I said my goodbyes and walked with Nai on my shoulders. We were small again, taking our time and strolling through the forest and I was back to thinking.

A dao was a big part of a person, but it started somewhere. It started with a feeling. Daos and Laws were different, but in a way, they were the same thing. They were rules, authorities, and concepts.

While laws ruled over physical realities, daos ruled over souls. Things like gravity and time were akin to love and hatred within the human heart. But unlike laws, most of the concepts in a person's head couldn’t persist forever. Time wore down the human mind. Love once and it feels real, so passionate and amazing, but if you live for ten thousand years and love a hundred women, then what?

It felt dull and faded. It unravels and frails at the edges. Then what about norms? Manners? Sanity? The things people held in their minds and never questioned. Morality? Emotions? Purpose? Self?

It would break and crumble. Unlike plants and insects, who lived because they had to, we humans only live because we want to. Whereas a tree grows because it must, we choose to live.

We didn’t know it for the first few hundred years of our life of course. It’s natural. Socially and biologically, we tended to ignore that reality. But the truth is that we choose to live and make that choice over and over again with every breath we take.

But you noticed it with enough time. You felt it, and eventually, you realized there was another choice. Silence, freedom, absolute oblivion. It was inevitable. Some people found a way to live forever, physically that is.

They were called false immortals because while their bodies persisted for eternity, their souls would degrade further and further until they either went mad or became frozen still in apathy.

Others tried to freeze their soul, capturing their personality and trying to put it in permanent stasis. It never worked. The soul was an adapting thing, and it desired to experience, eventually, every safeguard would break.

Even Dane had fallen. He had lasted longer than most. He had wiped out his past emotions, restructuring his soul in some strange ways. To live without a dao, he had broken the part of himself that felt.

I looked towards a group of beavers that huddled in single file towards the center of the forest. Animals. Powerful animals beyond a mortal’s comprehension but animals still.

They were like insects and plants. They lived to conquer, to grow, to be a beast.

Or at least they had.

I still hadn’t had that talk with Lin Tai. Beasts could gain a dao. It wasn’t unheard of. The Dao of The Dragon, the Dao of Tiger. But unlike humans who searched their hearts for their dao, beasts searched their nature. They became more of what they were, and in that, they found meaning.

“Ugh,” Nai said from my shoulders.

“You want to follow the beavers?”

“Ugh.”

We followed them, silently watching the small gods trod their way through the forest floor.

“I don’t get it,” the big one spoke. “If the birds want all the food from the trees, then what are we supposed to eat?”

“The ground stuff,” the smaller beaver yelped. “And the stuff from the waterways. But don’t worry big, that won’t happen.”

Big. What a clever name.

“And why is that?” Big asked.

“Because it’s all upsey downy. At least that’s what the House of Wisdom has said.”

“What do you mean?” Big replied. “Upsey downy?”

“Upsey downy, the laws are all manifesting in the places where they shouldn’t be,” the small one answered.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

This was true. The array had grown, and in its growth, it had started to harvest the laws manifesting around here on its own. It was also manipulating where they manifested. It was the first thing the array had ever done. Ground laws were now manifesting in the air and air laws were manifesting in the ground. The rivers held fire laws and water laws were born in the salamanders’ dwelling.

It was strange, but it was also the reason the beasts were getting along. The array, at its core, was something designed to bring peace. And by forcing the beasts to trade with one another, that was exactly what it was doing.

I was tinkering with it, feeding it my own understanding of peace now and then. But it was its own thing. It was alive and growing and the forest belonged to it.

It forced the beasts to interact and by interacting they had to get along. It was making peace, all on its own accord, and by taking away their struggle it took away their need for nature. And when beasts deserted their nature, then what were they but humans?

I frowned. I didn’t like that. Part of the reason why I felt so okay with using beasts as a source of laws was their nature. They would kill me if they could, so I would use them like metaphysical batteries, and even then, I offered them freedom with a memory wipe.

Thank the Dao that none of them had taken me up on that offer. I had made that deal back when I believed myself to be in the clear. I wouldn’t dare to release one of them now that I knew Tai Jey was after me.

I wouldn’t dare to give him a single clue. But now what? Was I enslaving people? Thinking sentient caring individuals?

I frowned and stared off at the beavers as they waddled on through their territory. My soul fluttered and my dao pushed. Was it peaceful?

What is peace? Is it freedom?

No. It is not freedom, but in a way it was.

Was it strength?

No. It was not strength, but in a way it was.

It was a paradox. Freedom protected by rules. Weakness made possible through strength.

Was keeping the beasts here right?

If they were not here, then they wouldn’t be people. They’d be animals killing and fighting one another for their own instincts.

If they were in the wild, many of them would be dead.

What they wanted would lead them to death and violence and in turn make them unworthy of being free.

A paradox.

My dao settled.

Peace in the self.

Peace in others.

Peace in the world.

Then it clicked and settled, like a puzzle finding its final spot. Enlightenment struck me.

“I see.”

Is that what it was? A paradox,? A limit? Order within chaos and chaos within order.

The memory of the primordial qi flooded me and my crippled soul shivered. What was, what is, and what could be.

Then Nai started tugging on my hair while mumbling some well-organized gibberish. It almost sounded like a language.

“I’m fine,” I replied. Reach up above my head to pat her. “Just thinking.”

We started to walk back home and Nai sat atop my head, banging my skull like a bad bongo player.

Peace was had. Peace was given. And peace was kept.

And each peace was different, and yet very much the same.

My dao broke into the immortal realm as I walked back home. There was no tribulation or divine lightning. I was already beyond the immortal stage, and there was no progression of power or strength.

But there was a little bit more of me than there was before, and there was a warm feeling in my soul that came with it.