] was far from his favoured [Season], and his body was so frail that mortal gripes now rose with regularity. At this too, he laughed, for it conjured a thought.

Men trip not on mountains, but molehills.

And this wisdom conjured something else. A fondness, he realised, and… a facet of mortality he might cling to for a while longer. Companionship. Brotherhood, even. Something newfound. Something, that, despite his current circumstance, he found himself resolute in.

Yes.

When his affairs were settled, he would ask Gao Fu to be his sworn brother.

Which in turn had him laugh again.

How will the wealthiest man in the land react, I wonder?

A voice reached his ears from the doorway, under accompaniment of a surging [Killing Intent]. Enough to stain the air crimson. But he heard none of the words until his reverie ended, finding that as he spoke, the corners of his grin refused to fall.

“The aide?” he greeted. “I-”

“You are courting death-”

“As I have heard,” laughed Long.

“Shameless fool! Our guards are slain by your hand, and here their heads spill upon the hallowed domain of our City Lord!” The voice was revealed to be a buxom woman, as he could deduce from the proximity of her jian to his throat. “However, you have reached this place. Granting you the right to speak before I strike you down. Why have you come, fool?”

“In aid, of course. But I’ll answer your question with one of my own,” grinned Long. “Your City Lord’s daughter, she experiences intermittent chills at midnight, does she not? With a bone-dry fever to follow.”

“I..”

The blade did not so much as nick as it was swiftly retracted from his skin.