Grisla wandered again. He knew, of course, it was a terrible idea considering what had just happened earlier. Afterwards, his innocence and inexperience led him to a wonderfully disastrous scenario: He was lost. This backwater section of Leimuth was a maze for one not reared in such a decrepit place. And ask for directions, you say? Grisla hailed one, who scurried off before he’d even finished a sentence. Another wanted a house, two wives and a horse in exchange, now he wasn’t sure if he was being serious or not. Still, that was an additional attempt.

It also turns out that beating down believably the biggest threat on these streets doesn’t deter more robbery attempts. He broke a shin into two on a spark of annoyance. Stepping over some more bodies and walking back to the main street; he looked both ways. Both ends to what place? A strategy came to him, one tested since ancient times. He’ll just… retrace his steps. However long had passed, he hadn’t a clue. That was the indicator of his screw up, arriving overdue.

If he were to miss or be late to Xinrei’s coronation—the heavens would be powerless to save him from the clan’s fury. And, given the recent swing of his father’s mood, it wouldn’t help him either. He did think about that, it was strange. Out of place, for the Patriarch to be there, but why? Grisla stopped. He wasn’t even gazing at anyone, but whomever it so happened to be in its way—they took the closest corner turn away.

  It wasn’t my father’s mood alone that was different.

He sighed. Whatever the illness that affected them, surely, it wasn’t part of his concern.

Grisla made a step, then—a breath rolled down his spine. The young cultivator flipped himself to face his back, spiritual sense a tsunami over the everything in his vision. So much poured, that without a hint, he could accurately point out any form of life within his field. There was some strange, unpleasantness that vacationed in his mind suddenly. Where did it come from?

In his eyes, there was nothing. Unless he counted the stragglers abound, who watched him just as he watched them. Scared stiff, they wouldn’t try anything. Surely, someone would’ve told him he’s being overly anxious. But his feeling didn’t lie to him.

Grisla heard children playing in the alley across, kicking a ball. Afar from that, a couple going about their business. Ordinary people.

That feeling didn’t subside in the least. In fact, as he turned around to ignore that weirdness within, it multiplied.

He picked up his pace. Speed-walking to anywhere but here. It didn’t matter. Two turns and a duck into a corner restaurant had that feeling subside, a bit. Grisla decided to lighten up while inside, ordering the local duck on the menu.

Watching the outside like a lonesome pet, he let a bite pass through, regardless of how much he liked or hated the dish served, his attention didn’t drift for a second from his post. There was something wrong, for sure.

Grisla was the Chosen of the Grittus clan, sitting as a son of heaven at eleven by way of being a seventh cycle in Solidification. On the clan’s estimates, he’ll be a Houtian level warrior by the time he’s fifteen. An assured fast track to High Elder status later in life. And, this individual, was afraid of an unknown that’s better described as a trick of the mind?

He wasn’t thrilled enough for a laugh.

The wrongness that pervaded him packed up and left. Without so much as a goodbye, and yes, it did leave him to wonder if his mind was sputtering out on him, was it an early sign of senility later? Grisla shuddered at the thought, even if it was entertained as a joke. So, he left his table with the payment, and a little bit of extra because why not, and as a “motivator,” to allow passage out the back door.

In the narrow alley he checked his six and twelve, when, he concluded it was all but an illusion. He walked. But then a woman landed from above, cackling.

The sensation, that feeling—it’s her! Grisla frowned; hands subtly building up Juva.

  “Greetings, Elder Sister?” he said.

The stranger wore a conical hat, her robes were one size too big for her, as they mopped up the filth of the earth, with every sway of her posture. Speaking about that, she rocked no identifying colors that would better mark her origins or affiliation. After Grisla’s question, what came from the other end of the line… was just a chuckle again. She tilted her head, “Oh, it’s such a heartbreak, little one.”

  “A heartbreak indeed.”

Without needing anymore said, “Excuse me?” his aura awoke from its slumber.

“Here,” she reached inside her clothes, and from out of it, a vial, “drink this, and there won’t have to be an issue.” Clutched between two dreadful fingers, was a substance that bubbled and shivered as if it were alive. It wasn’t that which caught Grisla’s attention. It was the color—so vivid and fresh on his mind you could swab it with a finger. The same inklike dye which painted the thug's daggers a while ago.

  Grisla’s voice raised, “You dare!”

  “Dare I do,” she smirked, “now drink.”

Dashing towards her, his hand imitating a sword: he’ll skewer her first, then drag her body through as many streets and intersections as required to get back to the Upper District, to face the clan’s justice. Assaulting a clan member, and assaulting a Chosen on top of that? Her fate was sealed. Likely, her family was in addition to that. They’ll kill her family, murder the pets, erase the registry, burn the house then salt the earth—and whatever remained will be left as a reminder, forever. It was not his desire to hear of such a cruel fate, but…

His life isn’t cheap. She watched him close the distance, vial outstretched still; eyes shrouded because of her hat. Her free hand slapped his away and tried to seize his throat with the same one. Grisla saw the motion and retreated faster than his charge, boots skidding across the stone. The woman giggled again, she was reminding him of the option, shaking the vial to him.

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That first exchange alone, had a realization dawn on him—she was not simple. Crazy enough to attack him, but not a stupid dream to realize it. His sense probed her like searching through a child’s toybox. And…

His pupils shrunk. There was nothing. She was no different than a mortal, what a lie. His reinforced hand could shear off brick and drag smaller trees out by the root. If he couldn’t sense her level, then… that means…

Houtian level, or higher.

  “Who hired you?” He demanded.

  Ignoring that, “My final warning, boy,” she said.

He sneered. Grisla’s legs catapulted him from street level, gliding on air to land on the rooftops. He didn’t make it far—the lady’s figure was in front, and she slapped him hard enough that the boy tumbled with double the force it took to ascend. The boy’s body met the earth as if he’d fallen out of a wheelchair.

  “Y-you… will, regret…”

She yanked his head up, “Maybe, if my employer stiffs me. Which I doubt he would, even he respects the Guild. But we’re not talking about me, we’re talking about you. Now, since you declined so harshly at my offer, I’ll have no choice but to force your medicine on you.” After the cork was popped with her thumb, a vapor ran from its prison.

When she forced it close to his face, he swore he could feel the very vapor itself irritating his skin, telling him all he needs to know about it. “A word of advice: don’t strain yourself or you’ll shatter what’s left of it.”

  Left of what?

Grisla fought her control, but it was like trying to fight against a collar. He wasn’t even able to turn his lips away from it. “Get off me!”

  “When you drink your dosage, I will.”

  Her faux motherly smile widened, “Don’t spill a drop, okay?”

Her hand that held Grisla briefly released him, for a breath at most. It might as well have been a minute in cultivator time, it made no difference, for as soon as he wanted to dart for freedom, an elbow unmercifully speared his spine; the cause and effect shot his jaw open. That was her idea. The vial’s liquid was poured—insomuch that the boy looked as if he was choking.

It was like a slighted blacksmith had the idea to drizzle molten metal down his throat. His thrashing in the alleyway, suitably ignored by the very people who live their day-to-day head-tucked, eyes front. Besides, he did ask them earlier if he could go about his travel uninterrupted. In the sick irony, his wish came true.

The biggest source of his agony was sudden. Inside, where his core lay; beautifully bright, a pearl shine. However, like someone put a shade over the light, it dimmed in cycles. Fractures thinner than hairs appeared. And some did a victory lap across the surface when just one wasn’t enough.

Grisla’s Juva, which was a dancing flare before, simmered down to a humble candlelight. The pain overwhelmed him, the shock blew his mind into a freefall, then the feeling—the sensation that his entire body, his strength was being sapped from him as if the woman stabbed him with a straw, forced him to cope the only way his body knew how—by turning the lights out.

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A time later, the boy’s limp body was thrown over an examiner’s table. The light that occupied the room was the sole one in there, if you asked the three figures in there, they wouldn’t have minded it. In fact, the light was so powerful it managed to leak off the table and reach their feet partway. Then, a finger snapped. Violet torches came alit behind them.

Someone groaned.

  Ancestor Hao clicked his teeth, “Was it necessary to roughhouse him?”

  “I don’t remember you defining the parameters of his capture. He fought back, what was I to do?”

  “…Capture him?”

  “It’s not every day you get a look at a future genius, or,” the woman sneered below her hat, “was.”

  Inside the darkness of an arched doorway, Patriarch Meng walked through. The two watched him. Meng hadn’t even tied his hair up properly, or a change in wardrobe since the spar session he presided on. A man with anxiety painted to his face.

  “You’ve forgotten to dry your hair, Meng.” The Ancestor said. His son, however waved it off as a triviality. The Ancestor did glance to the water droppings left in his wake though. Frowning, “There’s no need to rush.”

  “Oh, but there is, father.” he smiled awkwardly. “There is, indeed. See,” once his feet stopped, he was in front of Grisla, examining the boy like a unique specimen. “he would’ve been the second coming of Gihren, maybe better. How are you not worried about him like I? He has all the reasons, if he learned the truth of what you did to his mother before—”

  “And… so?” For once, the Ancestor laughed. “What does that mean? What good does it do for him? Truth and fiction are intertwined and manipulated at a whim, but for those who walk the Path and seek what they must know, are always presented with something that they themselves cannot overcome. Decay. Death. Entropy. Less dramatic, and it’s the reality that one boy and his crippled father will never be able to stand against you, Xinrei, me and my clan. The fact you’re so afraid of a nobody should be a lesson of how weak you’ve become.”

The Ancestor’s crow came from nowhere, darting for the Patriarch who stood frozen while the animal took its place on his shoulder. It cawed as if it shared its master’s thoughts.

He came to his son’s face. “The strength of a man, but with the resolve of a little girl. If that is so, why did you start this gamble in the first place, hmm?” Knowing what he’d said, to who he had said, he glanced over his shoulder to their hired muscle; aura unveiled, and…

Leimuth shook.

Weeks later, it would be surmised that the earth’s tossing and turning in its slumber had caused such a violent quake unprovoked. To the public; for the mortals. Cultivators took it as a sign of distress, but with nothing changed in their small kingdom, the burden of knowledge would lead to questions they’re not permitted to ask. Live and let it die.

Their hired assassin trembled with the world. The Ancestor’s Beyond Mortal: First Stage cultivation swept over her, reminding of exactly—her place within this room. Ancestor Hao tilted his head at her. But then—

  “I’ve changed my mind,” he said, arm raised towards her; hand outstretched as if he was holding a ball.

  “No…! Wait! The G—" The assassin clutched her throat. Her legs fought with gravity, her Juva tried to push a mountain.

  “What their hired underlings don’t know, is that with enough payment you can opt-in for a bonus: eternal silence. Had you been someone of note, maybe even a realm higher you’d be exempt from this. Nobody in their right mind would be a bottom feeding assassin with such an asterisk, so it’s a well-kept Guild secret.”

The words she somehow managed to squeak out were all but expected: the pleas for mercy; swearing on their life, honor and soul that the secret could be regarded like she was dead; trying to make bargain deals and trades, this one amused the two, for what could a mere Houtian Enhancement cultivator have to offer a Patriarch and an Ancestor? The Ancestor did give her a mercy, though. What with her squeals that annoyed her executor, he granted a swift end in the form of a broken neck.

She lay limp behind them as a broken toy.

It had always chilled him, if Patriarch Meng thought about it. How easily his father, known notably as a man with sympathy surpassing most he’d assume at his level, could flip when times like these occur, when troubles threaten the clan’s stability—and do whatever cruelty he must to ensure their survival beyond his era. But it didn’t make sense. If you thought about Grisla, normally he would’ve been dead under all circumstances. Tearing up roots and cleaning house is a repeated tale ad nauseum.

However, his bottom line seemed to be his clan. Grisla was, by all rights, a loosely related relative of his, from wherever the branch split. It can be inferred that being a kinslayer completely contradicted everything about his potential for devilry inside of him, and so, murder was always off limits. Which is why they’re here.

  The Patriarch sighed. “So, what’s his status?”