Rin Wi’s blades crossed together as she leaped into the midst of the storm. Her heart was firm and her body was willing, but her mind, her mind was yet to gather.

Strange feelings bubbled inside of her. Fear and joy, love and hatred, eagerness and caution, an antithesis of emotion filled her very being. She could feel her dantians, each of them as mortal as her, but pulsating immortal qi vigorously. They were trying to grow, to strengthen and leap beyond the mortal realm.

But they needed a Dao.

Rin Wi had that, she realized. She had a dao and she had discarded it and that was the thing that pushed her over the edge.

Daos were a tricky thing to understand. They were the blood of the soul, the thing that could keep an immortal’s will alive after billions of years, and so very vital to cultivation.

Rin Wi’s dao was one that had been bred into her since birth, ingrained upon her being for hundreds of years. She could see it floating and mixing with the immortal qi before her. It was trying to come back, trying to weasel its way back into her soul.

She held the blades firmly. She would not let it.

The qi coalesced, sinking into one place above the clouds. Rin Wi watched from her spot in the clouds unsure of what would happen next.

“Listen, kid,” a voice suddenly spoke.

Rin Wi spun to her left to see the honored master there floating beside her.

“You’re going to have to fight this one out,” he continued.

Thunder roared from a distance.

“This is a rare form of tribulation, and the cons-”

Then lightning struck him. It struck him with more force and fury than Rin Wi had ever witnessed. It was as if a solid pillar of qi and flame had descended upon his being and burnt him to a crisp.

The honored master sighed, completely unaffected by the attack.

“The cons-”

Then again, the lightning struck.

“Would you relax?” The man yelled up to the sky. “I’m not aiding her in combat, this is purely advice. Advice I would have gotten to give her if we were given time to prepare. Nothing less than those little scions you treat so nicely.”

Thunder roared once more.

“Yeah, yeah. Well, you don’t really have a choice, do you?”

The lightning came again, but this time before it could strike. The honored master merely raised his hand and smacked it away, sending the thing reeling back to where it came from.

Space shuttered and a moment later, held still.

“Old realm still thinks it can beat me,” the honored master muttered. “Give us a minute and I’ll let you be, alright?”

There was an almost audible silence and the honored master smiled and nodded his head.

“Alright, what you’re facing is a rare form of tribulation called a demonic self. Normally when you ascend to the immortal realm, you expel qi, the realm rapidly tries to shove it back into you and you fight the realm while slowly reabsorbing your qi until you can both settle down. But this time, you didn’t only expel your immortal qi, but you also discarded your dao in the process, immediately picking up a whole new one as you did so.”

As the master talked the dense welling of qi grew and the storm clouds started to fade, each leaking their qi into the well.

“Due to that, you’ve effectively formed a dao angel. A coalition of your immortal qi and your previous dao.”

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The well of qi took a humanoid shape, settling itself into a figure. It glowed for a moment, its face and form being a vague human-like figure, but Rin Wi knew what it was.

The light faded and there stood a woman. She was draped in a long and delicate robe and on it was the emblem of a dragon on a chain, the symbol of the Divine Beast Emporium. Her hair was a long dark-gold color and reached down to below her waist. She held a sword in her hands, one that Rin Wi was all too familiar with, a sword that Rin Wi had owned and practiced with many times before.

“Look at you,” her copy spoke. “You’re a disappointment. A broken tool.”

The woman wore Rin Wi’s old clothes and held her old weapon. She was a clone of Rin, down to her very qi.

“Then what does that make you?” Rin asked curiously.

“Why I’m the working version, the undulled blade. You’ve clearly discarded your purpose, choosing to cut vegetables and serve mortals instead of those beyond you. You’ve forgotten your place, reaching to have things you aren’t meant to have.”

“Oh really?” Rin Wi asked with a spin of her cleaver. “Seems like you’re the one who's forgotten her purpose. A discarded dao rebelling against her cultivator, now that’s a broken tool.”

The clone made a disgusted face.

“Rebelling?” the copy asked. “Was it rebelling when you served your betters? Was it rebelling when you knew your place and gained joy from a job well done? You had your purpose. You had me to guide you through your journey. It was I who showed you the purpose of servitude and the glory of your masters. And it was I who fueled you through decades of punishment when you failed to do your job.”

“I showed you a path forward! I pulled you through pain and sorrows until you stood at the pinnacle of your usefulness! A blade sharper than all! AND IF YOU HADN’T WAVERED THEN THE MASTER WOULDN’T HAVE TOSSED YOU TO THE SIDE WITH SUCH LITTLE CARE!” The dao yelled out.

The honored master whistled next to her.

“She’s a pissy sport,” he mumbled.

Rin Wi was about to respond, but the man interrupted her.

“Don’t speak. She can’t see me or sense me. That is the dao of servitude, after all, if she sees me she’ll immediately declare me her master and refuse to fight. And Rin, trust me when I say you will need to fight her. There’s no way around it. Dao angels are rare and Dao angels that are the byproduct of a single cultivator are even rarer. But if you don’t end this now then the rest of your path forward will be filled with heart demons and self-doubt. She’ll worm her way into your soul and will refuse to leave. So you gotta end this, understand?”

Rin Wi was still staring at her copy, studying the woman’s figure through the clouds. Then she nodded and headed straight for her clone.

Cleaver met sword and knife met hilt during their first clash and sparks flew from the point of impact, echoing loudly through the skies. More blows were traded, one striking an ancient immortal sword and the other with a mortal’s kitchen knife.

Two hundred clashes rang in a single instant and then they both leaped back, each having tested the other.

Rin Wi was damaged, having endured injuries from the lightning tribulation, she was already walking into the fight at a disadvantage. And her clone, while unable to generate qi, due to the lack of dantians, was bursting with the bits of immortal qi that Rin Wi had failed to absorb.

She was effectively fighting an immortal, a task she would have deemed impossible if not for one fact. The honored master had told her to win. He had told her that she, Rin Wi, needed to beat this demonic self tribulation, and Rin Wi believed that the honored master wouldn’t say that unless she had a chance.

This time, the clone initiated the attacks, slashing at Rin with her sword. Rin blocked and defended with her cleaver, but the clone was fast. She struck again and Rin moved the knife to parry, but she was too slow. The copy’s blade struck through her right shoulder, barely missing the bone.

Rin pushed her foot against her opponent’s chest and propelled herself off the blade, finding herself floating a good distance away.

“You have no laws, no strengths, hells you wouldn’t even know how to swing a sword if it wasn’t for me,” the clone mocked.

Rin clutched her wound, trying her best to mitigate the invading qi. It was rough, moving through her muscles like a worm eating a leaf. The cut had been clean and the qi had been brought into her with precision, just as she would’ve done it.

Rin Wi breathed heavily as her clone approached. Could she win this?

The clone swung again and this time Rin Wi dodged, bringing herself beneath the blade and pushing against the air behind her. But again, the immortal clone was faster. Another stab wound appeared on the opposite shoulder this time.

Rin Wi grimaced as she looked up at her assailant.

“Always distracted,” her clone muttered.

Rin pushed off, unskewering herself off the woman and falling to the ground beneath. She landed with one folded and both arms limp.

“Always so stubborn,” her clone spoke, seeming to appear directly in front of her.

Rin Wi pushed back, barely avoiding the blade at her neck. The clone didn’t let up and followed her retreat, swinging lazily in her pursuit.

The attacks were simple, lacking in laws and strength, but they were from an immortal. Each swing could level mountain ranges and cut through valleys and yet for some reason, here Rin Wi stood fighting her.

“Even if I shall fade, I will make sure to take you with me,” the dao angel spat. “One last cleaning before it ends.”