On a frozen lake high in the Shrouded Peaks, He Yu trained. Spires of ice formed pillars like a forest of blue glass. He Yu stood atop one such pillar near the lake’s center, sweating despite the cold. Zhang Lifen stood upon the shore, her bow of qilin horn and black wood in hand. A gleaming arrow of qi coalesced as she drew back the string.

Beneath him, the pillar of ice exploded into a thousand glittering shards. He was already twisting through the air in the grip of the Sky Dragon’s Flight, carried by the wind away from the destruction wrought by her technique.

She’d shared the name of her bow art with him after their “real training” began—the Heart Piercing Black Rain. For all her flowing movements and outer calm, Zhang Lifen was an aggressive and ruthless fighter. When using her bow art, her presence was more like the raging of a rain-swollen river surging over the top of its banks than the placid, glassy expanse of her calmer moments.

A shift in the lake’s qi, and in He Yu’s perception of his mentor’s presence, was all the warning he had. His instincts kicked in and he wrenched himself away from the incoming barrage of arrows. She’d somehow gotten above him. This most recent volley came from atop a nearby waterfall that had frozen to a cascade of ice in the deep winter cold.

Although she kept her cultivation base restrained to that of a peak Golden Core—the same stage she’d been when he’d first met her—Zhang Lifen’s spirit was as potent as ever. Her presence surged out, carrying with it countless tons of raging water.

It was one thing to know, intellectually, that water could be a force for destruction. It was quite another thing to face down an immortal who embodied that aspect of the element. Her spirit churned and crashed, sweeping away all that stood in its path. A flash flood could wipe away a village, and a rain fattened river could drown a city. Both paled compared to Zhang Lifen unleashed.

A brief formation of the Bracing Wind was enough to deflect the incoming barrage of arrows. Enough to give him time to gather himself and face whatever she would throw at him next. Zhang Lifen was shockingly like Princess Tan in the way she fought—relentless and aggressive. She gave him no time to think, no time to form a plan. He Yu supposed he ought to be grateful for it.

If there was one thing he’d learned in his time at the sect, it was that he sorely lacked in practical combat experience. Sure, he’d come in second place when he’d entered the inner sect. He’d won a fair number of duels in his early days, too. He’d also taken on three of the top-ranked Third Realm disciples at once and beaten them easily. But then the other Golden Cores had taken notice of him. Recently, he’d been tasting defeat far more often than he cared to admit.

A crashing river overflowed its banks a mere foot away from him. He twisted once more, but to no avail. Zhang Lifen’s fist slammed into him with the force of a flood. Next thing He Yu knew, he was on the ground, picking himself up out of a snowdrift. Above him, standing atop one of the myriad pillars of ice, Zhang Lifen aimed her bow at his heart.

He Yu braced himself using his guandao and held up a hand, acknowledging his defeat.

An instant later, Zhang Lifen was next to him. “Better,” she said, the cold demeanor of a ruthless warrior gone.

Sending his guandao back to his storage treasure, He Yu sat down atop a nearby boulder. “I didn’t use the Spring Rain Mirror,” he said before biting down on a restorative pill. Revitalizing qi flooded his meridians, and he cycled it according to the Cloud Emperor’s Peerless Judgment as he readied himself for their next round.

“And why is that?” Zhang Lifen stood before him, hands folded in the sleeves of her gown and an appraising look on her face.

“It wouldn’t be any good. Water against water. There’s no interaction that would benefit me.” His spirit twinged. That wasn’t the whole reason. “And I didn’t think it would be any good. I still can’t manifest it fast enough to counter your attacks.”

“We’ll have to work on that, then.”

Rather than sigh inwardly and lament his awful fortune as he would have just a year ago, He Yu simply nodded and made a small noise of affirmation. Since coming to the inner sect if there was one thing he’d learned about Zhang Lifen, it was that her reputation was well-earned. Prodigy was almost an understatement.

When she’d taken him out to the rocky badlands in the far east of the sect’s territory, she’d given him the keys to the Fourth Realm. Their nightly discussions on his Way and her questions on what he believed, had guided him to answers for questions he hadn’t yet thought to ask. The infuriating training where he simply tried to strike her with a single technique had served him well. Long before he’d succeeded.

Even now, he saw this training intended to shore up what she considered a deficiency of his. He couldn’t deny that since the “real training” had begun, he’d slowly started winning more duels than the fairly even split that had marked his first steps in the Fourth Realm. His battle instincts were becoming sharper. He was coming to view offense and defense as two intimately related aspects rather than separate considerations. According to her, he was getting “better.”

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He’d come a long way, all things considered. Still, he had a long way yet to go.

He held firm to all those memories of facing down Sha Xiang when she seemed an insurmountable challenge. The memories of that overwhelming presence approaching when Zhang Lifen had told him to flee King Hao’s camp. The vision granted of the Sunset Empress’s suppression, and how effortlessly she’d slain more than a dozen experts that were supposedly her equals.

He had so far to go.

If one counted the realms themselves, he was just about halfway to his goal. But the further he advanced, the more he realized how wrong it was to think in those terms. He was still at the foot of the mountain, so to speak. Zhang Lifen had once told him that each realm was a wider river than the last. From where he stood, each stage of Golden Core was worth an entire lower realm on its own. He was still firmly at the early stage of Golden Core. The easy part, it seemed, was well and truly over.

Just before the sun dipped below the mountains to the west, Zhang Lifen called a halt to their training for the day. As they walked the path back to the sect proper, He Yu took his monthly Grade IV Qi Alignment pill. Since reaching Golden Core, the pill was much easier to handle, and he could carry on a conversation while he cycled it.

“The others will break through soon, I suspect,” Zhang Lifen said as they walked the snowy path that wound through the red pines blanketing the slopes of the Shrouded Peaks.

“Is that why you’ve been including them in training more frequently?” he asked. Li Heng had reached peak Body Refining shortly after He Yu had broken through. Both Yan Shirong and Chen Fei had done the same within the past few months. Unsurprisingly, Tan Xiaoling had already formed her Golden Core.

“In a sense,” Zhang Lifen said, taking a more serious tone. “With Sha Xiang and Cui Bao gone from the sect, and the Sunset Court now all but absent, we have a limited opportunity to act on what little information we’ve gained.”

He Yu didn’t mention the unspoken implications of her words. Sha Xiang had been expelled from the sect because of him. Well, it was her fault, really, for using that technique so recklessly. But He Yu couldn’t deny that he was the one who’d pushed her to it. Cui Bao had left shortly after, but that was hardly He Yu’s responsibility. Of course, the fight had happened at Zhang Lifen’s suggestion to begin with.

“Now that you’re Golden Core, you’ll be expected to take on greater responsibilities within the sect,” Zhang Lifen began. “Among them, you’ll be part of our efforts to root out the Sunset Court from the sect lands. We’ll be using whatever information we’ve come across to strike as heavy a blow as possible. It’s far from ideal, but that’s what Master Cai has told me.

“You’ll be put in charge of a squad of Third Realm disciples, at least for missions that are deemed appropriate for the inner sect’s rank-and-file. For more dangerous assignments, you’ll likely be paired with Tan Xiaoling. Ideally, your other friends will reach the Fourth Realm soon, and all five of you can be used to your fullest potential. Of course, for truly dangerous missions, you’ll be along as support for someone like myself if you’re allowed to come at all.”

He Yu chewed on the information for a few moments as they walked. The idea of being placed in charge of a group of lower realm disciples didn’t sit quite right with him. A large part of that was the lingering memories of that cursed valley in the western wilds. That overwhelming sense of covetousness at the mere idea of leading, of having authority over others.

The feeling had been due to Jin Xifeng’s influence. They’d been well within the lands she’d claimed over her thousand years within the Dawn Palace. Still, its lingering memory made the prospect of leading others something he wasn’t wholly comfortable with yet. So he shifted the subject.

“I guess that means I won’t have much time for sect assignments.”

“Quite the contrary,” Zhang Lifen said. “You’ll still need to fulfill all your other duties. Of course, you’ll be compensated handsomely for the official assignments, and then there’s all the loot you’ll access. But even that won’t be enough.”

He’d been afraid she’d say something like that. Although he shouldn’t have expected any differently, and he supposed it made sense enough. His expenses had skyrocketed since reaching Golden Core, and he barely had the funds to keep up. If only he wasn’t having so much trouble actually completing jobs for the sect. He let that go. It wasn’t something that he should trouble Zhang Lifen with. Whatever the explanation was, he didn’t think it right to lean on her for all his troubles.

“So when will the assignments against the Sunset Court come down?” It had been half a year since Sha Xiang left the sect. He Yu couldn’t imagine that they’d wait much longer.

“I’ll be meeting with the elders in a few days. I suspect the major campaign against them will begin with spring.”

That left at least another month or two. He Yu wasn’t certain what sort of assignments they’d be sending him on, but he knew they’d be easier if he could shore up his cultivation base.

“I’d better get to work,” he said.

Zhang Lifen stopped in the path and fixed him with a serious look. “The Court is a dangerous organization. Your experience with Sha Xiang, and Xiao Jun before her, isn’t representative of what they’re capable of.”

In the fading light, her swirling cerulean eyes were oddly bright. A fitting contrast to the growing shadows and gloom. The bark of the surrounding trees was almost black, and the path would be all but invisible to a mortal’s eyes. Even with his enhanced senses, He Yu couldn’t see half as well as he would have liked. But he could make out the expression his mentor wore. It was lacking in all her usual expressions—mockery, playful dismissal, flippant disregard.

He nodded. “I’ll be ready.”

“No,” she said, sounding almost regretful. “You won’t.”

It wasn’t an indictment of his ability. Not in the least. He’d felt the approach of the one of the Court’s number. He’d heard the rumors that circulated in the sect after Zhang Lifen’s return. He’d felt the touch of the Sunset Empress himself.

“I’ll rise to whatever challenge I need to,” he said.

Zhang Lifen silently regarded him for a moment more. “See that you do,” she said.

They walked the rest of the path in silence. It felt appropriate. He Yu couldn’t have said exactly why, but somehow the idea that the sect’s assault on the Court would coincide with the coming of spring should be a reason for hope. He hoped that Zhang Lifen was overreacting. He hoped his fears were simply born from facing down a massive unknown.

Spring would come. They would smash the Court. Then he could go back to focusing on advancement. When the time finally came that the Empress broke out of her cage, he would be ready.