They found a second puzzle box, floating on a tiny and enormous broad leaf curled up like a boat, all by itself in the middle of the lake, hundreds of feet from any other island.

Li Jiya pointed. "You can make more of those steps and retrieve it," she suggested to Chang-li.

He stopped and considered. "I can, but do you think that's the only trick here? I bet there's a guardian watching over it."

Joshi sent Magen zooming ahead. Chang-li watched the little distortion sparkling in the air as the lux creature raced ahead, circling the puzzle box, dipping down into the water, then leaping back up.

"The water here is only about ten feet deep," Joshi reported. "There is something alive down there but Magen can’t get a good look."

"Ten feet is more than enough to drown in," Chang-li said.

"We aren't just going to sit here and wait for another sect to come and claim it, are we?" Li Jiya demanded.

"Too late,” Brother Stone said grimly, pointing.

Chang-li turned. About eight islands away, he made out a distant shape of people leaping toward them. From the golden flashes of their robes, it was the Golden Locks sect. It looked like all of them.

"Enough," Li Jiya said. "Toss out your steps. I will retrieve the puzzle box and return before anything can react. We'll need to be ready for a fight."

Chang-li didn't argue, just threw out his lux steps ahead of Li Jiya. He had to follow her halfway in order to throw the last couple of steps. As she sprang forward toward the last step, he could feel her exercising her will, trying to suppress anything that lay beneath the waves nearby.

A moment later, she scooped up the puzzle box and raced back to him. "They come," she told him, handing him the second puzzle box. He stored it in his soul space along with the first and followed her back to the island, where Joshi was organizing the Morning Mist into a defensive line.

"There's nothing for us to fight over now," Chang-li pointed out. "The Prism will not permit a clash.”

“Do you wish to bet on that?" Joshi asked as the Golden Locks school arrived.

Mai Wen placed herself at the head of a wedge of cultivators. She smiled at them. "How's your hunting, Morning Mist?"

"We've taken the puzzle box here," Li Jiya called back. "There's no point in lingering here."

"Oh, but you might have missed something," Mai Wen said as her cultivators smirked. "We'll just stay here and search the island while you deal with them.” She pointed behind Chang-li.

Chang-li resisted taking the bait. Joshi swore. "Whatever was in the water is coming," he said. "Magen can't get a clear picture."

"Be ready," Li Jiya urged. The disciples turned to face the water. Mai Wen and her people strung out in a half circle around Morning Mist. With his back to the water, facing the unfriendly cultivators in front of them, Chang-li felt trapped. From here, the only direction to flee was out across the open expanse of water, where who knew what angry creatures waited.

The surface of the lake was growing more roiled by the moment. "We're done here. We'll leave it to you," Li Jiya snapped. "Allow us to pass."

"No, no," Mai Wen said. "The Prism didn't say we had to cooperate, now did he? Just not to offer more fight than was needed, and we're not offering you a fight at all. We just aren’t going to let you attack us.” She smirked, her arms folded across her chest. Chang-li prepared a firepot but hesitated, not wanting to attack. The Golden Locks cultivators had superior numbers. Attacking them straight on was risky.

And then there was nothing more to say, because the first of the monsters reared out of the water. It was an enormous hermit crab, carrying a great curled opalescent shell on its back. The body of the crab was hidden inside the shell with only its claws and eye stocks sticking out. It was twice as tall as a man, its huge clacker claws big enough to cut through Chang-li in one snip. Another appeared, and a third. They climbed up onto the beach as the disciples drew back.

Li Jiya was spinning a blue and green web. She tossed it out. It broke harmlessly over the shell of the first crab. "It’s resistant to spiritual luxes," she called. Chang-li drew his sword and set himself.

Joshi called to the disciples, "With me, on the right. We take it down, and then the others. Li Jiya, hold the center one. Chang-li, take the left. Hold it, but don't get hurt."

The Golden Locks cultivators made no move to interfere. “Just watch,” Mai Wen called to her followers. “Let them taste the fruit of their actions.”

They sprang forward. Battle was joined. Chang-li stepped to one side. He tossed a fire pot with his right hand to attract the attention of his designated target. As the monster came at him, he cycled red lux through his body, strengthening him. The crab rushed forward with a chitter of claws, coming up all the way out of the water. The monster snapped. Chang-li ducked under its claw, feeling the breeze from the snip past his head. He slashed his sword upward, aiming just below the lip of its armored shell. His sword found the gap. He pressed it forward, reinforcing the blade with orange lux.

The beast shook with anger and swung its other claw at him, kicking up a blast of sand. Chang-li dodged out of the way again, racing a little farther down the beach, away from where Li Jiya was dancing in and out of her monster's claws. His sword had bit deep, but the giant crab still had use of both its claws. It scuttled toward him, clacking its pincers.

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Chang-li moved his right hand quickly through a simple pattern on the infinite loom, weaving a yellow and blue technique knit together with green that his scrolls called "Smoke and Flame." This technique was not a ball like most of his firepot designs, or a flat square net like some of his other weaves. It was shaped like a disc, and that had been the key to getting the blue to do what he wanted. None of the scrolls talked about the importance of a weave’s shape, but Chang-li was starting to see it was nearly as vital as the proportions of different luxes.

He hurled the lux disc with a flick of his wrist, straight at the beast.

It hit the creature's eye stalks and exploded. The yellow lux sent up a gout of bright white flame, more to blind and startle than to actually hurt. Then the blue exploded into the cloud of smoke he'd been hoping for. The smoke clung to the beast's eye stalks. It stopped where it was, rocking back and forth on its enormous claws.

Chang-li took the opportunity to run in. He'd spotted something. Now, as he approached, he crouched and leapt, his red lux-infused legs taking him clear up to the top of its shell. He was right. The opalescent shell covered a wide, soft body. Only the crab's belly, head, and legs were armored. Its back was as soft as a snail’s.

Chang-li caught himself as he tumbled over the back of the shell, clutching it with his right hand, pulling himself forward as the crab danced back and forth in pain. He grabbed the lip of the shell with his right hand then, awkwardly, drove his weapon past the shell into its soft body.

The crab went wild. It flung itself side to side. Chang-li's hand slid along the lip of the shell, cutting his palm. He held on to his sword for dear life, feeling it rip through the soft body. Then, his hands lost their grip and he went flying through the air. Lake, sky, and island tumbled over and over in his vision as he flew, the ground coming up toward him fast. He hit hard, landing on his back with a whoompf. All the air rushed out of him. He felt his bones reverberate with the force of the blow.

Chang-li forced himself to sit up. His vision was blurred. His ears rang. He blinked, trying to gather himself. Someone was shouting. He heard it distantly through the ringing in his ears. He looked up .The injured crab loomed over him. Chang-li threw himself to the side as the beast slammed its claws down where he lay. He rolled over as the sand next to him erupted with the impact. As the wave of sand washed over him a gout of sand blasted out even closer. He found himself staring at a spike of orange stone embedded in the ground inches from his head.

The crab hadn't done that. That was a cultivator technique. Chang-li got to his feet, keeping an eye on the crab that was writhing near the water's edge. It seemed to be losing control of its claws. His ears were starting to recover.

Just in time, he heard a whistling howl. He threw himself to the side as another spike pierced the ground where he'd been. At last he saw a Golden Locks cultivator, not far off, weaving another red and yellow technique into a spike.

If they were interfering with him, they'd be attacking his friends, too. Chang-li crafted a quick blindfold technique and threw it at the cultivator, who was nearly done with his technique. It hit, temporarily blocking the man's vision. Chang-li didn't wait to see him clear it. He raced for the crab monster, which was staggering about, his sword still embedded in its back. As he got near it, he leapt, jumping onto its head and seizing the sword. He ripped it free, leaving a deep cut that sliced the beast's head. The crab collapsed to the sand, legs curling under it in a death spasm. Chang-lu stepped off the body and faced the Golden Locks cultivator.

Two more of the sect were standing with the first, one helping him clear his eyes, the other, Mai Wen, standing protectively over him. "You attacked my cultivator," she said accusingly. "You will pay for that."

"He attacked me first," Chang-li pointed out as he quickly took in the rest of the battlefield. Joshi and the disciples had downed their beast and were now joined with Li Jiya. Joshi was apparently trying to get the beast to face him, exposing its unprotected body beneath the edge of the shell for Li Jiya's blade. Li Jiya's monster had a larger shell that came down right to the edge of its head.

Mai Wen advanced, pointing at him. "I intend to call in the Prism for adjudication. You'll wait here while I summon him."

A crushing weight dropped onto Chang-li. He fell to his knees as Mai Wen's will stretched out to dominate him. He gasped. This was much stronger than anything he had done in training. He hadn't felt this outmatched since the time Young Master Feng had tried to destroy his lux channels.

Chang-li struggled for breath. His lungs didn't want to work. Mai Wen advanced on him, smiling. "Go ahead. Struggle. If you won't submit, it'll be your own fault when you're crushed. Everyone knows lesser cultivators must give way to the greater. All I'm doing is holding you in place until we can have the Prism come to judge."

Chang-li gasped. Breath wouldn't come. But he didn't need breath. What was he thinking? He was full of lux. Chang-li shifted, using his lux to begin a new cycling technique, Breath of the Heavens, which let him pull lux in from one side of his body, cycle it through him and out the other. As he did, he felt his lungs responding. He pulled lux through his right side and cycled it in his core, pushing it out his left. The calm routine slowed his heart rate. He allowed his head to sag forward.

Mai Wen must have thought he was giving in. She said with obvious amusement, "There. That wasn't so hard, was it? Now wait here while I see to the rest of your friends."

Chang-li threw a blindfold weave at her face. She clearly hadn't been expecting that. She fell back, her will disrupted. He leapt to his feet, springing forward. The Prism had said not to use more force than was necessary to get them to retreat, but Golden Locks had attacked first. He wasn't going to hold back.

Reinforcing his left hand channels with physical luxes, his sword bursting into flame, he lunged her, swinging. Mai Wen tossed up a technique to catch his blade. Chang-li was prepared for that. In his right hand, he had another pure spiritual lux technique, a weave he'd been practicing but had yet to perfect, a disruption weave. He hadn’t yet sealed it so it would instantly unravel if he threw it. Instead he slammed it into Mai Wen's chest with his open palm. She was knocked back as the blue weave soaked into her. It was reinforced with just a little bit of red lux, bound in, as always, with green. The combination would encourage her lux channels to absorb the technique.

Mai Wen cycled reflexively before realizing what he'd done. Her eyes widened as she fell to the ground, shaking as the technique momentarily disrupted her cycling pattern.

Chang-li leapt over her body. He wasn't going to push matters. Not when it was clear Mai Wen was the chosen disciple of one of the Prisms here, a woman who'd already shown herself to be capricious. He just wanted her out of the way while he helped his sect.

Several Golden Locks cultivators surged past him, racing to Mai Wen's side as he ran on without stopping. Joshi had just smashed one of the crab monster's claws with a Thousand Fist technique. Li Jiya was on top, pushing her blade deep into its weak spot as the disciples tried to stay out of its way. As Chang-li joined them, the beast fell to the ground, dead.

"Let's get out of here," Chang-li urged, throwing the first set of red-lit lux discs out onto the water. Needing no further discussion, Morning Mist raced away from the island.

Chang-li felt proud of himself. He'd gone toe-to-toe with a powerful opponent and come out on top.