The funeral was an oddly prosaic thing for Sen. He wasn’t sure if it was because his role was so mundane, or if he was just incapable of processing the sheer magnitude of the loss. Then again, maybe I’m just getting numb to this kind of thing, he thought. His only role had been to gather the dead. A task made far easier by the fact that he could use wind qi to literally cut away the frozen ground and ice beneath them. It was a relatively simple matter to use that same wind qi to lift and move the bodies to one area. He did make a point of moving them far slower than he could have. He didn’t need the Matriarch or the remaining Order disciples thinking he was treating their dead disrespectfully.

Once he’d gathered them all into piles, though, his role in the process was over. The Matriarch spoke quietly to her remaining disciples for a time. Then, in an act that Sen didn’t entirely approve of given her recent recovery, she used her power to set the bodies alight. They all watched in silence as those unnatural fires consumed the bodies. Falling Leaf had watched all of it with a somewhat perplexed expression. After the fire had been burning for a time, she finally turned to Sen.

“What is the purpose of this?” she asked quietly.

“It serves many purposes,” answered Sen, pitching his voice so it wouldn’t carry. “The ritual is mainly a way for people to say goodbye. It’s also a way to acknowledge and honor the dead. In more practical terms, the ritual discourages the dead from returning as vengeful spirits. This many bodies would also, if left to decompose, become a danger. Burning them helps prevent the spread of disease.”

Falling Leaf still looked as though she didn’t fully understand, but she seemed to accept the practical reasons at face value. She nodded and asked no more questions. Perhaps because the flames were unnaturally hot, the burning took far less time than Sen expected. At that point, the Matriarch and the order disciples began to search through what little was left of their compound. He didn’t know what they were looking for and also didn’t participate beyond a polite offer to help. An offer that was politely but firmly rejected.

Instead, Sen turned his attention to a separate matter. Using a combination of air qi, wind qi, and earth qi, he found and gathered all of the beast cores that had been left in the wake of the battle. Despite their relatively small size, they made a substantial pile. When the Matriarch returned from her search, even she seemed surprised by the pile.

“So many,” she muttered before her face darkened in quiet rage. “No. Not nearly enough. What will you do with them?”

“These are yours,” said Sen. “I only gathered them as a courtesy. If you don’t want or need them, though, I certainly have uses for them.”

The Matriarch studied the pile for most of a minute. Sen worried that she might elect to smash them all in an act of delayed fury. She finally closed her eyes and took a shuddering breath.

“I’ll take any that are strongly fire-attributed. The rest… What are these uses? Will they harm the spirit beasts?”

“Oh yes, they will bring harm to the spirit beasts both directly and indirectly.”

“Then take them and do what you will with them.”

Sen nodded and pulled all of the fire-attributed cores out of the pile. The Matriarch waved a hand over them to place the much smaller pile in a storage ring. Sen followed suit with the larger pile.

“It will be some time before we return to this part of the continent,” said Sen. “Have you gathered what you want?”

“I have. The others should be finished soon. I was tempted to leave them here to rebuild, but I don’t dare. The four of us are the last connections to our path. At least, the last that I know to still live.”

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Were no others away from the compound?”

“There were some away on various tasks and missions. With the world as it is now, would you believe they were still alive?”

Sen shook his head.

“I might hope, perhaps, but I wouldn’t dare believe. Not until I saw them alive with my own eyes.”

“My thoughts exactly. I will hold out careful hope, but that is all.”

“As you say, Matriarch.”

The two fell into an uncomfortable silence for several long moments before the Matriarch sighed.

“I dislike this.”

“This?” asked Sen.

“Your teachers propping you up as some kind of emperor. It’s unnatural.”

Sen took a moment to get a grip on his anger before he spoke.

“I assure you, Matriarch, there was no one propping me up when I destroyed an army of spirit beasts that numbered in the hundreds of thousands.”

“What?” she asked in a flat voice.

“The spirit beasts launched an attack on the capital. It was clear that they meant to raze the city. I put a stop to it. I didn’t kill every spirit beast that died during that siege, but I killed most of them.”

She was silent for a long moment before she asked, “How?”

“Violently,” answered Sen. “Do you remember what I did in the sky here?”

“Yes.”

“I did the same thing there. Except, in the capital, I incorporated some new things. I also didn’t stop. When we rejoin the army, feel free to ask the cultivators and the mortal generals what they saw and felt. Then, if you still want to call me a puppet, there might be something to discuss. Until then, I suggest you choose your words with greater care.”

“Choose my words with greater care? I’m the senior here. I’m the stronger.”

“No,” said Sen with absolute certainty. “You only think you’re stronger. If you test that assumption, you will fail. Like it or not, this country is mine. Soon enough, everything this side of the Mountains of Sorrow will be mine. I’m content enough to let all these sects and orders continue to exist in my domain for the moment. They serve a function, however ineptly. But never mistake my tolerance for weakness. All you will find down that path is death.”

The Matriarch remained silent as she studied him. He felt her qi try to assess him and rebuffed it. He remembered when the thought of offending any nascent soul cultivator was enough to make him shudder. Now, it was increasingly difficult to dredge up those fearful emotions. He knew that there were still nascent soul cultivators who could kill him, but there were just so many other threats, larger threats, that they didn’t frighten him the way they once did. If one of those excessively powerful cultivators did show up to kill him, he’d fight. He’d likely lose, but he wouldn’t die in fear. He’d die doing everything in his power to drag them down into the thousand hells with him. The Matriarch must have read that truth on his face, because she was the one to look away.

“You’ve changed a great deal from that young cultivator who came here before.”

“I’ve had to. That man,” said Sen, “had the luxury of retaining some innocence. He still believed that there were better ways than might makes right.”

“You don’t believe that now.”

“I believe it more than ever. I just know that it’s an impossible dream in the face of genocide. There’s only one path forward for any of us. You know that as well as I do.”

“I do,” agreed the Matriarch.

“I will bring peace to these lands. I might have to drown the world in blood to do it, but we will have peace. And once we have it, if I need to break every last cultivator to keep that peace, I’ll do that too.”

“Do you really believe you’ll have that kind of power?”

“Matriarch,” said Sen, “I think the real question is, do you honestly believe I won’t?”

“Is this your way of telling me to pick the right side?”

“I’m not threatening you. I’m informing you so that, when the war is over, you understand what my priorities are. If you come back here, rebuild your order, and don’t threaten the peace, I don’t see why we’d ever come into conflict. If you come back here, rebuild your order, and decide to carve out your own little kingdom, I will crush you. In the meantime, though, throwing in with me gets you what you really want.”

“Which is?”

“The opportunity to kill spirit beasts until even your heart demon is sated.”

“What makes you think I have a heart demon?” demanded the Matriarch.

Sen gave her a sad smile and asked, “How could you not, after all this? Also, you agreed to come with us too quickly. It might well be the right choice, but you barely asked me anything. That kind of decision-making is, well, let’s say that it’s familiar to me.”

“You had a heart demon?”

“I did.”

“And how did you resolve it?”

“Well, I fought a dragon,” said Sen. “But I’m not sure that would work for anyone else.”