Distant peals of thunder sounded in Cui Bao’s ears. A guandao, sparking with golden arcs of heaven, pointed towards his heart. He Yu. That stupid, weak piece of shit loomed over him. Towering to the heavens, clouds gathered around him. Brilliant flashes of light cast him in stark relief.

This shouldn’t be happening. He’d done everything Kong Huizhong had said. He’d earned elixir after elixir, a mountain of spirit stones, and even a small band of lower-ranked cultivators to command. How had it all crumbled so fast?

Fire qi surged through his meridians as he poured what little qi he had left into the Seven Blazing Calamities. Embers burst from his twinned hatchets. Flames leaped from his feet. He launched himself like the leopard he was at this brainless country bumpkin from a no-name town in the south.

A disk of water qi turned aside one strike, then the other. In the space between heartbeats, a knee slammed into Cui Bao’s gut, followed by a burst of wind that had somehow come alive with crackling arcs of heaven. Again, he stumbled backward. An instant later He Yu was right there, that guandao of his raised for another massive overhand strike.

With a blaze of motion, Cui Bao slid into the opening. A sweeping cross cut with his hatchets glanced off that blue disc, and Cui Bao found himself exposed, out of position. Lightning crashed down upon him. He fell to one knee. He could almost swear that in the space between attacks, he heard the distant beating of a drum.

A thrust came for him now. Scintillating flashes arced along the polearm’s length. The air had taken on a sharp, pungent scent as they destroyed the glade around the workshop with their battle. Ash and smoke from half a dozen small fires, steam from rain falling upon the same, and the increasingly sharp ache in Cui Bao’s meridians. It was getting harder to deny he was on the losing end of this one.

Somehow, he brought his hatchets up in time, and turned away the larger weapon. It still knocked him back a bit. Cui Bao caught himself, then launched into another attack with an animalistic snarl.

How could He Yu have gotten this strong? They were at the same stage. Sure, He Yu had been at Golden Core for over a year longer, but Cui Bao had been advancing through the low Fourth Realm quickly, according to Kong Huizhong. The gap between them shouldn’t be anywhere this large.

Cui Bao launched a flurry of strikes at He Yu—faster and more ferocious than any he’d ever managed before. He Yu turned all of them aside. That technique of his flashed into the space where Cui Bao had meant to strike, and his hatchet would just slide off it before the disk winked out.

Hatchets clashed against the metal haft of He Yu’s guandao, sending up a shower of sparks and embers. Anything He Yu didn’t deflect or block, he simply dodged. How did he find the space? Cui Bao’s fighting style got him in close—nobody should be able to dodge him so reliably.

All the while, He Yu looked like he was hardly trying. Each sweep of his guandao brought with it a burst of wind and a crescent blade of heaven. That blue disk flashed in and out almost faster than Cui Bao could track. He Yu’s movements were easy, controlled. Almost as if he could see the attacks before Cui Bao had even committed. A far cry from that bumbling little First Realm who had barely held his own in a simple brawl during their first months at the sect.

Pain exploded in Cui Bao’s chest. He stumbled for what felt like the hundredth time. This time he didn’t catch himself. Cui Bao wasn’t exactly sure when the next strike had come, but now his left arm was gone from the elbow down. It didn’t even hurt anymore.

The last thing he heard was the howl of wind, and the sharp crackle of heaven as the full weight of He Yu’s killing intent found its mark.

* * *

When Cui Bao’s lifeless body hit the dirt, his head following an instant later, He Yu felt no joy. But neither did he feel regret. He wouldn’t pretend this was something noble. It wasn’t. But Cui Bao was complicit in what He Yu had seen inside the now-ruined workshop. For all he knew, Cui Bao could have easily been the source of a good number of those corpses. For those inside, it was a small measure of justice.

He Yu knew this was something he’d have to deal with at some point. Something he’d have to reconcile, that tension between his ideals and what they may demand of him. However, there were more immediate concerns.

To one side, a mass of shadows resolved itself into Yan Shirong. “It’s better this way,” he said, waving at Cui Bao’s headless body. “If you left him alive, he would have alerted the rest of the court.”

“We’re not safe yet,” He Yu said. “There might be others on the way. We should leave quickly.”

Yan Shirong stooped down and set about to searching Cui Bao. He Yu turned away. As much because he didn’t want to make anything of it as because he wanted to check on Chen Fei.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

A few dozen feet away, he saw her kneeling next to a motionless figure. He Yu took a deep breath as he approached, steeling himself for what he was almost certain he would find based on the color and style of the figure’s robes.

As he approached, she looked up at him, eyes red and pained. “I tried to keep him safe,” she said. Her voice hitched.

“It’s not your fault.” He Yu looked down at Zhu Fang’s body. His skull had been caved in by a heavy strike of some sort. The Third Realm cultivator who’d done it lay a short distance away, unmoving. They were a good way away from where all the fighting had started. It was easy to see that he’d gotten isolated. Too far away for Chen Fei to get to in time.

“You tried,” He Yu said. “That’s all that matters. Sometimes it’s all we can do.” He said it as much for himself as he did for her. In the end, he felt Zhu Fang’s death was more his fault than anyone else’s. Tan Xiaoling had told him about leadership being about responsibility to those you led, and he was coming more and more to understand what she’d meant.

Wordlessly, Chen Fei nodded. To her credit, she slipped Zhu Fang’s storage treasure into a pouch at her belt. The fact she was still focused on their mission was a good sign. He Yu turned to the approach of footsteps.

“I’ve gotten everything I could find.” Yan Shirong looked down at Zhu Fang as he drew near. “Shame,” he said softly. “I’d started to grow fond of him.”

“Do we have everything?” He Yu asked.

Yan Shirong and Chen Fei both said they did.

The three of them withdrew their presences and left as quickly as they could while leaving as little trace as possible. They traveled throughout the night and the whole of the next day, making use of the speed and endurance granted by their advancement rather than any techniques. After sunrise on the second day, He Yu felt they were far enough away from the workshop to release their spirits and make full use of their techniques. When they returned to the sect, a disciple met them at the gate to the inner sect mountain. Yi Xiurong was waiting, and asked they come directly to her.

At Yi Xiurong’s home, both the First Disciple and Zhang Lifen were waiting. Yi Xiurong sat behind a large desk strewn with scrolls. She looked up from her writing as the three of them approached. Zhang Lifen lounged in a nearby chair, absently twisting a lock of her hair. From the looks of things, they’d been waiting for a while, and Yi Xiurong seemed to be making a concerted effort to ignore Zhang Lifen’s presence.

“You’ve returned,” Yi Xiurong said. “Good. Tell me what you’ve found.”

He Yu relayed all they’d found at the workshop and then recounted their battle with Cui Bao. He deliberately left out any mention of Zhu Fang. When Yi Xiurong didn’t ask after him, He Yu informed her of his death.

“Such losses are acceptable. Especially when dealing with entities such as the Sunset Court. The demon core you said you’ve recovered. Show it to me.”

It took a considerable amount of effort to choke down all the things he wanted to say at Yi Xiurong’s utter dismissiveness towards the loss of a sect disciple. Would she have reacted the same way if he had been the one to fall? What about Chen Fei or Yan Shirong? The answer was fairly obvious. Of course she would.

Yi Xiurong’s eyebrows crept fractionally upward, asking an unspoken question. In the corner of his vision, Zhang Lifen gave him a small, sympathetic smile. It was something, at least.

“Here it is,” He Yu said, taking the formation-etched box holding the demon core from his storage treasure and placing it on the desk.

Yi Xiurong opened the lid. For a moment, she said nothing. She simply stared down at the core, silent and inert, with a stony expression. Snapping the lid closed, she said, “You’ve done well. This will be of great benefit in tracking down the Emissary himself. What else did you find?”

They turned over the elixirs and alchemy notes they’d found. Yi Xiurong was particularly interested in the notes regarding the demon core itself. The chest containing the herbs and materials for pills was of less interest. Most of it likely came from the area surrounding the workshop, but Yi Xiurong said they’d investigate for potential sources anyway. Any leads were welcome at this point.

The alchemy equipment was of the least interest. Although it was made of the same unfamiliar metal as the pill furnace from the mine, Yi Xiurong didn’t seem like she thought it would lead to any new insights. She still took it. Last came the storage treasure He Yu had taken from Cui Bao.

When He Yu placed the dull gray ring on the desk before Yi Xiurong, she pushed it back in his direction. “This was Cui Bao’s, I take it?”

“It was,” He Yu said.

“Spoils of victory. Divide its contents among yourselves as you see fit. Same with any other storage treasures you took from that traitor’s followers. As for Zhu Fang’s belongings, those are yours to do with what you will as well.”

He Yu grimaced as he took Cui Bao’s storage treasure. A part of him had hoped the sect would want whatever ill-gotten resources Cui Bao had kept with him. A larger part had hoped Yi Xiurong would lay claim to Zhu Fang’s belongings, too.

The three disciples all saluted Yi Xiurong and turned to leave.

“One last thing,” she said before they could go. “You’ve earned some rewards for your work.”

Yi Xiurong flicked her sleeve, and a pill box appeared in front of each of them, hovering in the air. Although the boxes were closed, He Yu could smell the potent medicinal scent emanating from them. The one in front of him smelled like a summer afternoon right before a thunderstorm. Even the heavy circumstances couldn’t put a damper on He Yu’s anticipation of what awaited inside the box.

“Disciples Chen and Yan. The pills I’ve selected for your will serve you best if you wait and take them when you break through to the Fourth Realm. You could take them now if you wanted and use their energies to bolster your cultivation base. However, I know both of you are close, and selected them for their ability to aid you in the formation of a quality Golden Core.

“Disciple He. Your elixir was created especially for you. With it, you should be able to reach the middle Fourth Realm. Take it as soon as you are able. As our campaign against the Sunset Court continues, we need all the strength we can muster. When you reach the middle stage, your responsibilities will increase accordingly.

“Further, you have all been awarded a considerable sum of spirit stones and contribution points for your efforts. You may collect the stones at the commission hall at your convenience.”

With their dismissal now final, they filtered out of Yi Xiurong’s office. As he turned to leave, Zhang Lifen made a slight gesture that caught his eye. A brief glance, and a slight motion of her head in the general direction of her home. The message was clear, and He Yu was glad for it. There were a lot of things he needed to get off his chest.